Proposal: New PanelBehavior for sidePanel openPanelOnContextMenuClick

[georgehenderson]

When exploring Chrome's new sidePanel api I wish it supported the use case of opening the panel programmatically through a context menu. Imagine a dictionary extension that could open the panel when you highlight a word and select a context menu item.

Here is a naïve example of what the api could look like.

  chrome.contextMenus.create({
    id: "define",
    title: "Define",
    contexts: ["selection"],
  });
  chrome.sidePanel
    .setPanelBehavior({ openPanelOnContextMenuClick: { menuItemId: "define", path: "sidepanel.html" } })
    .catch((error) => console.error(error));

The new PanelBehavior could be called openPanelOnContextMenuClick that is an object with the id from the context menu. I named it menuItemId as this maps to what it is called in the callback for contextMenus.onClicked. Optionally you could add the path to the desired panel if multiple were defined.

[hanguokai]

Firefox's sidebarAction API supports sidebarAction.open() inside a user action handler.
Chrome doesn't support it. But they heard about this feature feedback.

[georgehenderson]

Excellent, I missed that conversation. Glad to see that Oliver received that feedback. Having the imperative open method like Firefox would be much nicer as that would allow other types of engagement like being opened from extension injected UI. I figured that was a long shot since have never seen a way to open a popup with other user interactions.

[hanguokai]

sidePanel.open() will be available in Chrome 116. Source: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1446022#c14

[fregante]

I created an issue to suggest sidePanel.toggle(), which would cover use cases like this one.

There are more possible events that could toggle the sidePanel (commands.onCommand,contextMenus.onClicked), so it might not make sense to add them all, especially if they require additional confirmation (unlike the regular openPanelOnActionClick behavior)

chrome.contextMenus.create({
  id: "define",
  title: "Define",
  contexts: ["selection"],
});
chrome.contextMenus.onClicked.addListener(({menuItemId}) => {
  if (menuItemId === 'define') {
    chrome.sidePanel.open();
  }
});