07-24-2024 01:14 PM - edited 08-08-2024 07:55 AM
Hi folks,
Vertical tabs and a new sidebar experience that make multitasking and context-switching easier are now available in Nightly 131. To try them, update to the latest Nightly and go to Settings > Firefox Labs, and activate the Sidebar and Vertical tabs experiments.
After you do this, you will be able to see the new sidebar, but you will still need to add the sidebar icon to the toolbar to be able to expand vertical tabs. Click Customize toolbar in the toolbar right-click menu, and drag the sidebar icon to your toolbar. This is a temporary situation, and in the future the icon will be added to the toolbar automatically.
A few things to keep in mind:
What we’re putting out there is something that we believe will help the majority of people using Firefox achieve their day-to-day tasks. We know there is no perfect solution for everyone and welcome your feedback to shape the direction we move forward in.
10-27-2024 01:56 AM
10-27-2024 02:11 AM
Nightly 134 is expected to release tomorrow. Hopefully at least we get auto expand.
10-30-2024 02:43 PM
This exactly!
10-28-2024 01:25 PM
Please, remove these two scrollbars, use just one, like Edge.
10-28-2024 01:39 PM - edited 10-28-2024 01:39 PM
These two buttons should be one, like Edge. Also the "setting" buttons in the vertical tabs should be inside this new button.
10-28-2024 03:41 PM - edited 10-29-2024 10:53 AM
I'd like to thank Mozilla for this initiative, I've been trying for a long time to eliminate tabs from my field of vision when I'm concentrating.
After several weeks of testing on the Nightly version and with Firefox classic on the side, I've noticed a feature I'd like to have, even with vertical tabs in the sidebar. It's called Firefox View.
I think it's a really nice feature, even when the tabs are on the side (I admit I'm having trouble with the new side history approach) and it refreshes the Library - History view a bit.
NB: For me, these are two complementary things.
I hope that my opinion will be listened to or that the functionality will last.
10-30-2024 05:13 PM
Edit: For Firefox View, I found where it was
Thanks.
10-29-2024 02:29 AM - edited 10-29-2024 02:32 AM
I am a long time user of vertical tabs with "vertical tabs reloaded" and user styles to hide horizontal tabs. I have tried out the new sidebar but don't like it:
1) hard links at the bottom of the side panel
- waste of space and distracting visual clutter. I am quite sensitive to it as it affects my concentration. When trying to find something, I just keep reading the text on buttons again and again and again. I need to remove such permanent warts.
- it makes no sense having it's own "settings" button and page when Firefox has integrated settings for everything else.
2) hiding the side panel turns into icons
- when I hide the panel it's because I care about the space because e.g. I am tiling narrow windows or because I going into a low distraction mode for reading or media. I want it properly gone.
- a dizzying mess of favicons from across the web is the last thing I want and it's rarely usable. I typically have multiple pages open from a single site so a favicon alone tells me very little.
3) indication of the currently active tab
- it's a bit too subtle to notice at a glance. Erring on subtle is my preference instead of something glaring and distracting but it's just a bit too hard to discern at the moment
10-29-2024 12:56 PM
Please take a look at how Zen implemented it and study from them, the current implementation of Firefox is too barebone, Zen is by far the closest browser that made perfect vertical tab, along side with Arc
10-30-2024 05:36 AM - edited 10-30-2024 05:59 AM
Zen has not been updated since 2022, I'll try Arc for now. Brave works nice with vertical tabs, don't understand why FF delay that feature.
Waterfox, palemoon, Basilic and others FF variants, what can you say about? thanks for the tip.
10-30-2024 06:25 AM
10-29-2024 05:18 PM - edited 10-29-2024 05:19 PM
While Horizontal Tabs look awesome, I felt like Vertical Tabs in Nightly were completely out of place layout-wise. It feels like a totally different browser to me. So, I chopped it out a bit and tried to "fix" it:
Topbar was disconnected from everything. And with Sidebar being fixed width that can't be changed, I aligned top icons in a similar manner to Arc or SigmaOS, and URL bar with the page.
