[Feature Request] Is there a plan to add features similar to little Arc for Zen?

[tienskowl]

In the future, is it possible to get this feature on Zen? This is the most attractive feature to me

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcBrowser/comments/12o1v05/little_arc_use_case/

https://resources.arc.net/hc/en-us/articles/19235387524503-Little-Arc-Quick-Lookups-Instant-Triaging

[12th-devs]

Not that I know of but there is peek, Alt + Click

[tienskowl]

wow, cool! This can solve a big pain point in my use👍

[yashcrest]

this look great @Anoms12 . However is there a feature similar to arc out or in working where hitting (cmd + option + n) would open up a new little arc window ?

[BramMusters]

Peek is nice indeed! I would like to have it in a separate window as well, similar to Little Arc.

Keep up the awesome work! :)

[jonstump]

+1 to adding a little arc feature. I actually saw this didn't have it and immediately went back to arc. I'm even posting this github comment from a Little Arc window cause it was easier than opening yet another browser session or tab which would require me to swap desktops over and over.

Having an ephemeral browser window is something I can't let go of after years of it being in my workflow. This is legit one of the best features for the various call apps as well. Rather than installing MS Teams I just open the link in a Little Arc window, take my call, and then close it. And I can move it around wholly independent of my browser as needed when doing demos.

[karfly]

The only thing keeping me from fully switching to Zen is the lack of a Little Arc–style feature.

What I really need is the ability to open links from external apps (like Slack) in a lightweight, minimized, and fast preview window. And if that preview isn’t enough, I’d like to hit Cmd+O to seamlessly open the site in a new tab of the full browser.

If Zen had this, it would instantly become my dream browser ❤️‍🔥

[aslilac]

hi, another user whose single reservation is the absence of "little zen"

my use case is for web development. I have my main browser window in one workspace (macOS but the workflow would work just as well on most linux desktop environments with workspace support) and then in another workspace I have my code open in one window and whatever app I'm working on open in a little arc window. this setup means...

• I can quickly cmd+tab between the code and little arc as I make changes and see how they look/work
• the app doesn't get lost in the sea of tabs I have open for documentation, research, pull requests I have open or that I am reviewing, etc. I just always end up with a lot of tabs open when I'm coding! it's so much nicer if I just always know exactly where the app is: in its own window, rather than lost amongst the tabs.
• it's also really nice for screenshots etc. if I want to share those with coworkers, because I don't have to worry about what tabs I have open (like the title of the youtube video I'm watching while I work or whatever)
• it can't quite be replicated with "just opening another window" because then if I click a link in slack, it gets opened by whichever browser window had focus most recently, which often ends up being the "another window" which I want to just be for the app I'm working on. the fact that little arc is explicitly a tab-less window is the entire value proposition for me.

I cannot stand Arc anymore. ever since they bailed on it for dia it's become a buggy disaster for me. I constantly have to refresh pages that failed to load because of "err_network_changed" whatever tf that means. there's like a 85% that when I try to open the main app that I work on at my day job one of the thousands of .js files getting loaded from vite will fail to load for no reason and I'll have to manually refresh to try again, just rolling the dice every time. even when it does load successfully it takes like a full 30 seconds because arc has become slow slow slow.

I don't mean to bemoan the point too much, but I really grew attached to my little workflow in the days when arc actually worked properly. I don't wanna have to give it up to switch to a more reliable browser, but sticking with arc is so aggravating at this point. y'all would be my heroes if this got implemented. I would love to do anything I can to support this effort (including being a patreon, which I have been for a few months).

[Perchycs]

Yeah, I agree. I find it really handy to be able to hit a hotkey, pop open a quick tab, and look something up while I’m working in another program (like writing in Word) without losing my flow.

[ognistik]

+1 for a Little Arc–style “Little Zen.” This is essential to my workflow.

Use case:

• On macOS with Yabai, I keep a little arc window as a scratchpad window I can pop open, hide, and pop open again on any workspace. It’s perfect for quick lookups, ephemeral links, or opening meeting URLs without touching my main browser window/tabs.
• Also super useful when clicking temporary links on other apps and closing them without loosing focus.

A few other things that would make this great in Zen:

• Modifier-click to open links in Little Zen from the main Zen window (e.g., Cmd+Opt+Click), plus a shortcut to open the current page in Little Zen.
• A “promote to main” shortcut to send the Little Zen page into a normal Zen tab/window.

Peek is nice, but the Little Arc behavior is very different and indispensable to my workflow