Why does this application have "Webpage Commander"?
jathek opened this issue · comments
This seems like a feature that is completely unrelated to PersistentWindows. It should be a separate application entirely.
The webpage commander feature relies on PW infrastructure of event handling, it appears to be an incremental change for me to integrate it into PW, saving the effort to create yet another standalone app. This also saves "marketing" cost by leveraging existing PW user base.
Although the new feature seems to deviate from the original goal of PW, all these features serve the same purpose of improving user experience on Windows.
Although the new feature seems to deviate from the original goal of PW, all these features serve the same purpose of improving user experience on Windows.
I feel like this is the same logic that lead to Windows being such a mess that it requires 3rd party fixes like PersistentWindows.
I sincerely appreciate what PW does, but Webpage Commander is entirely pointless. Every browser already has hotkeys for this. You're not going to "leverage" anyone by packaging extraneous features on top of an open source fix.
I would like to share the story behind the new feature of webpage commander.
One thing I am always unsatisfied with web browsers is the command shortcuts, they are not ergonomically designed. For example, Ctrl+W (close tab) and Ctrl+T (new tab), these key combinations poise left hand in a very awkward shape. And some command shortcuts even require 3 fingers or both hands to execute. Not everyone is born with pianist's hand.
So I installed mouse gesture plugin long time ago to resolve this issue, using mouse to draw an L shape to close tab, sweet!
The other day when I made a fresh install of Windows 10 on a new desktop, only to find that my favorite mouse gesture plugin for chrome browser is no longer working, and other alternative plugins force users to give up privacy.
Why not create something different, I asked myself.
With prior experience of using vi editor and by leveraging PW event handling framework, within 4 weeks I come up with the webpage commander implementation, which simplifies all commonly used command shortcuts to just one key stroke, most of them are executed with left hand, so that the right hand does not need to leave the mouse.
I knew that the decision to integrate the new feature into PW seems to violate the single responsibility rule of software engineering, and would incur doubts and objections.
I truly believe the decision will benefit the majority of Windows users, so they immediately have the option to try a different way of web-browsing, without the hassle to download another app or taking time to find and install extension plugin for each web browser.
You are bundling in a feature that is not related at all to PersistentWindows. People install this specifically for the sole feature of remembering window positions. Imo, if you want browser shortcuts, you should write a chrome extension for yourself instead of bloating this software.
@jathek
I see your point.
The basic functionality of PersistentWindows is pretty much mature now.
Users who want only the basic function may stick to 5.52 by running it with command line -check_upgrade=0
That is not really fair to people. You already have included fixes for window restoration in later versions. I get that you are the owner of the repo, but it seems like you are forcing in a feature for yourself that is completely unrelated to the history of the project. People using this app do NOT expect it to be watching their keystrokes.
And what are you going to do with different browsers? I use Firefox and most of the buttons in Webpage Commander don't even work. Are you willing to support different browsers, or will anyone using something other than Chrome have to put up with a broken feature?
EDIT: At the very least, you should listen to #317 and add a way to disable this feature entirely so that it doesn't hijack keystrokes.
webpage commander works by translating command shortcut, as demonstrated in the following code snippet
The webpage command feature is only activated upon user pressing Alt + W hotkey or selected from PW menu when a web browser window is in the foreground, moreover the hotkey can be turned off via command line (#316).
As the owner of this PW repo which has around 100K users, I am fully aware of the importance of keeping user privacy intact. Please read the privacy statement in readme if you have any concerns.
To my knowledge every newly introduced feature is well documented in README, HELP and Release note. Everything is open sourced which means user can censor the code, and finally the code is free to fork and modify.