Space dock

Apple announced some stuff about artificial insemination at their WorldWide Developer Conference, none of which interests me one whit. But we did get a twitch of the webkit curtains to let us know what���s coming in Safari. That does interest me.

I���m really pleased to see that on desktop, websites that have been added to the dock will be able to intercept links for that domain:

Now, when a user clicks a link, if it matches the scope of a web app that the user has added to their Dock, that link will open in the web app instead of their default web browser.

Excellent! This means that if I click on a link to thesession.org from, say, my Mastodon site-in-the-dock, it will open in The Session site-in-the-dock. Make sure you���ve got the scope property set in your web app manifest.

I have a few different sites added to my dock: The Session, Mastodon, Google Calendar. Sure beats the bloat of Electron apps.

I have encountered a small bug. I���ll describe it here because I have no idea where to file it.

It���s to do with Spaces, Apple���s desktop management thingy. Maybe they don���t call it Spaces anymore. Maybe it���s called Mission Control now. Or Stage Manager. I can���t keep track.

Anyway, here are the steps to reproduce:

In Safari on Mac, go to a website like adactio.comFrom either the File menu or the share icon, select Add to dock.Click on the website���s icon in the dock to open it.Using Apple���s desktop management (Spaces?) available through the F3 key, drag that window to a desktop other than desktop 1.Right click on the site���s icon in the dock and select Options, then Assign To, then This Desktop.Quit the app/website.Return to desktop 1.

Expected behaviour: when I click on the icon in the dock to open the site, it will open in the desktop that it has been assigned to.

Observed behaviour: focus moves to the desktop that the site has been assigned to, but it actually opens in desktop 1.

If someone from Apple is reading, I hope that���s useful.

On the one hand, I hope this isn���t one of those bugs that only I���m experiencing because then I���ll feel foolish. On the other hand, I hope this is one of those bugs that only I���m experiencing because then others don���t have to put up with the buggy behaviour.