Release Notes

What's new in each version of Panelet.

1. Version 1.1.0

   October 7, 2026
   • Switch workspaces without reaching for the menu bar. Hold ⌥⌘ and press Tab to see your workspaces, most recent first; keep pressing Tab to move along, ⇧ to go back, and let go to switch. A quick tap flips to the last one you used. A workspace on another display is left alone — only the one on the same display gets put away.
   • Show is faster, and it no longer looks like nothing happened. The frame now appears straight away and each app drops into its pane as it finishes launching. Before, Panelet waited for every app to report it had started before drawing anything — a couple of seconds from cold, and several if you had just quit the apps — which looked like a Show that hadn’t worked and invited a second click. An app’s own open panel (Pages asking for a file) also no longer makes the whole frame disappear while it’s on screen.
   • Each pane remembers its document. Pages, Preview, Numbers and other document apps used to come back after a quit with an empty open panel. Now every pane remembers its own file — across Hide and Show, and across restarting Panelet — and opens it again in the right pane. If a file has moved, only that pane falls back to asking you, and says so.
   • A Three Columns layout. Three windows side by side, with draggable dividers. If the display isn’t wide enough for those apps, Panelet shows the three columns first, sees whether they fit, and folds into one on the left and two stacked on the right when they don’t — and tells you why. Move the workspace to a wider display and it unfolds again.
   • Moving a workspace to another display fills it. It used to keep its old size and simply land on the new display. It now takes the whole display it arrives on.
   • Apps that move their own window are handled, and flagged. Gemini, for one, pulls its window back to the display it came from when a workspace moves. Panelet now moves in two steps, notices when an app has gone back on its own and puts it in its pane again — and if an app keeps at it, stops and tells you rather than fighting it. Settings and the workspace builder carry a short note next to apps known to do this.
   • Settings opens where you clicked. It appears on the display whose menu bar icon you used rather than wherever it happened to be, and it stays in front after you Show a workspace instead of ending up behind its apps.
   • A log file, when you want one. Settings → Advanced → Keep a log file writes what Panelet does to ~/Library/Logs/Panelet/Panelet.log. It’s off by default, stays on your Mac, and is meant for a problem that comes and goes.
   • Smaller fixes. A one-time tip bubble from an app (Pages’ “Introducing Screen View”) no longer makes the whole frame step aside. A window that Panelet moves but can’t resize — Gemini’s small launch window — no longer produces a “couldn’t move” message. An app that briefly refuses Panelet’s window notifications right after launch is retried instead of being left out.

2. Version 1.0.2

   September 26, 2026
   • You’ll know there’s a new version without going looking. When an update is ready the menu bar icon gets a dot, and the menu opens with “Update to … available” at the top — click it and Panelet installs it and restarts. Until now the only sign was a window that could open behind whatever you were doing, on another Space, from an app with no Dock icon to bounce. If you missed it, you missed it. This stays put until you act on it.
   • The menu bar icon shows when a workspace is up. It’s filled while any group is running and hollow when none is, and hovering it names the groups that are showing. With several workspaces the icon used to look identical whether everything was tiled or nothing was.
   • Dragging a divider is smooth in a 2×2. While you drag, Panelet shows its own stand-in for the panes rather than resizing the real windows — but it was repainting that stand-in from scratch every frame, which cost more than a 60Hz display allows and showed up as hitching in a four-pane grid. It’s composited now, so moving a divider moves two rectangles.
   • A pane waiting on a second window of the same app says so. If a workspace gives one app two panes and only one window exists, Panelet used to go quiet as soon as that first window appeared, leaving the other pane empty with no explanation. It now asks — by name, and for another window rather than “a window”, which was confusing advice when the app was plainly open in the pane next door.
   • That prompt no longer disappears while it’s still true. The card explaining what a workspace is waiting for used to time out after two minutes, leaving a blank pane and nothing to explain it. It stays until you answer it or dismiss it, and it’s easier to notice — while still sitting out of the way of the panel it’s asking you to answer.
   • An empty pane is reported when you write in. “Report a Bug” and “Copy Diagnostics” now include which panes aren’t holding their window and by how much, along with what the app said when Panelet tried. When an app won’t fill its pane, that turns a screenshot into a number.

3. Version 1.0.1

   September 10, 2026
   • There’s a way to reach me from inside the app now. “Report a Bug” in the menu bar opens a message with the useful details already filled in — which version you’re on, your displays, whether Panelet has the permission it needs, and what it did in the last few minutes. Your own words go at the top and the details sit below a line, so you can delete anything you’d rather not send. Nothing leaves your Mac until you read it and press send, and your license key is never included. Settings → About has “Contact Support” for a question rather than a fault, and “Copy Diagnostics” if you’d rather paste the details somewhere yourself.
   • A pane fills itself again after you quit and reopen an app. Quit an app that was part of a workspace, open it again, and its window goes back into its pane on its own. It used to stay outside, leaving the pane empty until you showed the workspace again — which made the whole thing look unreliable rather than busy.
   • A browser is no longer asked to open a document. Closing the last window of a browser in a workspace used to produce advice written for Pages and Preview, and no help at all in Safari. It now asks for a window.

