topic Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation in Discussions

Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 22:33:59 GMT

Hi folks,

Over the next couple of months, we will be testing an updated sidebar, its tools, and vertical tabs in the release version of Firefox (remember, a while back, we asked you to try it out in Nightly 131, and we appreciated your feedback and encouragement in this Connect thread). If you are using the release version, you might get early access to these features and get a nudge to try them out.

Only a portion of users in Firefox releases 133 and 134 will see this experience, helping us evaluate and improve the features. If you’re part of the experiment, we’d love for you to try this early version and share your thoughts.

We’re also working on many improvements you’ve requested, including:

Easier ways to close tabs in the collapsed sidebar.
Expanding the sidebar on hover.
Reducing space used by tools in the expanded sidebar.
Visually and functionally polishing the sidebar tools panels and browser layout in the vertical tabs mode.

As usual, we appreciate your patience as we iron out the rough spots in the experience. If you’re not ready to engage with these new features, you can disable them in the sidebar settings or opt out from the experiment via about:studies.

If you are are having trouble figuring out how to disable the sidebar, please follow these steps:

1. Locate the gear icon with the Customize sidebar label at the bottom of the sidebar and click on it.

2. Set the Sidebar button setting to Show and hide sidebar.

3. Click the sidebar button in the toolbar to hide the sidebar (it is highlighted in the second screenshot).

4. Right-click the sidebar icon and choose the Remove from toolbar option.

Set Sidebar button setting to "Show and hide sidebar"Click the sidebar button in the toolbar to hide the sidebarRight click the sidebar icon choose "Remove from toolbar" option.

If you have already removed the sidebar button from the toolbar and are stuck with the sidebar visible, but no toolbar button to close it:

1. Right-click the toolbar and choose the Customize toolbar option.

2. Drag the sidebar icon back to the toolbar and click Done in the lower right corner.

3. Once the sidebar button is back in your toolbar, click it to close the sidebar.

4. Right-click the sidebar icon and choose the Remove from toolbar option.

Sidebar expanded with no sidebar button visibleReturn the sidebar button via Customize toolbarClose the sidebar, right-click the sidebar button and remove it.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

tilwiti — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 22:27:39 GMT

🎉

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

zade — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 20:56:03 GMT

It would be great if we could customise the sidebar using the 'customise toolbars' feature. It'd be nice to add/move/remove all the buttons as we wish, rather than having to stick with a premade layout. Great other improvements though!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

mustaqim — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 02:06:44 GMT

I would like to see unloaded tabs greyed out. On TST, I just reduce the opacity to 0.75 so it retains its colour.

It looks really good so far. Great work!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 17:02:00 GMT

Yes! it will be amazing if we can even reduce more the width of vertical tabs so the sidebar use even less space also amazing job now that the title bar dissapears when vertical tabs are activated i wish it keeps like this in the future!.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 18:53:50 GMT

There are already multiple questions on the support forum on how to remove the sidebar.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Garf1991 — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 01:31:50 GMT

As long as there's a way to hide it for those of us who don't want it

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

zul — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 04:30:51 GMT

I just restarted firefox and am seeing a new sidebar shortcut icon section that I have feedback on.

tldr: PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK OR ADD AN OPTION TO DISABLE IT. It is a huge waste of space that can't be turned off while using the sidebar.

I use the sidebar for an addon called Tab Stash. Which means I keep it open pretty much all the time and don't multitask my sidebar - it's always just Tab Stash.

This new sidebar behavior adds a second sidebar with little icon shortcuts to other sidebar addons and some "Firefox tools" like history, bookmarks, and for some unfathomable reason an AI chatbot (tangent suggestion: get rid of this garbage - no one wants more AI bloatware). The tool icons can be disabled in the sidebar options but the addon icons cannot. I assume this forced 2nd sidebar was to make it easy to switch between sidebar tools/addons.

The problem is this 2nd icon sidebar can't be closed independently from the actual sidebar. If I click the "hide sidebar" button it hides the icon bar as well as the actual sidebar with my Tab Stash in it. Clicking the button again opens JUST the icon sidebar and not even my tab stash. There seems to be NO WAY to have JUST the sidebar open without that 2nd little waste-of-space bar connected to it.

