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  • Llaiz

  • Post #1
  • Edited

The goal of this suggestion:

  • Improving the new user experience
  • Making the Link Preview behavior more intuitive/more easily understood
  • Reducing the number of complaints and "bug" reports we receive about it

The issues with the current implementation of Link Preview:
Currently, when a user installs Orion and sets it as the default browser, the Link Preview setting (Settings -> Browsing -> Link Preview) is enabled by default.
This means that all links clicked in external apps are opened in a preview window.
Unfortunately, the user receives no helpful feedback about this feature, causing them to think that (a) Orion is bugged or (b) their system has a problem.

Additionally, the preview window that is still attached to the parent window is closed as soon as it loses focus can lead to lost work, as was recently mentioned in yet another link preview related bug report: https://orionfeedback.org/d/9495/6

Solving the issue:
Whatever the solution it is, it should be

  • intuitive
  • concise
  • match the Orion way of doing things

Additionally, no popups, videos, lengthy paragraphs or opening the documentation pages — we have seen that none of these work 🙂

Therefore, the ideal solution seems to be mimicking the Page Tweaks behavior of displaying a banner in Link Preview windows with a "Don't show again" checkbox to be clicked once the user understands the functionality.

Page tweaks:

Possible wording for the Link Preview windows:

The text in written format:

This is a Link Preview window. You can expand this into a browser tab by pressing cmd+T or by clicking the arrow symbol in the top right corner of the window. Shift+click on a link bypasses preview windows.
You can also [disable this feature in the settings].

I concede that the suggested text is still perhaps unnecessarily long, and I am open to improvements on making it more succinct.
Ideally [disable this feature in the settings] would be a link that opens Orion settings in the Browsing tab (maybe even highlighting the section the user would want to configure, if this is at all possible).

    Good thoughts about this, thanks.

    I’d still prefer that clicking a URL go to a browser window as the default.

    But assuming the system suggested here, my wording change would be:

    “ This is a Preview window. To explore or enter info, switch to browser via cmd+T or the arrow symbol in top right corner. Shift+click on a link goes directly to browser window, or
    [set to always go to browser via Orion settings].”

    (Although the message says “always” for wording simplicity, if behavior is set for click on URL to go to browser, then shift-click would go to preview.)

      laiz Instead of this, create a introductory customisation workflow, which explains the feature (maybe video/gif and text) and allows disabling them at first install itself. It would be enabled by default.

      Ideally, this workflow should be done for ALL features that deviate from Safari, since that is what we expect most users to come from.

      The workflow should be for all new users.
      For existing users, only for newly added feature(s).

      I'm sure you would seen this in other apps.

      • laiz replied to this.

          • Vlad

          • Post #4

          laiz Perhaps we can simply ask on first use if they want to open in link preview or in new tab? If that makes sense can you suggest text and options for this dialogue?

              Ont he RHS how anout just includng the words "Open in Browser" so that the arrow in the top right hand side has an explanation as its not intuative that that is what it does, also having a hover over text help might help. Alternatively having a message at the bottom of the preview "This is a preview window to open this in the full browser click here or on the icon top right hand corder or change the settings in Orion browser."

              In addtion the fact that when you click away you loose your added data is annoying and its almost as if it would be great to have the ability to add certain URLs to a list to open in a preview window (logins to google for example) but not others and have some simple way to add things to this preview list.

                joystmp create a introductory customisation workflow

                Where and how would that be used? I don't think a new user should be forced into a lengthy tutorial as soon as they launch Orion for the first time. This often results in random clicking until they get rid of the popups and are able to do what they wanted to do. A tutorial like that could take place when the Link Preview is first used.

                My other concern is the amout of developer time and design work such tutorials would take.
                Neverthesless, I agree that having polished and intuitive tutorials in place would be beneficial to some users.

                Vlad we can simply ask on first use if they want to open in link preview or in new tab?

                I'd argue this also carries the same risk of the user getting an unexpected popup that they will solve by clicking and not reading. At least that appears to be the case when I observe the typical users using programs. However, that would still be a notable improvement to the current approach.

                There could still be a banner present in the preview windows until the user chooses to hide it. This would be an ideal way of instructing the new users, and drastically reduce the number of bug reports we receive about this feature.

                If that is the chosen route, the dialogue could be:

                Orion allows you to view extenal links in a Link Preview Window.
                This feature is intended to be faster than opening tabs in the browser.
                You can configure this behavior later in Orion settings -> Browsing.