4. Version 1.0.0

   August 26, 2026
   • A pane holds a window, not an app. Two Safari windows can sit side by side in one workspace — separate tabs, separate history, separate scroll position — or four windows of the same editor. Each pane remembers which window is its own, across Hide and Show.
   • Rearrange by dragging. Drag any window into another pane and let go: the two trade places. The pane you are about to drop into lights up while you drag, so you can see where it lands before you commit.
   • A workspace comes up whole, or tells you why not. If an app hasn’t got enough windows for the panes you gave it, Panelet no longer shows you a half-built workspace — it names the app that needs another window and offers to open one using that app’s own menu command.
   • Step out of a workspace without putting your apps away. “Release Windows” stops tiling a group and leaves every window exactly where it is, free to move and resize. Showing the workspace again puts them back. Hiding still hides; this is the gentler way out.
   • Edit a workspace while you’re looking at it. Add an app, remove one, reorder the panes or change the layout, and the workspace on screen follows immediately — or steps down if it can no longer be tiled, instead of quietly staying wrong.
   • New workspaces start from the apps you already have open. The builder opens with your front windows already in place, named after them, so making a workspace is a decision rather than a form.
   • Document apps ask for their document. Pages, Preview and Numbers open with nothing on screen until you pick a file. Panelet now prompts each one to show its open panel, and says which apps the workspace is waiting for, instead of sitting there looking stuck.
   • The handle stopped covering your tabs. Moving a workspace used to mean a bar that faded in over the apps’ own title row — and a tab underneath it could not be clicked. It is now a small mark on the group’s top edge that is always there and never in the way: drag it to move the workspace, double-click to fill the screen, right-click for everything else.
   • Everything a workspace can do is in the menu bar too. Maximize, Restore Layout, Reset, Save Current Layout, Quit Apps and Move to another display used to be reachable only by right-clicking the workspace itself. They now also live under “This Workspace”.
   • Panelet’s own lines stay off other apps’ windows. Put an unrelated window over a workspace and the divider no longer draws across it — small windows used to slip through a size check and get a line painted over them.

5. Version 0.2.7

   August 7, 2026
   • Your workspaces remember each monitor setup. The laptop on its own, the laptop plus your desk display, the lid closed with two externals — each arrangement gets its own remembered position, so moving between them stops shuffling your workspaces around.
   • Unplug a display and nothing is stranded. A workspace whose display disappears comes back onto one that’s still connected and re-tiles there — and the position it had on the display you unplugged is kept, not overwritten, so it’s still there when you plug back in.
   • Plug it back in and the workspace comes with you. When macOS returns your windows to the display that came back, Panelet follows them instead of leaving its frame behind on the laptop. If your windows didn’t come back on their own, Panelet offers to move the group home rather than doing it behind your back.
   • No more stray divider lines. After waking, switching Spaces, or leaving fullscreen, a workspace’s divider could stay drawn across an unrelated window until you clicked somewhere. Fixed.

6. Version 0.2.6

   July 31, 2026
   • Run your workspaces from anywhere. Panelet now answers panelet:// links, so Raycast, Shortcuts, Alfred or a one-line script can show, hide, toggle or summon a workspace — and you can put any keyboard shortcut you like in front of them. Settings → Advanced lists the links to copy.
   • Starts with your Mac. A new “Launch Panelet at login” switch in Settings → General.
   • Your windows always come back. If Panelet is quit — or crashes — while a workspace is hidden, the apps it hid are brought back instead of staying invisible.
   • The menu bar shows what’s live. A tick next to every workspace that’s currently up, and a plain “Stage Manager is on — tiling paused” line when that’s why nothing tiled.
   • Stage Manager gets out of the way faster. Turn it on and Panelet’s bars step aside on their own, instead of lingering over the desktop until you moved the mouse.
   • Buying a license no longer means hunting for the website — it’s one click from the app.

7. Version 0.2.5

   July 25, 2026
   • Plays nicely with Stage Manager. When Stage Manager is on, Panelet no longer tugs your windows back and forth with it — it tells you a workspace can’t be tiled while Stage Manager is running and gives you a one-click Retry once you turn it off, then re-tiles on its own. Its own bars step out of the way so nothing overlays the Stage Manager desktop.
   • Apps that change their identity now reconnect automatically. When an app you’d added to a workspace switches its internal identifier under a new version — as ChatGPT’s desktop app did in its recent rebuild — Panelet re-links it on the next launch instead of leaving its pane empty. No need to remove and re-add it.