Please, for the love of all things good, revert this change or let me disable that little icon sidebar and JUST use the old sidebar how it was. There was nothing wrong with it. Don't force these crappy design decisions on us for no reason.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:17:46 GMT

I don't know if this will work or not but it may be worth seeing if setting sidebar.revamp to false in about:config helps.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

zul — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:30:10 GMT

Thanks - I actually saw someone else suggest that on reddit after posting my comment and it did indeed work. Hopefully in the near future they will add the option directly to the sidebar settings so we don't have to dig around in obscure setting pages to get rid of that dumb extra bar.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

SiLiKhon — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:04:37 GMT

Found a bug with Firefox 133.0, although not sure how to reproduce: at some point the sidebar toggle button stopped working (the sidebar got always hidden and was not appearing). That was really problematic as the tabs were in vertical mode and without the side bar the navigation between tabs got really hard. Moreover, restarting the browser didn't help - there was still no sidebar.

Weirdly enough, I couldn't locate the sidebar or vertical/horizontal tabs preferences in about:preferences. I only managed to fix this via about:config by toggling sidebar.revamp back and forth.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

NameLastname — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:25:05 GMT

You can add new features all you want but don't force us into having this ugly sidebar thing on our screen. Atleast give us (normal users) the option to disable it without going through so much hassle. Real spit in your face. Next time i'm googling 'google chrome' instead of how to disable this.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 12:59:46 GMT

Exactly, they shouldn't force these things on people who are up-dating. It's fine to include them but have them switched off and provide instructions in the Release Notes on how to enable them if desired.

I agree it's "hassle" to disable them but at least we can, which is more than can be said of such things on Chrome.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Atombombe — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:17:10 GMT

I fully agree with this.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Atombombe — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:18:58 GMT

I only made an account here to comment on how much I dislike the new sidebar.

I've been using Firefox for 20+ years and I hate everything I'm being forced any new UI design.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

NameLastname — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:41:04 GMT

Exactly. I have made this account with the hope that Firefox doesn't turn into the thing we all hate. Let's not lower ourselves to the level of Google.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Skywind — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 13:53:14 GMT

I updated to 133 and found that there are some extension icons located to the bottom left corner of the sidebar. I looked around and didn't find any ways to remove them. I don't want them to be there. Any solutions to remove them?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 15:38:23 GMT

Hi @Skywind! Sorry about this inconvenience. These extensions are there because they use the sidebar API to provide a persistent view. Right now, there's not yet a way to remove them without removing the extension for good. It's a priority for us to introduce a way to unpin extensions from the sidebar, however.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Summerstorm — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 17:17:00 GMT

I strongly dislike the fact that if I open and close my bookmarks via ctrl-b, the sidebar view stays open afterwards.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

JustRTFM — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 17:28:32 GMT

It is really sad to see zero critical thinking skills from the people complaining about this feature.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

R44Dazza — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 19:43:16 GMT

How do I turn this sidebar off? I DON'T want it and it just appeared.

Completely ruins my screen layout.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

R44Dazza — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 18:47:20 GMT

Did anyone properly test this before releasing to the general public?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Debali — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 20:56:30 GMT

Is impossible to remove it on version 133 for MacOS, I think is broken and is very annoying! Why do we must play riddles with this?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ifona5ofav — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 21:01:37 GMT

The sidebar is an absolute FAIL. I hate it. I don't want any real estate taken away from the left side of my screen to the right. I was not happy with it automatically being applied. It took me several minutes to figure out how to get rid of it. I wish software developers (on all programs and operating systems) would stop changing things. I don't want things to change. At the very least, give us the option to turn off the new "enhancements".

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 01:00:03 GMT

It's annoying that these things just appear and it's left to users to find how to switch them off, or use them if they wish to. Brief instructions in the Release Notes would be nice.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Angel0Love — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 21:14:47 GMT

I do not like it at all - sidebar! They are bothersome for me cuz I like just FULL SCREEN which is better for FACEBOOK, that is all but again I still don't like for anything else for that matters. Please show me how to get this firefox back normal screen by hide sidebar complete out as FULL and yes I did click to hide sidebar but that didn't work at all! So I am not happy so I am going to switch to other browser! I do not like update for that kind like sidebar! I am over late 60s so please stop changing so much! OH! One more thing it is cuz I have only one eye which is right and that sidebar for some reason bother me... I know they do change from right left...etc, I know that. Again I hate it!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

BelFox — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 21:45:18 GMT

Hi @asafko,

I appreciate the hard work you and your team have done on making the new sidebar come to fruition in Firefox. I look forward to having a handy sidebar, vertical tabs and tab groups available in Firefox 🧡.

That being said, I think it is really important not to rush and confront users with unpolished features if they are not clearly part of a Firefox (Labs) experiment. Don't just put it in their face but invite them to take part in the experiment or not! And as always ... there will always be people who don't want changes, so provide an option for them to easily hide the sidebar. I don't think it is necessary to have the sidebar displayed at all times? For example, we should still be able to access the History sidebar panel by pressing Ctrl+H without having the sidebar visible?