Vertical Tabs themselves had a lot less padding, more radius and different shadow than Horizontal Tabs. I just kept it as-is, and it's a lot easier to scan, click target is larger, and it's prettier to look at.
I lowered the contrast for bottom sidebar items, they're a bit less distracting this way.
What do you think? Let me know!
10-30-2024 03:15 PM
Hi there!
My 2 cents.
10-30-2024 02:49 PM - edited 10-30-2024 02:50 PM
Hi again,
Kudos to the Firefox team for the great work on the Sidebar and Vertical Tabs! With enough polishing and taking into account community feedback, these features will turn out great! 🧡
I don't know if this is the right place for this kind of feedback, but I found the tab group and container indicator lines in the Sidebar a little overwhelming. Possibly, I'm not looking at the final design, but I created a quick mock-up in Paint to suggest how it could be made easier on the eyes (see attachment).
10-31-2024 02:55 AM - edited 10-31-2024 02:58 AM
10-31-2024 03:52 AM
Great work team, makes a lot of sense and definitly going it the right direction !
I understand some may have already been raised, but here are some feedbacks and insights on what could come to make this great :
All in all, this is definitely going in the right direction, and I'm really looking forward to where it lands ! Kuddos folks !
11-02-2024 11:51 PM
I've been playing with vertical tabs and the new sidebar and I'm loving it so far. Initially it was very rough but now I'm seeing a much more polished UI. Yes, there are some fundamental things (like having a close button on each tab) that need to be rolled out but I don't mind the little annoyance.
Kudos to the team for bring these features in my favourite browser.
11-03-2024 12:47 PM
Honestly, all I really want is the ability to use Sideberry instead - currently activating Sideberry with Vertical Tabs causes you to have two sets of vertical tabs at once which is annoying.
11-04-2024 05:56 AM - edited 11-04-2024 06:03 AM
Following up on my last comment, I realised it was possible to activate Tabs-Grouping in dev options, which I did.
When reducing the sidebar, all tabs name are hidden, but the icons are visible, which is expected behavior, perfect !
BUT : tabs-group names prevent the sidebar to totally reduce. It would be great if the font size was reduced a lot or the name were more truncated so no space is lost :
Also, when several tabs are in the same group, they are all underlined (which i suppose replicates the behavior of "top-tab" grouping mecanism). It'd be better if they were "boxed" together.
Also, when clicking a group-name to contract it (and hide all tabs in it), it does... nothing. When sidebar is contracted, it hides the icons. When sidebar is not contracted, it just changes the color of the group tab but doesn't hide the tabs themselves.
Grouptab + Sidebar working together is just what it takes to make it AMAZING !
Pinned tabs behavior looks good both in expended and contracted views, kudos !
11-04-2024 07:34 AM
Where are the dev options to activate tab groups?
11-04-2024 09:19 AM
Found it in about:config.
11-04-2024 08:26 AM
Maybe this is a bit niche but I'd love the option to have the tab layout swap between horizontal and vertical layouts dynamically with window size (vertical when the window is wider than tall, horizontal when it's taller than wide) or even just set it on a per-window basis for those of us who have our windows snapped in different layouts on different screens.
11-04-2024 11:18 PM
Okay, first of all, side/vertical tabs are great, always are
now that's out of the way, this is my first impressions (worth about 30 mins) using firefox's vertical tab options, really good, just that the way to close them is a bit of a hindrance, needs a close button, maybe when hovering over the tabs it expands just a tiny bit to show the X? just a bit of feedback, yep, that's all, because right clicking and then clicking "close tab" is annoying, if there's a better option it isn't obvious enough so there's that too
11-04-2024 11:24 PM
okay wait, i'm a bit stupid, let me rephrase stuff, just make it expand a tiny bit when hovering over the tabs imo, to show the close button, because having to either right click or actively click the expand side bar button is a hassle long term