Missing old create shortcut behavior with the option to open the site as a window

[Darth123]

Description of the issue:

Unable to create shortcuts of websites with the old open the site as a window behavior

How can this issue be reproduced?

1. Navigate to any website
2. Open hamburger menu → Save and share → Create shortcut…

Expected result:

There should be a checkbox with an option to “Open as window”

Actual result:

Brave Version( check About Brave):
Brave 1.80.124 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Chromium: 138.0.7204.168

Additional Information:

It seems like the changes from these issues were reverted at some point:

[PWA]: Revert to the old `Create shortcut` behavior with the option to open the site as a window

PWAs in Brave should be available for all sites

[Saoiray]

@Darth123 the open as window has been gone for a long time. We do have the option to get a PWA for any site which would do that. And you can edit any desktop shortcut yourself to launch in a new window if you prefer. But it’s not an option through Chromium browsers anymore.

You can reference where these discussions have taken place before, such as topic below:

Open as window option is gone again

So just confirmed that the way this works now is that any page can be installed as an app/pwa, even if the icon doesn’t appear in the address bar. And any page installed as an app will open in it’s own window, so there is now no need to have that checkbox. Essentially Install page as app = Create a shortcut [with [x] Open in a new window]. The functionality is the same. For example, if I visit n4g.com, there is no icon in the address bar to install it as an app. But if I go to Menu --> Save & …

and of course my own reply from back then:

Open as window option is gone again

@zo-fo-draziw I’m seeing your more recent edit. Let me show you here. Below you’ll see where I logged in to Microsoft Teams. Then I did the hamburger menu → save and share and you will see there’s the option to Install page as app [teams] Clicking that shows like below, where I just Install [image] Now if I go to brave://apps I’ll see all my installed PWA [image] If I right click on Microsoft Teams I have these options, which includes to launch in window [image] But I also could hit Ap…

Long and short of it is that this is an upstream change and it seems Brave isn’t going to be doing the extra work to try to maintain it. Who knows when or if that might change, but for now…

[Darth123]

That’s a shame. I had a bunch of fake PWA apps with the same domain but different URLs that I cannot recreate or update.

For example, previous I could create one for to link to https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/48 and also another one to link to https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/mobile-support/76 while opening in a minimum PWA window

[Saoiray]

@Darth123

I had a bunch of fake PWA apps with the same domain but different URLs that I cannot recreate or update.

You can still do this. So let’s use your examples. I went to https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/48 and did the save as shortcut. It put it on my desktop.

If I right click the icon and choose Properties it will show the window like below:

In the Target line I see "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\chrome_proxy.exe" --profile-directory="Default" --ignore-profile-directory-if-not-exists https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/48 which is its big long thing to specify which profile to open in and whatever.

All I need to do is add --app= in front of the URL, to end up with "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\chrome_proxy.exe" --profile-directory="Default" --ignore-profile-directory-if-not-exists --app=https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/48

When I do this, clicking it will launch as its own window and it will be in PWA mode:

Let’s do the other one as well, which turns out to be "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\chrome_proxy.exe" --profile-directory="Default" --ignore-profile-directory-if-not-exists --app=https://community.brave.app/c/support-and-troubleshooting/mobile-support/76

Each opened in its own window and I dragged them to be side by side:

[Saoiray]

@Darth123 alternatively, let’s say you don’t want it to open in a PWA style window and you want the normal. You would go to the normal Brave shortcut on your desktop and copy it. In the copied one, do like we did before, but you’ll see the shortcut is simpler, more like: "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe"

Add to that --new-window web address

You’d be like: "C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --new-window https://community.brave.app/

Now whenever you will click on that, it will open the specific link you have as a new window. That doesn’t specify the profile. If you want to make it open only in a designated browser profile, you would add in the --profile-directory= command. So maybe something like:

"C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application\brave.exe" --profile-directory="Profile 2" --new-window https://community.brave.app/

Now that would always open in Profile 2 and would always be as a new window.

It’s some extra steps, but overall pretty simple to do if it’s important to you.

[Darth123]

Too bad I have some links that are so long that it won’t fit in the Target field for Windows Shortcuts.

The old fake PWA was a nice option since it created icons and synced across devices