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.
11-05-2024 09:22 AM
You can middle click the tab to close it too. Also works with multiselected tabs.
11-05-2024 09:08 AM
i really like how we now have the addressbar shrink down now 😄
really coming along nicely~ kudos guys~
11-06-2024 07:26 AM
Same as @witherzuo :
> Vertical tabs can be designed to expand and collapse automatically - just like Microsoft Edge, vertical tabs expand automatically when the mouse is moved into the vertical tabs, and collapse automatically when the mouse is moved out, and then provide a setting: Maximize, Minimum, and Auto-Expanding (there may be a better design).
11-06-2024 07:58 AM
I’d like to suggest consolidating the “Expand Sidebar,” “Customize Sidebar,” and “List All Tabs” buttons into a single, unified button, similar to the “Tab Actions Menu” in Microsoft Edge. This would provide a more streamlined and user-friendly experience by reducing visual clutter and simplifying navigation.
Additionally, integrating sidebar settings directly into Firefox’s main Preferences menu would make customization easier by centralizing options in one accessible location.
Thank you for considering these enhancements for a more efficient and intuitive Firefox experience!
11-07-2024 08:07 PM
really enjoying the implementation, upon testing alternative browser which try to achieve this functionality (arc, edge, orion and zen), this is hands down the best IMO, because of the snappy experience without getting in the way, also I do really like how the history and AI chatbot sections show when the sidebar is collapsed. PLEASE add the keyboard shortcut (customizable) for the expand/collapse sidebar toggle, it's the only thing lacking for keyboard-oriented productive users. thnx!!
11-09-2024 05:59 AM - edited 11-09-2024 06:02 AM
Hey, amazing feature, I love it!
It would be nice to be able to hide the compact sidebar.
For now we have two options:
- Expand or compress the sidebar
- Hide or show the full sidebar.
Tho, there is no option to have an always compact sidebar and being able to hide it.
I think it should not actually a radio button here but a checkbox button. Like that we can use expand/collapse and also show/hide sidebar.
Actually we need two buttons with no option.
11-11-2024 10:25 AM - edited 11-11-2024 10:27 AM
I've recently switched my Firefoxes to use the new sidebar + vertical tabs as it finally became usable. Thanks a lot!
My issues with the current implementation are:
11-14-2024 11:11 AM
I've been using Vertical Tabs since ~ 15 years and consider myself a power user. Here's what I think is extremely useful:
Vertical tabs combined with Mousewheel Switches Tabs will give you a super comfortable browsing experience, becauses to comfortably switch tabs, you just move the mouse a little to the left and use the mousewheel. (It's also a very good alternative when comparing tabs with Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown.)
12-18-2024 12:21 AM
I have to say that I'm against all of those.
Having said that, I think that the Mozilla guys should primarily focus on the basic functionality of the vertical tabs and make sure that it works quickly and efficiently.
The "improvements" you're suggesting, if they ever materialise, should come much, much later.
11-16-2024 03:26 AM
A great feature, but few things in aesthetics term
it's a bit weird for the vertical tabs button to be offset to the right, should be on the vertical tab or right above it
second of all, when the firefox window usually has the round corners, shouldn't the opened tab space also have the rounded corners? or be separated from everything else in a more thoughtful manner?
11-16-2024 06:12 AM - edited 11-16-2024 06:44 AM
Dear Firefox Development Team,
I’d like to suggest a few enhancements to improve the user experience:
Thank you for considering these improvements to make Firefox a more efficient and intuitive browser!
11-21-2024 01:53 PM
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. 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 already requested, including:
As usual, we appreciate your patience as we iron out the rough spots in the experience. I've also started a new thread for the release feedback, which you can find here.
11-21-2024 02:26 PM
Yay, can we opt-in in it?
11-26-2024 03:18 PM
Hi!
Not yet, unfortunately, as experiments pick people randomly to ensure the statistical significance of the results, but we are working on making some form of opt-in available very early in 2025.
12-19-2024 10:33 AM
You can enable it in about:config:
sidebar.revamp
12-19-2024 11:01 AM
For what is this setting?
sidebar.revamp
12-19-2024 01:56 PM
To opt-in to using the new sidebar that is hidden by default for most people. While some people may not care, I did a reinstall of my system and was missing my vertical tabs so had to figure out how to enable them again.
11-24-2024 04:31 AM
I would like it a lot more if it were separate from the toolbar
11-24-2024 12:28 PM
Right now the option to use vertical tabs in a show/hide fashion is broken.
If you change the sidebar button to show/hide the sidebar and have it hidden, using any other sidebar(bookmarks/history/addons etc) will result in the sidebar being shown afterwards instead of being hidden.
11-24-2024 09:54 PM
The new vertical tabs implementation is awesome. Eagerly waiting for the expand on hover to be implemented and tab groups to be polished.
I would also like this corner to be rounded, it doesn't look good on any OS with rounded windows.
11-25-2024 04:25 PM
It's great so far! the one thing I'd like to change or configure is whether tabs opened from pinned tabs are inserted at the top or bottom. They're currently inserted at the top, which means I have to scroll all the way up to get to them. I'd like them to be added at the bottom of the sidebar / tab list.
11-27-2024 02:44 AM
I believe vertical tabs are a bit of a hype these days 🙂 To each their own, and they might be useful if you got !own of those very wide screens. But for me, they are annoying and pretty useless!
11-27-2024 04:43 AM
Hi.
