Mini Window beta is going live in Firefox 160 and we want your feedback

[asafko]

Hi folks,

In Firefox 160, we're introducing an early version of a new feature: Mini Window. It lets you move a tab, or a selected section of a page, into a compact window that stays on top of your other windows while you browse.

The feature draws on the pattern from Picture-in-Picture (which lets you pop out videos into an always on top window), but extends beyond video. It's useful when you're multitasking and need to keep a few sources of information in view at once: reference docs, a chat, a video call, a form you're filling out.

You can try the feature in Nightly today, and it will be available in the release channel when Firefox 160 ships on November 10. Here's a brief demo of how it works. 

How to access the feature

• Right click a tab and select Move Tab > Move to Mini Window. The full tab moves into a Mini Window.
  Right click any page content and select Move Section to Mini Window. You'll be prompted to select the section you want to pop out.
  Right click the toolbar, select Customize toolbar, and drag the Mini Window icon onto your toolbar for quick access.

When a tab or its section moves to a Mini Window, it will no longer be accessible in your regular window. From the Mini Window you can close it, mute or unmute it (if it's playing audio), or send it back to its original window.

This is an early version and we're genuinely interested in your feedback: what works, what doesn't, what you'd want to see next.

Thanks,
Ania

[Octuris]

I very excited to see this come to Firefox, I had stumbled upon it a few days ago on the roadmap.

Personally I would love to be able to open a link directly in a mini window, for when I know I'll need to reference a page. That would prevent the need to first open the tab, and then move the tab to a mini window .

I'd also love an API for web extensions to be able to open links in mini windows, and possibly to control the window position 

[emvaized]

Yeah, maybe then it could be utilized by addons like Open in Popup Window.

[asafko]

Thank you so much for your kind words!

We're doing a bit of a reorganization and decluttering in that menu first, but adding Open in Mini Window option is on our radar!

[idbrii]

Having yet another way to open links in the context menu seems like it will make that menu even more overwhelming. Not sure what's the plan to improve that menu, but maybe having settings that allows you to move any item in that menu to a "More..." sub menu would allow you to expose lots of options without the menu being overwhelming and hard to find anything in?

Look forward to see how you solve it!

[plwt]

That feature looks really interesting.  Being able to mini-window an image or part of a page looks like a really useful feature.

Will this be coming to all three of Linux, macOS and Windows?

[asafko]

Thank you! Yes, it will be available on all platforms at the same time! 

[Agentvirtuel]

Bonjour

It's cool to work like this.

[dftf]

@asafko : so essentially the screenshot tool but you can pop content out into a small, floating window?

Interesting idea but please only allow the user to do this, not websites directly.  Or we will return to the era of endless pop-ups when visiting sites. 😲😭😨😱

[Harshit]

This is a user feature, sites are not given an api to use it 🙂 
Although, there is an equivalent standard that achieves something similar called document picture-in-picture https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document_Picture-in-Picture_API if you're interested

[emvaized]

Would be great if these mini-windows could be permanently pinned to a new tab as widgets, so I could keep track of updates on the page. It would've been more useful to me than an always visible floating window.

[asafko]

This is on our radar, too! 

[onikai311]

Honestly, I think that Firefox needs to consider making updates that involve higher demand on older machines optional. My computer isn't liking the new updates... took 20 minutes just to get the browser to open without crashing and ended up having to reset firefox entirely. 

If the updates don't involve simple optimization, I don't want it. 

The browser is getting laggier and laggier with each update including features that I don't need nor want. 

While I was waiting for firefox to repeatedly crash this morning I was looking into other browsers. 

I have been a user of this browser for well over a decade, and don't want to change browsers, but I am starting to feel like I have to with this focus on high demand AI-centric updates. 

I doubt that I am the only user with an older machine who isn't pleased with this either. 

[emvaized]

Firefox runs super fast on my 5 year old computer, as well as on a 10 year old computer of my relative. I wonder what mammoth are you attempting to run it on, and more importantly, why do you think that the development of the browser should be slowed down to keep up with some museum hardware?

Moreover, there are dozens of potential reasons why your computer runs so bad, including viruses (which older PCs with outdated OS are are particularly susceptible), bad health of the hard drive, not having the computer cleaned or thermal paste replaced in a long time, and so on. Did you make sure to exclude all other factors before blaming Firefox updates?

[Swings]

new version ios 18 cant use at all. very lagging when open setting, load web very slow. usually crash, even before i send this reply

[Swings]

fast fix please. im moving to chrome because cant use

[Swings]

p/s: its drain a lot of battery when open firefox. iphone very hot

[grundt]

I found the 'browser.mini-window.enabled' setting in about:config and have been messing around with this for a few days.

It looks good, it's nicely implemented and simple to use.

That said, there are situations where it simply won't do what you're hoping it will, just because of the way particular websites are constructed.  I hope the release notes point this out and set realistic expectations.

Beyond that, here are my 2 cents on the short experience I've had using it:

1. ALWAYS ON TOP - it's good that the mini-window defaults to "always on top", but I'd like the option to toggle that off
2. SLEEP TOGGLE - I believe a common use for the mini-window will be for content that auto refreshes, so I'd also like the mini-window to have a toggle to allow preventing the computer display from going to sleep (the same as when the browser is playing a video)
3. TITLE BAR - the title bar behavior is odd, unpredictable, and distracting.  It displays at unexpected times, for example when the mini-window (arbitrarily) receives focus after other windows on the desktop are closed, but at other times as well, for reasons that aren't apparent.  It also doesn't consistently display or hide when I expect it to.
   I'd rather the mini-window just do away with the title bar entirely, just like the PiP window.
4. INDEPENDENT BROWSER CONTEXT - unlike PiP, when a mini-window opens, the tab that contained it disappears, but it's still 'affiliated' with the browser window ... if you close the browser window, the mini-window closes as well.   In playing with the feature, I've accidently done this on several occasions, forcing me to have to revisit the page and re-create the mini-window.
   I would prefer either:
   a) that the tab remain in place (similar to the way PiP works)
   b) (MOST PREFERABLY) that the mini-window have an independent context, so that closing the browser window has no effect on any open mini-windows (akin to the way private browsing and regular browser windows can be closed independently).

[bokuno]

This is brilliant. Like Split View to the max. Love it. Thank you for continuing to innovate beyond other browsers.