Perch for Chrome
The companion extension connects Chrome to Perch. Aside uses the same Chrome Web Store companion.
One companion for both
- Open Show Setup Guide… from Perch’s menu bar icon and choose Chrome, or Aside.
- Add the companion from the Chrome Web Store, in each profile you want connected.
- Check Perch’s menu: that profile’s row shows it is connected.
The basic connection
Chrome also works without the extension, through Perch’s basic connection. Setup offers it, and macOS asks once whether Perch may control Chrome. Basic connections have no extension popup or browser-history tool; keyword search keeps working.
On it, Perch closes the tab you point at, after checking it’s still the same page in the same window; if the tab changed in the meantime it stays open, and Perch says so. Reopen puts it back in the window it came from. Perch can’t see whether a tab is pinned, so sets are reviewed first: Tidy Up’s Close all and the Duplicates screen list the tabs they’d close, and close only the ones you tick, with Undo. Muting and grouping need the companion.
On that route, list rows show only a plain word until Chrome’s View › Developer › Allow JavaScript from Apple Events is turned on. Once it is, for the pages you’ve looked at, a row can show the page’s own picture, assistants and the perch command can read page text, the palette shows page descriptions, and Silence Page Media mutes and pauses their videos and audio (the basic connection can’t mute a tab; Unmute Page Media unmutes only what Perch muted). The setting is described in the manual.
With that setting on, you can also turn on Show pictures of Chrome pages in Perch’s Settings. Perch then takes a picture of the Chrome page you’re looking at, from its window, after macOS asks once to let it record your screen. It never switches tabs, never looks at private windows, and keeps the pictures on your Mac. Assistants can then also take a screenshot of the tab in front. It’s off until you turn it on.
Aside has no basic connection yet, so it offers only the companion. What works in Aside is in the manual.