I've made other suggestions on Connect before regarding the new History sidebar, the lay-out of tab groups in vertical mode and other stuff. I hope your team can take a look at it.

To conclude: you can save yourselves from a lot of drama by making it easy for users to (de)activate new features. Don't let (rightfully) annoyed users overshadow the release of these - really useful - features!

Firefox FTW! 🦊

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Angel0Love — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:46:14 GMT

YAYAY!! It works!! FINALLY!! Thank u so much ThePillenwerfer!! Whew!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

jscher2000 — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 23:52:49 GMT

I filed a bug for this today: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1933818

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 02:07:03 GMT

I've just seen something rather alarming on the Support Forum: Apparently the about:config method of getting rid will soon be taken from us. That despite several reports from people saying the official way via the gear-wheel at the bottom doesn't work for them.

Come on, Mozilla, you claim to champion 'Freedom' so let us have the freedom to choose.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Skywind — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 03:58:57 GMT

Thanks for the reply! I think being able to pin/unpin them is really important. With these icons pinned, now I have them both on the toolbar and sidebar, which is not necessary. If pinning them is optional, then users can decide whether to do that or not. I think that will be much better.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

cor-el — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:17:06 GMT

I notice that there is so little space available for the history that only one or two letter are shown for a history item what makes it of no use for me. The bookmarks look better, haven't tried the Synced tabs yet.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Whatever3 — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:47:17 GMT

If something made me want to switch to chrome is this forced sidebar. Glad reddit had instructions to eliminate this cancer on about config option.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Whatever3 — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:49:02 GMT

Ill just move to chrome, they forcing this on us is just a waste of time

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 12:17:50 GMT

The snag is it won't be long before Chrome has it as well as it's the latest fashion. At least on Firefox these sorts of things can usually be removed somehow, just not as easily as we'd wish.

My next-choice browser would be SeaMonkey as they seem to know what their users want and don't give a fig about what the latest crazes are. At present there are a few things about it I don't like but if Firefox becomes more annoying it'll be a case of picking the least bad.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Krashman — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 16:07:12 GMT

Add a option to turn it off so people don't have to go into the about:config just to remove a feature they do not want. New features should be optional not mandatory.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

barsupi — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 23:14:34 GMT

so I was forced to activate this since the 133.0 update completely borked the sidebery panel

while I appreciate the effort it works like ass.

- browser lags and slow beyond belief. sidebery could handle my 500+ tabs no issue
- no expand on hover (yet)
- lots of wasted space on padding/ceiling as always
- window minimum width is higher on vertical tab mode. really annoying when I just want to keep a chat or youtube music open.
- click on active tab should have a behavior like going to previous tab.
- you guys have no idea how much I despise round borders and wasted space on the UI. bring the tiniest smallest density back. god i'm so fng mad.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

jscher2000 — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 23:43:57 GMT

Hi barsupi, how did the redesign bork the Sidebery panel?

While those bugs are worked out, you can roll back to the old Sidebar design using the preference mentioned in recent comments:

(A) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

More info on about:config: Configuration Editor for Firefox. Please keep in mind that changes made through this back door aren't fully supported and aren't guaranteed to continue working in the future.

(B) In the search box in the page, type or paste sidebar.revamp and pause while the list is filtered

(C) Double-click the preference (or click the toggle button near the end of the row) to switch the value from true to false

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

barsupi — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:04:46 GMT

thanks for responding. I ended up disabling all the new revamp and vertical thing after finding a solution. before that I wasn't able to see or select a thing. the problem with sidebery is due changes in the z-index order and how the sidepanel works.

added :

#main-sidebar-container {
...
z-index: 1001;
}

to the userchrome file and most of the issues are gone.

still the lagging is atrocious in my end. the new vertical tab panel lags my entire system. sidebery or things like "list all tabs" or "show tab list" menus have no issue showing tons of tabs. not always people need to see an image peek of tab or have the hover floating title. I wish those thing could be disabled.

I checked the minimum windows width in vertical tab mode and it becomes something like 700px. really annoying due that I set a lot of things around 300px or 400px.

having activate horizontal tabs just to keep and small window open is not fun.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Fr4kTh1s — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:35:10 GMT

Hello, first comment, but it is positive one.

I love the vertical tabs in sidebar and tab grouping(finally!). It makes work/browsing very practical and helps me cluttering my tab list. Horizontal tabs are no go once you get over 20... With 60+ it is not viable... Horizontal and grouped tabs is the only way...

