Don't hide settings if the user clicks away

[vrapp]

This was already requested at

Make the browser extension stop disappearing when you click away from it

Feature name Make the browser extension not disappear when you click away from it Feature function The extension disappears when you click away from it, and sometimes you have to start over with what you were editing rather than it remembering where you were at.

but it’s closed, so I re-post.

1. open two browser windows
2. open Bitwarden settings panel in one of them
3. switch to another window; observe that the settings are still open in the first window
4. return to the first window; observe that the settings have disappeared.

Note that the panel with the settings disappears not when I click away from it, as was stated in the referenced post, but when I return back.

The statement in the referenced post that it’s not possible with the extensions may be not very accurate, since pretty much all extensions have their settings, but none of them hides them if you go elsewhere. Maybe they are doing it in some other way. For example, uBlock Origin opens new full tab with the settings, not a popup. SingleFile extension opens a popup, similar to BitWarden, and it does not hide it if I go elsewhere and come back.

[tgreer (Trey Greer)]

Check this thread out: Unsaved changes are lost when move to another item - #20 by juannm

There are options there to do much the same (i.e. open a new tab) - but persisting the popout is not a native function for extensions. It would require some potentially hacky code to achieve, and would also require an explicit close action to dismiss the popup.

In the end, I believe we want to accomplish a few things:

1. Make items easier to edit when making lots of changes and/or creating new items
2. Prevent any unsaved data from disappearing (something like drafts)
3. Follow standard development protocols to prevent unintended bugs/issues in the future.

That’s why I closed the other thread - and I would much prefer all the votes and conversations to take place in the thread I mentioned above.

[vrapp]

If I understand correctly, the thread about the unsaved changes is somewhat different problem - no prompt while abandoning dirty data, and not even on closing the panel but on going to another item - while this one is about not closing the panel to begin with, even if it’s not dirty yet and even when there’s nothing to abandon.

[tgreer (Trey Greer)]

The thread is kind of long, but it covers the concepts/functions that you’re asking about by keeping some editing/adding functions open (without using the pop-out function that exists today) as well as saving data that is added but unsaved.

To keep things focused, I re-titled that thread to align more with the topics discussed throughout, and I’ll close this one.