8. Version 0.2.4

   July 20, 2026
   • Plays nicely with fullscreen. When an app in a workspace is in macOS fullscreen, Panelet no longer fights it or quietly leaves an empty slot — it tells you the window is in fullscreen and gives you a one-click Retry once you exit. Leave fullscreen and the workspace re-tiles on its own.
   • Fixed: a stray divider line could be drawn over an app while it was in fullscreen. It no longer shows up on the fullscreen space.
   • Find your keyboard shortcuts. Settings now lists them all — show a workspace (⌥⌘1–9), hide it (⌥⌘H), bring it to your display (⌥⌘B), move focus between apps (⌃⌘← / ⌃⌘→), and zoom the focused app (⌃⌘↩) — and the focus and zoom shortcuts now appear in the menu bar too.
   • Panelet’s version now shows in Settings, so it’s easy to include when you report something.
   • A friendlier first run. The first time you open a workspace, a short tips card points out how to move it, resize the split, and use the keyboard shortcuts — and the welcome guide now has a shortcuts page.

9. Version 0.2.3

   July 18, 2026
   • Document apps now tile properly. Apps that open a file picker when they launch — Pages, Numbers, Preview — no longer show an error and get left out. Panelet waits for the real document window and drops it into its pane the moment you pick a file.
   • Reset Workspace: one click returns a workspace to a clean default — maximized on the current display with an even split. A quick way out when a layout gets messed up or ends up on the wrong screen. It’s in the workspace’s grip menu, and it leaves any layout you saved untouched.
   • Quit Apps: quit every app in a workspace at once, with a confirmation, from the workspace menu. The workspace itself stays, so you can reopen it whenever you like.
   • Moving a workspace to another display — or across a display boundary — now keeps its windows where you put them, instead of snapping them back onto one screen.

10. Version 0.2.2

    July 16, 2026
    • Keyboard controls for your panes: press ⌃⌘← / ⌃⌘→ to move focus between the apps in a workspace, and ⌃⌘↩ to zoom the focused app to fill the whole workspace — press again to drop back to the split. While zoomed, ⌃⌘← / ⌃⌘→ moves the zoom from app to app.
    • A control center for each workspace: hover the top edge and open the grip menu to focus a pane, zoom it, maximize, restore or save the layout, and move the workspace to another display — all from the workspace itself.
    • Fix: clicking back into a workspace now reliably brings the whole group forward — including an app you’d hidden — instead of occasionally leaving one behind.

11. Version 0.2.1

    July 14, 2026
    • The move bar no longer covers your app’s own controls. Hovering the top of a workspace now shows a small centered grip instead of a full-width bar, and clicks pass through everywhere else — so your app’s own tabs, toolbar, and menus stay clickable. The grip also lingers a moment after your pointer leaves, so it’s easy to grab.
    • Windows an app opens on top of a workspace now float free. When a workspace app opens another window — a second browser window, or a tool it launches — Panelet steps its divider and chrome aside so that window behaves as an independent window, instead of sitting under the workspace’s split line.

12. Version 0.2.0

    July 12, 2026
    • Resizable workspaces: drag the divider between apps to resize them together. While you drag you get a clean icon preview instead of laggy windows, and the apps snap into place the moment you let go.
    • Apps now fill the whole workspace — the old header bar is gone. Hover the top edge to reveal a slim frosted bar for moving the workspace, with a menu for Maximize, Hide, and Move to another display.
    • Run several workspaces at once. Each keeps its own layout and position, and clicking any app brings its whole workspace to the front.
    • New visual workspace builder: “New Workspace” opens a gallery of layouts with live previews — pick one, then assign an app to each pane.
    • Four new three-app layouts — 2 Top / 1 Bottom, 1 Top / 2 Bottom, 2 Left / 1 Right, and 1 Left / 2 Right — alongside the 2 × 2 grid for four apps and the classic left / right and top / bottom splits for two.
    • First-run guide: a step-by-step welcome walks you through granting Accessibility (it detects the grant live) and building your first workspace. Reopen it anytime from the menu bar’s “Welcome to Panelet.”
    • Simpler permissions: Accessibility now shows a single macOS prompt, with the guided help moved into the welcome guide.
    • Cleaner look: tighter, opaque gaps between apps, so the gutters no longer show the window behind your workspace.
    • Upgrading from an earlier version? Layouts now tile a fixed number of apps — 2 for a left/right or top/bottom split, 3 for the three-app layouts, and 4 for the 2 × 2 grid. If an existing workspace has a different number of apps (for example an older 3- or 4-app left/right or top/bottom split), Panelet will ask you to open Settings and adjust it — add or remove apps, or switch to a matching layout — before it can tile it.

13. Version 0.1.3

    July 8, 2026
    • Top / bottom split workspaces now resize by dragging a window edge — the other app follows, just like left / right splits

14. Version 0.1.2

    July 7, 2026
    • Automatic updates — new versions now install with one click
    • New appearance setting: System, Light, or Dark
    • Slimmer workspace header — narrower, with its controls moved into the menu bar
    • Smoother dragging — fixed the stutter and the snap-back when you release
    • Faster and lighter — smaller stored data and a more efficient menu refresh

15. Version 0.1.1

    July 1, 2026
    • First Early Access release of Panelet
    • Two-app workspaces: show, hide, move, and restore them together
    • 7-day free trial