I've started using vertical tabs on the latest Firefox version, and it's been working great! Thanks for all the work on that!
The only thing that would make it better would be to have an option to expand it on hover, so that we can have the maximum screen space for pages, as well as being able to see the tabs titles when trying to switch between them. It's also hard to close tabs when the vertical tabs are collapsed.
11-27-2024 07:00 AM
I don't like the sidebar option at all, but then again, I'm an autistic person who instinctively dislikes any new features. I would prefer an option to completely disable it and an old view of history, without having to close sidebar after opening history.
But please, I'm begging you: bring back the "sort by date AND website" function!! And not "when you get to it", but as soon as possible! I won't be able to find anything without this feature.
11-27-2024 07:24 AM
The sidebar is optional, you can turn it off. I have it off. And the "sort by date and site" still exists when you view History in the side bar. This might only appear once you turn off the vertical tabs.
The way I can turn it on and of is with about:preferences#experimental . There is a checkbox next to Vertical Tabs. (I'm using Firefox Nightly. That option doesn't show in in Release. I don't know what version you are using.)
11-27-2024 07:31 AM
I can only see a tiny handful of options in Firefox Laboratory preferences, with probably none of them having anything to do with vertical tabs. I have Firefox 133 and the sidebar option just appeared out of nowhere today, not even first thing in the morning.
11-27-2024 07:36 AM
As for the settings I have when opening sidebar settings... (Sorry, it might not correspond to the English version, my Firefox display language is Polish - because I'm used to it, even though I'm also a fluent English speaker.) Firefox tools - all "off" (should I set History to "on" to enable date & website sorting??), sidebar panel - display and hide sidebar, sidebar position - on the left, tab settings - horizontal tabs. Which would mean that I DON'T have "vertical tabs" on, but I still don't know how to disable sidebar and bring back old history sorting option.
11-27-2024 07:56 AM
Hi Ewa! My apologies for causing you inconvenience, and I totally understand the need to sort for website and date.
One quick fix that you can go for is to:
- type about:config in your search bar,
- accept the warning you will see, then in the search bar of the page that opens search for sidebar.revamp,
- change it to false by clicking the Toggle button on the right.
- you should be able to see the old sidebar after this, with all the History sorting options.
Also, please feel free to post questions/screenshots in Polish, I'm a fluent speaker (but it's faster for me to respond in English about technical matters).
11-27-2024 08:03 AM
Oh thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for. And earlier I panicked and tried to downgrade Firefox, only to discover that it would mean losing all history records... fortunately, I reinstalled version 133 and could go back to my previous user profile.
And to use an onometopoeic in Polish, because I don't really know an English equivalent: ufffff... ("What a relief")
11-27-2024 08:07 AM
Oh, and by the way... I already got used to using Ctrl-H to open history tab, but I would really like it if the option to open it by clicking was brought back. Now when I click the history button on top bar, there's no option to simply open it, only the most recent pages are displayed and a possibility to change settings.
11-27-2024 07:38 AM
I have to point out that the scrolling of the sidebar tabs is sluggish. However, the "List all tabs" drop-down list scrolls like a bullet. Please make sure you do something about the scrolling speed of the vertical tabs!
Note: other vertical tabs add-ons (VTR, Sideberry) all scroll very fast as well.
11-28-2024 12:10 AM
This is a absolute great start
A few user experience thoughts
11-28-2024 03:08 AM - edited 11-28-2024 03:11 AM
There is also a weird thing with the now unified toolbar: there are two empty spaces, one at the very left, one at the right, between the control buttons (close, resize, minimise) and the rest. The left one, when the window is maximised, disappears. The right one remains. Waste of space and it looks like a bug.
Screenshot for reference.
11-28-2024 03:18 AM - edited 11-28-2024 03:19 AM
I don't have an empty space on the left side, but the blank space on the right is needed to be able to drag the window, as there is no window title bar.
PS: The horizontal tab bar also has this space.
11-28-2024 06:35 AM
Blank spaces can be customised in Firefox settings (three lines icon - More tools - Customise toolbar, or however the option is called in English). You can get rid of unneeded blank spaces this way.
11-28-2024 10:24 AM
Unfortunately, this space is not part of the configurable area.
11-29-2024 01:35 AM
These spaces cannot be touched. Cannot be moved. Cannot be removed. They're just there.
11-28-2024 04:26 PM
@skagon wrote:There is also a weird thing with the now unified toolbar: there are two empty spaces, one at the very left, one at the right, between the control buttons (close, resize, minimise) and the rest.
The title bar has "drag space" to allow moving a window when it's resizable without accidentally activating anything. On the left end, the space is created by this element:
<hbox class="titlebar-spacer" type="pre-tabs"></hbox>
That one has a CSS rule that hides it with display: none when it's not a resizable window.
The element on the right before the 3 buttons is:
<hbox class="titlebar-spacer" type="post-tabs"></hbox>
There's no similar rule to remove the post-tabs spacer in a maximized window. You could start a new Idea thread to shrink or eliminate that one.
11-29-2024 01:23 AM
Excellent info, thanks! About that new thread, I think I'll want until the vertical tabs thing has matured a bit more. Frankly, now that I know it's not a bug, I'm confident that, at some point, it'll be fixed. I'm more worried about the vertical tabs scrolling being sluggish like a wet sponge. THAT has to be fixed!
11-29-2024 07:46 AM
Another horrible 'feature'.
And ofc you just had to fk the browser up just to enable it. GREAT.