Few things I have noticed I am missing to make it perfect IMHO:
1. Adjustable width of the sidebar - slide it from just web icons to X pixel width
2. Add more contrast- or option to adjust- to the active tab. It might be issue with theme in OS(Breeze dark - Deb 12), but it is sometimes hard to figure out which tab is really active one when you have multiple of the same web open
3. Positioning of the tab groups isn't possible. Individual tabs can be dragged in the list anywhere, moved to top, bottom, whatever. But once the tab group is created, it's position in the list is fixed. So unless you create it in the exact position where you want it, it will remain there. Or you have to select all tabs above/below it and drag them around the tab group to reposition it.
4. Additional color options/custom color for the group badge

Bug(?) I am right now encountering is not being able to collapse the tab group. On click the bar next to it disappears, if active tab was from tab group being collapsed switches to the first one below the "collapsed" tab group, but the group in the list doesn't collapse like folder would(similar like Brave tab groups do for example).
I am not sure if that is intentional or bug. But it would be nice to have them collapse when you do not need to see them.

After all, thank you very much, it is very appreciated addition 🙂

Firefox Version 133.0 (64-bit)
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 12
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.103.0
Qt Version: 5.15.8
Kernel Version: 6.12.1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
System Version: 1.0

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

tork90 — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 02:54:25 GMT

There better be an option to disable/hide it, because I'd personally consider hopping browsers if otherwise. It's enough of an eyesore to where I'd explore other options/browsers.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Blehh_Mae — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 04:49:26 GMT

I see no purpose for this feature, its just a jarring collection of pointless buttons on the side that takes up space on all websites, why not just put whatever buttons it adds into the regular taskbar customization section, and have the sidebar disabled by default, its just a waste of space and an eyesore and i cant believe the given instructions to remove it dont even work and i had to go into about:config to toggle sidebar.revamp off

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

thenoname — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:35:57 GMT

is there a way to hide/remove this sidebar?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

atgyuric — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:39:43 GMT

God this thing is **bleep**ing annoying I did not ask for it...........

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

DarphBobo — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 06:42:07 GMT

Remove the damned thing.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Frito_Laies — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 09:05:18 GMT

I dont like it, I don't want it, how do I turn it off? make it go away

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

firefoxfixurshi — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 09:13:55 GMT

absolute ass. please get rid of it. remove from toolbar does NOTHING.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Feldherren — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 09:27:43 GMT

I only ever have the sidebar open as one thing (vertical tabs extension, which works better than the new sidebar functionality as it shows tabs in collapsible groups - replicate that and I'll switch - but is otherwise similar), and don't need the sidebar buttons, but the sidebar is now intrinsically linked to having any sidebar extension open; unless I disable the new sidebar functionality entirely, I'm stuck with it being present and taking up space onscreen.

Please let us close it entirely but still have sidebar extensions open, without disabling the new sidebar revamp.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Kazemyers — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 13:41:42 GMT

I'm really liking the sidebar! It saves screen realstate which is something very important to me. The only thing i'm finding very cumbersome to use so far is that when you collapse to icons (as shown in the image below) there could be a little close button on the icon when the mouse hovers over it, so i don't have to open the sidebar every time i want to close a tab,or right click close or use alt+w.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 14:17:48 GMT

I don't like it and have no use for it; it simply duplicates existing ways of doing things, most of which I don't do anyway.

However, to offer some constructive criticism, in a collapsed state it seems much wider then it needs to be. When the History Sidebar is opened it is slightly wider than the old version but contains less information down to large internal margins so tightening these up would be an improvement.

Such things are down to personal taste but I'd prefer the collapsed bar to to be coloured with --lwt-accent-color rather than --toolbar-bgcolor.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

stupidus — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 14:57:17 GMT

Remove that 'feature'.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

kidchthonic — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 16:59:32 GMT

Care to explain? Your usage of "critical thinking skills" doesn't seem to match the context. We who are opposed to surprise UI changes full of bugs and which have to be disabled in about:config have many valid reasons to dislike this behavior of Firefox. It's been going on for a few years (I'm still philosophically furious that I had to restore tabs to being tabs instead of chrome-like buttons using CSS and have to fix it every six months or so when it gets screwed up again) and it's always such a hassle.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

kronapence — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 17:42:38 GMT

I hate the sidebar. It should've been offered to me, but not forced on me. I wasted too much time trying to figure out how to close it. The only solution was to change it in about:config, which I shouldn't have had to do. Please, if you are moving forward with this, make it easy to close and/or remove. Thank you.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

kronapence — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 17:44:40 GMT

The only way I've found is through about:config and setting sidebar.revamp to false.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

BWBODDY — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 18:20:17 GMT

didn't help, I didn't see anything about removing the sidebar.

