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Can Web Apps use tabs? As in, if I command click a link, will it open in a native tab in the Web App? If they can't, then a bunch of apps I want to use as web a

Can Web Apps use tabs? As in, if I command click a link, will it open in a native tab in the Web App? If they can't, then a bunch of apps I want to use as web apps will have to stay within the main browser unfortunately.

galleywest200 3y ago
Having tabs would just make it a browser. Your description leads me to believe you want a browser anyways, not a single app experience whatsoever.
- thx-2718 3y ago
  Um am I not understanding what "Web App" means? "A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application
  - breckenedge 3y ago
    Progressive Web App https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app
    - thx-2718 3y ago
      Am I missing something there? Appears a browser is still required. i.e. at the moment these don't work with Firefox.
      - breckenedge 3y ago
        Yea a browser is required and is provided by whatever browser was used to install the app. So if you “install” the PWA with Chrome, then Chrome is used to open it. On Mac/Safari 17+, it looks like it’s provided by Web App.app, which is probably just a wrapper for Safari. A separate browser install is not required. It works in Firefox, not sure why Wikipedia has that wrong.
- tolmasky 3y ago
  It seems weird to have to point this out, but there are many apps that have tabs that are not web browsers. Any sort of document-based app benefits tremendously from tabs, and thus it would be unfortunate to have to lose that feature when making it a Web App. I for example often need a couple Google Docs open at once. I would very much like to have Google Docs as a separate item in my Dock though. However, I don't want to be forced to have each individual Google Document in a separate window like it's Mac OS 9 just because it's a "Web App". Or for example Airtable. I have a few Airtables that I basically always have open. I currently have them "pinned" just because if not they become impossible to find in the sea of other windows and tabs in my browser. I would love to command-tab to Airtable and bring these up, but not have them in an overlapping mess of windows. Another great example is social media "Web Apps" (like Elk for Mastodon), which basically get "stacks" for free by leveraging tabs. Instead of the Elk team having to develop an "internal tabbing" feature, I can just have a tab for each hashtag I am following. But this does not mean that I want all these tabs mixed in with random other unrelated websites. Literally any app (vs. "page") that uses multiple windows that you would personally prefer to group into tabs is a good candidate. Tabs are a window organizational tool, they have no inherent "webness" to them aside from that being the first place they originated. macOS's AppKit framework has built-in support for automatically making document-based apps support tabs with zero additional programming. I assure you this feature wasn't added in to allow anyone to write a web browser. In fact, I think the opposite of your assertion is true: the more like an "app" the thing you're turning into a Web App is, the more likely it is to use multiple windows, and thus the more it can benefit from tabs. I agree that if you are for some strange reason turning a blog into a Web App, then tabs don't make any sense, but it also doesn't make sense to turn it into a Web App.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    Sure. Even the most basic text editor is a lot nicer if it has tabs, or some tab-equivalent.
  - tshell 3y ago
    Another useful example of this is the Notion desktop app in which they manually created their own tab interface: https://twitter.com/NotionHQ/status/1601291261469548545 https://twitter.com/NotionHQ/status/1601291261469548545 I agree that it would be much nicer to have this at the system level.
- dbbk 3y ago
  Not really. Plenty of Electron apps for web apps like Notion, Figma, Linear all support tabs.
brundolf 3y ago
Yeah I think this has held/will hold up adoption. Of course web apps can implement their own tab UIs like native apps do, but many don't because they figure you already have tabs in your browser Chicken and egg
latexr 3y ago
Tested it on the beta, and tabs are not available. The option isn’t there even if you right-click a link. But you can create new windows of the same app. Under the Window menu there are options to Show Previous Tab, Show Next Tab, and Move Tab to New Window, but they’re all greyed out.
crazygringo 3y ago
Yeah this is a real UX conundrum, because the whole windows/tabs paradigm right now is kind of confused. Like when I use Google Docs, I've usually got several open as separate tabs in my browser. If I wanted Docs as a webapp, it wouldn't have the tabs functionality anymore, which would make it immediately useless. In the way that every IDE or Photoshop now use tabs inside the app. We're at this place now where I actually wish tabs weren't handled by applications but rather by the OS, together with windows. Let me create a window that has three Chrome tabs, a Safari tab, a Terminal tab, and a Preview tab. Another window with a Word (installed) doc tab, an image in Photoshop tab, and several Finder tabs. The fact that web apps can't be tabbed is almost this weird step backwards.
judah 3y ago
You should be aware of the tabbed application model proposal, which would allow PWAs to have tabs: https://web.dev/tabbed-application-mode https://web.dev/tabbed-application-mode
xnx 3y ago
Having the choice is great. I sometimes open a Google Spreadsheet as an app so that any links I click in the spreadsheet will open in my browser and not steal focus from the spreadsheet.

