I’m going to try out Arc. The thing I’m most curious about is the profile functionality. I have several clients that use the same online websites. So I end up having to log out and then login to the same site. On top of that, some of them use Amazon as do I personally so I have to login/logout of that. It can be extremely annoying.
My understanding is that I can create multiple spaces and within those spaces, create profiles which keeps things separate. So, I could create ‘Work’ and ‘Personal’ Spaces and within the Work space, I could create a profile for each of my clients.
However, what I can’t easily see is how to switch between profiles. I can easily see how to switch between Spaces due to the tiny icon at the bottom of the left bar. Is there something I’m missing here? If there’s no easy way, I’m thinking of just creating a Space for each client (and myself).
When you are in a space, click on the spaces pulldown at the top and choose change profile. This will allow you to create a profile for each space. I have spaces setup for personal and work and a profile for each to keep them separate. This allows me to maintain my business Amazon account separate from my personal one. Seems to work well so far.
You can’t have more than one profile in a space. Each space can be assigned a different profile. You can switch profiles easily by switching spaces. If you want a different profile for each client, you would need to create a space for each client and then assign a corresponding profile to each workspace.
You can also right-click on the space icon at the bottom of the sidebar and select a new profile for it.
You don’t need an active space to keep a profile alive. If you create a space, create a profile for it, then delete the space, the profile will still be there and if you switch to it in the future from one of your other spaces (or create a new one again), it’ll restore the favorited tabs and the browser sessions.
So you could have a work or freelance clients space and switch between 20 different profiles in it. The favorites (square icons at top) and browser session are tied to the profile, and the pinned and non-pinned tabs are tied to the space.
It’s a little confusing how they’ve implemented it, but should work.
This is not my understanding. The first thing I did was create two diff profiles under the Work space and they both exist.
What I don’t like about this setup is that because they are in the same Space, the sites visited are the same no matter if I go to a different profile. I understand why that may be the case now but it definitely makes me want to create separate Spaces for each client and myself. That way, everything is compartmentalized.
If by Spaces pulldown you mean the menu bar, I just saw that so thanks. But I know this may sound silly but having to go through a menu item versus just clicking on a Space icon at the bottom seems like a big difference. It’s multiple clicks to change to a diff profile.
@Dawfnls - Let me also be clear that I’m a newbie on Arc and can absolutely be wrong. (Edit: I was wrong.) I’m now setting up some extensions. It just feels like nothing is as simple as Safari which I’ve been using for years. But I want to give this a go but I just may have to punt if I keep hitting hurdles (even if it’s my own lack of knowledge).
Thank you, @Kpoirier, @Dawfnls, and @cornchip for your help. I read your replies multiple times plus also watched a ScreencastsOnline video about all of this. I will blame it all on being very different than Safari that it was confusing me. But now I think I understand it. Your answers all made sense.
Ultimately, I think I’m going to create a Space for each of my clients, with a corresponding profile. That way, I just have to switch to the Space and everything is neatly tied together and no switching Profiles within the space (e.g. multiple client profiles in one ‘Work’ space). I’ll do the same for my personal space as well.
If I’m understanding correctly, this is exactly what I do with my two employers (each has a profile, and each profile has a space). It’s been a great change for me, and wasn’t a problem I’d successfully tackled with other browsers.
I think this analogy I came up with makes it easy to understand Spaces and Profiles:
Consider Profiles as buildings and Spaces as rooms. Each building (profile) is a separate entity. The rooms (spaces) inside the building will use the same amenities (extensions, accounts, browsing history, cookies, etc.) but can be dedicated to different tasks.
That means you can create spaces inside a profile to keep things separate. Hope this helps.