The "Customize sidebar" (with the gear icon) is still at the bottom and shifting everything off to screen left

This is just taking up space on the side on my screen.

IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThePillenwerfer — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 19:04:02 GMT

The way via the Gear icon is the official one but a lot of people are having trouble with it. Here's an alternative method:—

Type about:config into the search/URL bar.

That will bring up a warning which you'll have to acknowledge.

On the next screen there's a search box at the top. Type or paste sidebar.revamp into it. That will then appear below with the word true next to it. Double-click true and it will change to false.

We have been warned that this is only temporary but hopefully an official Off switch will be provided. If one isn't it'll need resource to Custom CSS.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

BWBODDY — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 19:57:05 GMT

THAT DID IT!

Thank you so much, that WAS driving me INSANE!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

mild_cardboard — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:15:08 GMT

I believe the new sidebar is a step in the right direction—and a definite improvement—but also use Tab Stash and find it a bit redundant in my setup. I think the design more pleasing than what came before, but might have to opt-out for the time being. Note: I have hidden the horizontal tabs and old sidebar header via userChrome.css.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

internalserver — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:12:15 GMT

Please God get rid of this. This was 100% a terrible idea. Im not trying to be rude, Im really not. But as a web developer it gets in the way. Even trying to close it does not work.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

jscher2000 — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:19:58 GMT

I know with a thread this long people can't find all the "how to" replies, but if you are trying to close the sidebar in a way that hides the vertical button bar, the setting is here:

Unfortunately, there is currently no way to close the sidebar without using the button. Hopefully a keyboard shortcut, or a close button on the vertical button bar, will be added so the extra toolbar button isn't needed.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

internalserver — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:26:12 GMT

Yeah I did that and there was no side bar button when show/hide was selected. And nobody on any of the reddit complaints from the last few days was able to show where it was either and kept getting annoyed that people couldnt find it.

about:config was the only way I could get it to work. It's a bad idea. If this MUST be implemented, it should be a nice little tick box in the preferences. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get around it without the about:config and finally just did it. I prefer to keep my extensions where they usually are - the top right tucked above the bookmarks folder. No need to change it.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

jscher2000 — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:36:52 GMT

@internalserver wrote:
Yeah I did that and there was no side bar button when show/hide was selected.

When I toggle sidebar.revamp to true, the Sidebars button appears at the left end of the toolbar. Not sure why that didn't happen for you, but obviously that needs to be fixed. If you do need to add it yourself, you can (Customize Firefox controls, buttons and toolbars), but this assumes you know that you need it.

If this MUST be implemented, it should be a nice little tick box in the preferences.

Maybe there, and maybe the right-click context menu where you turn other bars (Menu bar, Bookmarks toolbar) on and off.

I prefer to keep my extensions where they usually are - the top right tucked above the bookmarks folder. No need to change it.

Which extensions were using the vertical button bar? I would think only the ones that put a page or other content in the sidebar would place their button there. (I don't think I have any extensions like that at this time.)

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Gouambas — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:48:07 GMT

So after following all four steps and opting out of this experiment via "about:studies" the sidebar remains in the window, just in its collapsed state. Are there any other methods I could use to get rid of it permanently? Or do I actually just have to get used to having less screen real estate to work with?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Gouambas — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:51:01 GMT

Note: I am a computer novice so if there is an actual coding thing I can do I have not done so.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Tawn — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:45:35 GMT

This new sidebar doesn't work with all (AMO) themes. I had Black Abyss theme enabled and with the sidebar turned on (but vertical tabs off) the sidebar appears to be completely blank. Hovering over it just shows an arrow cursor. If you hover long enough in the correct area, "customize sidebar" appears in a tooltip and if you click that area the customize panel appears. I'm running Nightly, but release channel users need a simple method to enable/disable this.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

JustRTFM — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 02:15:32 GMT

No duh. Themes need to be updated to theme the new sidebar.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

wealstarr — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 10:04:40 GMT

Hello everyone,

I've waited so long for Firefox to implement the vertical tabs but apparently we're still away from making it a functional feature without bugs. It breaks my heart that I still can't use it.

I tested Firefox 133 on Windows 10 vertical tabs and found some issues that I shell list chronologically.

1. In the always collapsed state, there's no close button on the tabs. I don't have a mouse to utilize the mouse buttons to close the tabs. I'm using Zen browser which has this functionality. It adds a close button on the tab icons in vertical bar which shows upon hovering. No need to right click, left click or any other hassle. Clean and tidy. Here's a screenshot from the Zen browser:

2. There's an usual visual artifact on the sidebar. Even when there's no scrollbar, the scrollbar track is always visible. Screenshot below from version 133

3. There's no indication of the current active tab in the vertical tab. Like a highlight color or outline color or anything of that sorts. It's impossible to tell active tab from the inactive tabs. Zen browser also does this exceptionally well. Below screenshot from Zen browser

Notice the pink margin on the left hand highlighting the active tab. Color doesn't necessarily have to be pink. Any subtle minimal color should do.