                Choose default behavior:
                [Open External Links in Preview Windows] [Open External Links as New Tabs]

                      I use mimestream when I set Orion as the default browser it opens web links as internal pop up windows and not in the browser. Right clicking and opening Orion works as expected when not the default browser. However if you set it to be default it opens the link in a pop up window.

                      This is not what I expect and not what happens when Orion is not the default broswer where it loads into the default browser directly. Not sure if this is an Orion bug or the way that Mimestream treats links but it doesn't happen when the default browser is set to Safari or Brave so looks like it is a requested idea having this be a choice option would be fine and for loading logins it works well but for loading web pages its very very annoying.

                      open web page in browser TAB

                      ersion 0.99.130.2-beta (WebKit 621.1.2.111.4)

                      Sequoia (15)

                        • Llaiz

                        • Post #10

                        Hey! This is an intended feature called Link Preview. You have a couple of options:

                        • Disable the feature completely in Settings

                        • Alternatively, you can shift+click the links in external programs to open them in new tabs

                        • You can also expand the preview windows into full tabs by pressing ⌘+T or the arrow symbol in the top right corner of the preview window.

                        Thanks - that works as expected - spent ages searching for a setting as I assumed there was one but didn't realise this was what was required. Might I suggest in the preview either a message "⌘+T to open in browser", I now know that the top right arrow button does this but it says to me make "full screen" and not open in browser.

                        Having it load the preview is sometimes really useful but if you don't know the "⌘+T" or that the arrow means open in browser then its slightly frustrating.

                        I have been using Orion for the last coulple of days after hearing the discussion about it on The Talk Show with John Gruber and would like to congratulate all involed it was described by Vlad as the browser he wanted with the best of everything and so far I think you might have delivered.

                          • Llaiz

                          • Post #12

                          alanjay Might I suggest in the preview either a message "⌘+T to open in browser"

                          Orion has a banner like this for when the user has applied page tweaks (changed the font, or, more commonly, hidden an element on the page). Perhaps something like this could be displayed in the preview window, alongside the "Don't show again" toggle. I believe that could be a user-friendly way of doing it – what do you think?

                              I'm not sure what the correct behaviour should be but I do think a little more clarity would be useful for new users.

                              In QuickLook on the Mac there is a button what in words says (Open with Preview/etc) and maybe something as simple as Open in Orion in words is what is needed on the top RHS with the full screen icon 🙂

                                Understand the idea, but I’m sorry, this is a bug, not a feature.

                                Today I clicked from a link in mail into (default: MacOS Orion) which led to Orion displaying the first page in a viewer window, of 6 pages of questions, each with blanks a “next” button to continue to answer more questions. Orion happily let me keep typing thoughtful answers and clicking on my “next”s. After page 5, I clicked away from viewer window to my address book to get info, and all my five pages of responses disappeared into the bitbucket. No way to return nor retrieve all my laborious replies. Definitely a bug. And not the way other default browsers behave.

                                Siggestion1 (preferred) when user clicks on any URL, the default browser opens, not a pop up viewer. If you don’t want to see more, just close the browser. If you keep interacting with that web page, you’re good. No terror of stray clicks.

                                Suggestion 2: (second best) if you have to open a web link as a viewer screen, any interaction with that page should automatically pop user into browser window. Just sending the user a (go into browser) line in the viewer header is no excuse for killing what the user has been working on..

                                Thanks,

                                Willett Kempton

                                  • Llaiz

                                  • Post #15

                                  @alanjay @willett Thank you for your feedback. I have made a suggestion for improving the feature here: https://orionfeedback.org/d/9504
                                  Your feedback would be extremely valuable, and I invite you to share your thoughts in that thread.

                                    Merged 7 posts from When set as default browser and clicking on a link in a mail application (Mimestream) opens a window & not a browser tab.

                                      Vlad Reasonable solution. I would definately read this if it opened the first time I clicked on a link when using a new browser.

                                      Suggested tweaks to laiz's text after first click (bold for new/changed text):

                                      Orion allows you to view extenal links in a Link Preview Window or browser tab.
                                      Preview typically is faster, browser tab gives full interaction with the linked material.
                                      You can configure default behavior below or later in Orion settings -> Browsing.

                                      Choose default behavior:
                                      [Open External Links in Preview Windows] [Open External Links as New Tabs][New tab now, but ask again]

                                          I’d go much briefer with the banner text, more like:

                                          Link preview — [Open in browser] • [Settings]

                                          (The length of the “choose default” text is OK.)

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