I'm not familiar with this code, but cc-ing stevenjb@ since he's made changes to chrome/browser/ui/ash/launcher/browser_shortcut_launcher_item_controller.cc which seems like it could be relevant.

The clicking and accelerator behavior is also different is when opening a hosted app like Gmail or Calendar. Here, hitting either Alt-1 or Alt-[1-based-index of hosted app's icon] when the app's tab is already focused just bounces the browser window, but clicking either icon minimizes the browser window.

I understand that the click vs. accelerator behavior is different when multiple windows are open for the app (clicking displays a menu listing the windows), but these other differences feel confusing to me. I don't have a reliable mental model for what's going to happen when I click these icons or hit their accelerators, apart from in the case when I'm initially staring at an empty desktop. That seems bad. :-(

tbuckley@ we should reconsider what the correct behavior is here as part of the MD shelf work.

I agree that clicking and using an accelerator should be consistent at the very least.

Going to need to think more about this, but here are some initial thoughts:
1) I'd like to keep the invariant that every window is associated with an icon on the shelf. So for that hangout pop-up, the Chrome icon should be associated with it.
2) That being said, I agree that it's weird that clicking the Chrome icon could leave you in a state where no browser window is active. So maybe we can treat that as a special case?
3) Could we ensure that clicking an app icon in the shelf always focuses an existing window / launches a new window? How often are apps minimized through the shelf vs the window header?

What's the status of this? This bug hasn't been updated with a meaningful comment in ~2.5 years. Is this still relevant?

Yes, the shelf still doesn't behave consistently. At the very least, I think we need the following:

a) The behavior when clicking on an icon and typing its Alt+num accelerator should be consistent.
b) Clicking an icon (or activating it via its accelerator) should consistently focus the corresponding window/tab/app (opening it if needed) if it isn't already focused.
c) Clicking the icon when the window/tab/app is focused should possibly iconify it. I'm less sure about this (because when the icon corresponds to a tab in a browser window, it feels a bit weird to iconify the entire window), but it seems to be the behavior that we're trying to do right now.

Olga, are you the right person to be looking at this?

This issue has an owner, a component and a priority, but is still listed as untriaged or unconfirmed. By definition, this bug is triaged. Changing status to "assigned". Please reach out to me if you disagree with how I've done this.

Thanks. Routing to Gary for UX input.