4. Audio playing tabs. There's no way to highlight the tab currently playing the audio. Sideberry has this function. I think it's called assign color to active tabs or something like that. It would super helpful to have that.

4.1 A simple function to mute the audio playing tab like doable click on the tab.

These functions are all essential in making the vertical tab experience seamless integration. Like you expect from a "native" function right out of the box from Mozilla.

I don't know how much Mozilla listens to the users, this is first time posting here. But without the suggestions made above, vertical tabs can't be used.

Kind regards

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

wealstarr — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 18:54:39 GMT

I would like to add a couple of things I missed earlier.

1. It's proposed to expand the vertical tab bar on hover. That clicks with many users but many of us like to keep tab bar collapsed on all time, hovering or otherwise. Please also give options to keep it always collapsed, if possible.

2. Somebody mentioned about updating themes, I would like to second this request. The themes usually meant for horizontal tab bar, looks weird on vertical tab bar. It's my opinion for whatever it's worth, that if the color of the titlebar (rebar?) the one that has all the buttons as well as URL bar, is the same as the color of the side bar.

Kind regards

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

jscher2000 — Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:32:34 GMT

If you did both of the setup steps -- changing the toolbar button to show/hide and making sure the toolbar button is available -- then clicking the toolbar button should hide the sidebar.

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/sidebar-and-vertical-tabs-release-channel-experimentation/m-p/79931/highlight/true#M30629

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

ThreeFatSamurai — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 03:58:04 GMT

I hate it. Please give us the option to remove it completely. It's so annoying for me.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Rakeh — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 09:22:48 GMT

So how exactly do I remove the sidebar? The instruction on the top are BARELY comprehensible to me despite having two doctorates and they are written in a way that gets me stuck in a endless loop of 1-2-3-4. As far as I can tell, there is no way to remove the sidebar using these steps, or at least am I not seeing any option to do so whatsoever. There's even an instruction at the end of the first post to repeat steps 1-2 after steps 3-4, hence completing the endless loop. What am I missing? What are all the people here and on reddit missing? Note that my criticism is focused solely on the utterly incomprehensible, cyclical, and ultimately useless sidebar removal instructions on the top. I fully acknowledge this new feature might be useful for some people. Thank you!

Seriously, at this point, I am thinking the top post must be a joke. Some kind of April's fool prank in November.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

araujoms — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 09:25:43 GMT

I only have one doctorate, but those instructions were also useless for me. The way to remove it is go to about:config and set sidebar.revamp to false.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

wutongtaiwan — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 14:30:41 GMT

我想要一个功能将 identity 选项卡固定到侧边栏。我在打开网站时使用“Private”身份选项卡，我希望能够更快地访问此选项卡，因此我需要此功能

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

wutongtaiwan — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 14:30:59 GMT

I want a feature to pin the identity tab to the sidebar. I use the "Private" identity tab when I open a website, and I want to be able to access this tab more quickly, so I need this feature

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

nixiemc — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 01:47:28 GMT

I am the same person as "nixieff," who appears very rarely on Mozilla Support's community forums. I was one of a lucky few users to be on-boarded onto the new sidebar via Firefox 133. I have two questions at this time (perhaps I will have more later; we'll see where we go from here).

1. When viewing your history in the old sidebar, you have options to organise your history by date, site, date and site, most visited, and last visited. However, when viewing your history in the new sidebar, you are only able to organise your history by date and site. Why is this the case? (I have a conflict of interest because I've organised my history by last visited for around a decade and am disappointed to see this option be removed with the new update.)

2. I believe that the sidebar has been introduced to facilitate the new AI Chatbot tool (because the Firefox Support page about the sidebar - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-firefox-sidebar-access-bookmarks-history-synced - now tells people to go to an article entitled "Enable AI chatbots in Firefox" to learn more about the new sidebar). However, this implies completely redesigning the sidebar to make way for a single button. Is there any reason why AI Chatbots cannot instead be accessed from the toolbar at the top of the screen? (It could drop down from the toolbar onto the page, like clicking the Pocket or Library buttons do.)