galleywest200 3y ago

Having tabs would just make it a browser. Your description leads me to believe you want a browser anyways, not a single app experience whatsoever.

thx-2718 3y ago
Um am I not understanding what "Web App" means? "A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application
- breckenedge 3y ago
  Progressive Web App https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app
  - thx-2718 3y ago
    Am I missing something there? Appears a browser is still required. i.e. at the moment these don't work with Firefox.
    - breckenedge 3y ago
      Yea a browser is required and is provided by whatever browser was used to install the app. So if you “install” the PWA with Chrome, then Chrome is used to open it. On Mac/Safari 17+, it looks like it’s provided by Web App.app, which is probably just a wrapper for Safari. A separate browser install is not required. It works in Firefox, not sure why Wikipedia has that wrong.
tolmasky 3y ago
It seems weird to have to point this out, but there are many apps that have tabs that are not web browsers. Any sort of document-based app benefits tremendously from tabs, and thus it would be unfortunate to have to lose that feature when making it a Web App. I for example often need a couple Google Docs open at once. I would very much like to have Google Docs as a separate item in my Dock though. However, I don't want to be forced to have each individual Google Document in a separate window like it's Mac OS 9 just because it's a "Web App". Or for example Airtable. I have a few Airtables that I basically always have open. I currently have them "pinned" just because if not they become impossible to find in the sea of other windows and tabs in my browser. I would love to command-tab to Airtable and bring these up, but not have them in an overlapping mess of windows. Another great example is social media "Web Apps" (like Elk for Mastodon), which basically get "stacks" for free by leveraging tabs. Instead of the Elk team having to develop an "internal tabbing" feature, I can just have a tab for each hashtag I am following. But this does not mean that I want all these tabs mixed in with random other unrelated websites. Literally any app (vs. "page") that uses multiple windows that you would personally prefer to group into tabs is a good candidate. Tabs are a window organizational tool, they have no inherent "webness" to them aside from that being the first place they originated. macOS's AppKit framework has built-in support for automatically making document-based apps support tabs with zero additional programming. I assure you this feature wasn't added in to allow anyone to write a web browser. In fact, I think the opposite of your assertion is true: the more like an "app" the thing you're turning into a Web App is, the more likely it is to use multiple windows, and thus the more it can benefit from tabs. I agree that if you are for some strange reason turning a blog into a Web App, then tabs don't make any sense, but it also doesn't make sense to turn it into a Web App.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Sure. Even the most basic text editor is a lot nicer if it has tabs, or some tab-equivalent.
- tshell 3y ago
  Another useful example of this is the Notion desktop app in which they manually created their own tab interface: https://twitter.com/NotionHQ/status/1601291261469548545 https://twitter.com/NotionHQ/status/1601291261469548545 I agree that it would be much nicer to have this at the system level.
dbbk 3y ago
Not really. Plenty of Electron apps for web apps like Notion, Figma, Linear all support tabs.

brundolf 3y ago

Yeah I think this has held/will hold up adoption. Of course web apps can implement their own tab UIs like native apps do, but many don't because they figure you already have tabs in your browser Chicken and egg

latexr 3y ago

Tested it on the beta, and tabs are not available. The option isn’t there even if you right-click a link. But you can create new windows of the same app. Under the Window menu there are options to Show Previous Tab, Show Next Tab, and Move Tab to New Window, but they’re all greyed out.

crazygringo 3y ago

Yeah this is a real UX conundrum, because the whole windows/tabs paradigm right now is kind of confused. Like when I use Google Docs, I've usually got several open as separate tabs in my browser. If I wanted Docs as a webapp, it wouldn't have the tabs functionality anymore, which would make it immediately useless. In the way that every IDE or Photoshop now use tabs inside the app. We're at this place now where I actually wish tabs weren't handled by applications but rather by the OS, together with windows. Let me create a window that has three Chrome tabs, a Safari tab, a Terminal tab, and a Preview tab. Another window with a Word (installed) doc tab, an image in Photoshop tab, and several Finder tabs. The fact that web apps can't be tabbed is almost this weird step backwards.

judah 3y ago

You should be aware of the tabbed application model proposal, which would allow PWAs to have tabs: https://web.dev/tabbed-application-mode https://web.dev/tabbed-application-mode

xnx 3y ago

Having the choice is great. I sometimes open a Google Spreadsheet as an app so that any links I click in the spreadsheet will open in my browser and not steal focus from the spreadsheet.