meso·pixel n. Like a Kinder Surprise. But legal in the US.

Late August On popups

One thing that still annoys me on occasion is when websites throw up popups, especially those that come up behind the main browser window. In particular, on OSX you have to either Command-tilde, Command-W to get to the window to close it, or pop up Expose/Mission Control or right click the Dock icon to hunt down the window. (Window 7's taskbar peek feature is actually pretty useful in this instance without forcing you to switch contexts.)

Since my browser window is not usually full screen, a much more simple solution for me would be for Chrome to line them up in a way that you can close them quickly if they are likely to be unwanted (as most background popups are).

Here is a quick animation to help visualize the problem. When you click on the window on the left, you see that popups are often occluded, where as in the other case, you can just close the windows one at a time without having to change context as much.



Of course, the ideal solution would be to prevent unwanted popups from showing at all. :)
In other news, welcome to the new Labs-in-posts!

Edit: On second thought, an even simpler interim solution might even be to add a context menu item on the tab such that when you right click, you can "Close all spawned windows" from the current page. This would solve the issue for full screen windows and is less intrusive and more context specific than the possibilities using the generic system window manager.

Waterfall

Hong Kong/China '11 (9)
Hong Kong/China '11 (9)
An amazing talk from Bret Victor on interactive tools.
I am totally digging this mix from Madeon.
Who has two thumbs and now is legally licensed to drive in California?

That's right, this guy. :)
TIL that you can halt Javascript in Chrome just by inserting 'debugger' on any line... that is all sorts of awesome.
This sounds like an awesome game, Greasy Watermelon.
The Wikipedia SOPA blackout is making me realize just how much I use the service.
Only six years late to the game, but the Seattle Central Library looks amazing.
The Muppets are still awesome in my book.