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

vinny1 — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 14:25:03 GMT

Hello. I would to share some thoughts on my usage of the sidebar feature:

There's a maximum space set for the pinned tabs but maybe we could have an option to adjust that or let the tabs just take their regular space without the need for a scrollbar, with just the Separator indicating which tabs are pinned or not.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

bp4prez — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:37:42 GMT

I really like the addition of vertical tabs. Is there a way to expand the vertical tabs to see titles via keyboard shortcut?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Nomutile — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 19:30:35 GMT

Thanks. I ?think? the problem somehow self-corrected after I logged in to Mozilla in order to be able to post my original comment -- because after my comment appeared and I returned to my home screen, the horizontal tab bar had been restored.

Maybe in the future I will find a use for the vertical sidebar; but right now it's confusing for moving from tab to tab, so I prefer sticking with what I know. Too much of my life is spent adapting to new layouts and features when all I want to do is be efficient with the tools I'm already familiar with. That's why I've stuck with Firefox all these years, despite Google's and Apple's attempts to get me to defect to their browsers.

I feel like Helen Keller and someone keeps moving the furniture.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Wojtus6020 — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 21:40:32 GMT

How did you manage to disable the sidebar? I couldn't and I searched for a long time. I went back to version 132 because it was unusable, where is this world coming from

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 21:45:12 GMT

Can I please ask you if your use case will be covered if:

- sidebar was not visible by default,

- clicking the sidebar button opened your extension panel by default, like in the attached screenshot?

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 22:17:32 GMT

We're working on making sure you can "pull" the separator down, so you can decide for yourself how much space pinned tabs should occupy, but it will take some time to get that to the release channel.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 22:44:53 GMT

Thank you for your feedback, @Kazemyers. We're working on adding the close button in the collapsed state.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

asafko — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 22:54:53 GMT

Thank you!

We're currently looking for one here and if we can find a not-yet-used-one, we'll make it happen.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

tilwiti — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 23:11:05 GMT

I would absolutely love it if you could add Spotify or another customisable sidebar site with background sound.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

gsdghsdfsdfsdf — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 01:29:40 GMT

I hid it as soon as I figured out how, and I'm unlikely to ever show it again.

The problem I have with it is that it either takes up too much space or reduces the tabs to tiny, incomprehensible icons. I guess you can click the one button (and it took me a while to figure what that did, which is not ideal either) and change from one to the other quickly. I just don't think it's worth the trouble for me.

I will admit that I was not thrilled to have two apparently identical builds of Firefox, one of which had the feature (new Windows 11 machine) and one of which did not (old Windows 10). I haven't checked my Linux box.

Thanks, though, for the option to hide it (along with some other stuff I'm never going to use, like the AI chatbot).

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Fleuria — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 06:45:33 GMT

As someone with the same use case, this would be good if the side toolbar was hidden, so that the sidebar has nothing but the extension panel. This behaviour actually existed in previous versions of Firefox – in Firefox 132, turning on sidebar.revamp, hiding the sidebar and then toggling Sidebery would result in the new sidebar design containing only Sidebery, without Firefox’s toolbar to the side. The toolbar being hidden hides Firefox’s vertical tabs as well, if enabled; this behaviour lets me use Sidebery as my only tab interface, which is what I prefer.

The attached screenshot shows what this looked like in Firefox 132. The steps taken are:

In ‘Customize Firefox’, enable native title bars
Turn on sidebar.revamp in about:config
In ‘Customize Sidebar’, enable vertical tabs and set the sidebar to ‘show and hide’
Install Sidebery
Press the sidebar button to hide the sidebar
Press the Sidebery button to show only the Sidebery panel

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

TomH — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 09:03:53 GMT

Force enabling the new sidebar is not a "nudge to try it out" though, is it? It's shoving in our faces without even an easy way to turn it off!

A true nudge would be some sort of prompt asking if we wanted to give it a go and with a clear way to turn it off again if we decided we didn't like it.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Meistro — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:38:55 GMT

Thanks for the great work.

On my device seeing which sidebar item is highlighted is difficult. The border is too vague or there is no background change.

Which item is highlighted?

This maybe due to my OS's default dark settings? I use Linux Mint Cinnamon out of the box dark mode. I am on a mid-range laptop so I have even less contrast on my laptop screen then maybe you even see on a desktop monitor.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Landrynt27 — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 18:13:26 GMT

This new sidebar is a waste of space & irritating as hell. Give us the option to remove it ASAP. It brings nothing to me as a user but annoyance and wasted space.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

probablywrong — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:36:12 GMT

I have to say, the release notes are really lacking with Nightly. There's rarely an indication what changed between releases. I get that it might feel annoying for the dev team to have to get somebody to write up "we fixed some bugs that most of you won't understand or care about" but it's still pretty necessary imo, especially when there's been tweaks, feature changes, etc. I'm on the Nightly build because I want to help. Help me help you, Mozilla. Give me some basic release notes for each version.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

probablywrong — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 19:50:36 GMT

Just want to say I know most people are here to complain but I love the sidebar. It's the primary reason I wanted to move to Nightly. Much better than the massive chunk of vertical space that gets taken with horizontal tabs.

That said, I was using Zen Browser for a little while and I really loved the "compact mode" they had where you could choose to hide the top bar, sidebar, or both with a keyboard shortcut or by right-clicking on the sidebar. Really, really convenient. I had the top bar hidden probably 80% of the time in favor of more vertical space. Being able to mouse over the sidebar is really nice too again just to save space and only see these UI elements when I need them.

Also, I know it's in the works to make closing tabs easier, that's great, but the way many browsers do it, like say Vivaldi, where the tab icon turns into an X on mouse hover when it's the active tab has led to me accidentally closing tabs a lot when using those browsers. I would rather a X pop up in the corner of the tab preview on hover. That would also let me not have to make the tab active to get the button to close it. Just some feedback, not sure how you all plan to do it.

Anyway, great work, really appreciate the sidebar as it is and I'm excited to see how it evolves.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

barkersegg — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:44:21 GMT

Hi, dear Mozilla employees,

Today the sidebar enabled itself, full of useful tools such as:

- AI Chatbot
-
-
- And Much Much More!

This was incredibly frustrating. This, I daresay, was the highlight of my day. I mean this in a very bad way. The last thing I want to see when I sit down at my desk, weary from a long day's work, is that any software on my computer does something that I did not tell it to do. It could be as simple as not working, when I expect it to work. In this case, the thing it has done is enable 'Sidebar Revamp' in about:config.

This is at my most impassioned, this is a passionate plea for anyone out there who could possibly do something about this, this is me crying out from the depths of the abyss where apparently light never escapes, and an opaque wall between the developers and I - the end user - is always up and making conversation impossible: please, do not ever do this again.

By all means have a menu that opens and asks me if I want a cool sidebar with 'features' and such. Do not enable it automatically. I have my workflow. It works for me just fine. It does not need improving. If I feel it does, maybe I could be convinced to use such a sidebar, but it's not going to be by having it simply opened and enabled for me, in a non-consensual manner.

Thank you, that is all.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

m80 — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 01:44:12 GMT

Please do not remove the "sidebar.revamp" option in "about:config". I prefer to disable it over hiding it.

Matthew

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Encrypter — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 06:35:20 GMT

A collapsed tab group leaves a blank space where the tabs would have been if the group hadn't been collapsed.

Thank you!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

John906 — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 17:40:18 GMT

The sidebar needs to remember the view when last displayed and return to that view NOT the sidebar menu each time.

You took the worst time to implement this at the holiday shopping season when all of a sudden this feature appears and the customary bookmark sidebar disappears. I didn't need them to disappear when I was busy shopping and had saved a load of bookmarks to organize my shopping. So I panicked but was able to figure out how to manipulate this immature rendition of the sidebar. Restore the bookmarks and give users an opportunity to choose which they prefer. Don't force it on them without warning.

Also the new sidebar is too wide taking up valuable screen area from the web page being viewed, after all that is the primary purpose of the browser. Perhaps Control + B could display of the sidebar and cycle thru the 3 views. The first press should display the sidebar as last displayed, the next press begins cycling thru the 3 views.

And please, don't implement a user interface adjustment of this extent without offering a return to the previous setting.

Thanks

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

emanuela — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 01:41:47 GMT

Tab Groups are still in the early stages, but let's reassure everyone that work is ongoing. This has already been fixed in Nightly.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

Encrypter — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 03:12:00 GMT

Thank you for the update!

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

adong660 — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 07:43:44 GMT

Hello, I compared the side tabs of Microsoft Edge and Firefox, and I found that there is a point we can improve. The sidebar is under the Bookmarks Toolbar, which is not preferred: if we set Bookmarks Toolbar to be "Only show on new tab", then the side bar will be lower when we are in a new tab than when we are in other tabs, because when we are in a new tab there will be Bookmarks. That results in inconsistent positions of the sidebar. I think we should position the side bar on the left of Bookmarks Toolbar instead.

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

adong660 — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 07:46:19 GMT

The present implementation (in a new tab):

The present implementation (in any other tab):

Preferred (in a new tab or any other tab):

Re: Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

tpkee — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 13:09:54 GMT

I really like the sidebar, but I wish we could re-order the sections and pin/unpin some more extensions there. I *absolutely* hate that when the sidebar is opened it moves the whole webpage, it should be positioned absolute to the page, like a popup, not relative to it!