Firefox Sidebar and Vertical tabs: try them out in Nightly Firefox Labs 131

[asafko]

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:

• This work is still very much in progress and has some rough edges, functionally and visually. You’ll see us improve and polish things over the coming months.
• We will be sharing our informal backlog of improvements in this post today, so you can get a sense for where we ultimately want these features to be.
• To design this first version, we conducted extensive research, talked to many Firefox users to understand their multitasking and context-switching needs, and prototyped extensively to find the best solutions to address them.

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.

[asafko]

Hi folks,

Thank you for all the feedback!

@skagon As @heftig  pointed out, there’s a need for draggable space in the window, however, we agree with you that space on the right is visually awkward.
We’re working towards a solution that would leave ample space to drag the window around, but will avoid the "blank spaces" on the window edges.

Changing the width of the vertical tabs is available in the latest Nightly.

[GBJ]

It´s fantastic addon. But, to close tabs needs mouse hover function and close, if it´s possible.

Great work!.

[eetazeeba]

Was not a huge fan of the surprise addition of the sidebar. Took a trip to the wider internet and other user comments to figure out how to hide the bar. The sidebar button is very unobtrusive, to the point I overlooked it till toggling the "Expand and collapse sidebar" to "Show and hide sidebar" highlighted it.

The expand/collapse and show/hide settings have some interesting interactions. If expanded, then switched to show/hide, there is no way to collapse the bar again without opening the settings back up. Not sure what the intended behavior is, but my expectation would be expand/collapse function to be independent, and available when the toolbar is set to show/hide.

[Lasercat]

If I make a video full screen, the vertical tabs resize to be just icons when I exit the video.

[Grapes]

Excellent work! I am preparing to switch from Arc (MacOS) and Edge (Windows) to Firefox.

I am a heavy sidebar user, and while Firefox now meets my basic needs, it is still inconvenient in some aspects.

In Arc, I can easily pin tabs and create folders to manage these frequently used tabs. I usually pin documents and pages that I use frequently for work. Currently, I use Firefox's bookmarks bar to replace this feature, but it is not as convenient.

Additionally, I hope there is a shortcut to quickly expand and collapse the sidebar, as I usually focus on one document at a time during work.

In Edge, a feature I like (though it's not crucial for me) is having sidebars on both the left and right sides. I pin frequently used apps, like Gmail and ChatGPT, in the right sidebar.

[vuong]

When I hover on sidebar button on top bar, it shown me ^Z (control+Z) could help to to Expand/Hide, but I tried and it didn't work.

[Pfize183]

On hover I got CTRL + ALT + Z and it works.

[vuong]

Thanks, I guess you're using Windows.

I've tried with Ctrl+Option+Z (MacOS) but still doesn't work.

[PatriceGr]

CTRL + ALT + Z doesn't work on my Nightly…

I prefer definitely Vertical Tabs (the module) or Tree Tabs that use F1 to switch. And I can change the shortcut if I want.

[yota]

I also hope it is customizable.

[Volcomode]

Nice touch but the hotkey to the sidebar is kind of annoying to use <ctrl+ alt + z> sometimes site's like whatsapp, discord, telegram just wont take the hotkey because <ctrl + z> exist to undo a chad in the text box which is sort of annoying and have to click on the button manually using a mouse.

So changing the key bind to something like <ctrl + \> or <ctrl + /> might be healthier or giving a option to change the hotkey to personal pref...

[vuong]

Cmd+B is normally a shortcut for show/hide sidebar in many app, so I guess it's a unofficial standard by somehow. I think it would be a lot better if sidebar itself could manage Bookmarks/Opened tabs/etc.. tab containers, so I would need to press Cmd+B and it should show me the last tab container.

[Renn]

For this collapse sidebar, I hope it can be moved into the context menu on the sidebar instead of a dedicated button, I think most people keep it in one state and don't change it often, but it cannot be removed either because they are needed from time to time (go to history from sidebar and close the history bar, the expanded sidebar will become collapsed).

[MullerVon]

lol theres been multiple posts on reddit where reversing the order of the controls happened to people and it was not something they had attempted to do so... hmm. interesting

anyway, checkout firemanga.com
its possible, probably, but its complicated(ish)

[PatriceGr]

Hello,

Alt + CTRL + Z doesn't work on my Windows 11. I use this kind for keymap : http://mjulier.free.fr/clavier/ (the Linux keymap). Alt + CTRL + Z work on my Adobe Photoshop. So the key works, but not in Firefox.

The best solution, it to permit the user to use another key if he want or when a problem like I have occurs.

[Pfize183]

Every single streaming website that I use on Nightly doesn't work since the latest nighly update (except youtube). For example: paramount, disneyplus, prime video. Maybe DRM problems again? No problem with these sites on chrome or edge.

[bjherbison]

Have you tried Troubleshooting Mode or a new profile? (Don't remove the old profile, just use a new profile for temporary testing.)
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues-using-troubleshoot-mode
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

A better place to discuss Nightly issues is on the Matrix. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix:Join
https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#nightly:mozilla.org

[Pfize183]

I reinsalled Windows 11 because another problem and have now a clean install of nighly and still the same problem with these streaming stites.

[bjherbison]

This isn't a support thread, and the thread topic is the sidebar. I don't use Windows 11. If you want to talk to someone who can help you a better place to discuss Nightly issues is on the Matrix. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix:Join
https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#nightly:mozilla.org
There's another room for media issues: https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#media:mozilla.org

[Pfize183]

I've been here in this thread since nighly 131 and have always shared bugs. Why can't I do that anymore?

[bjherbison]

No one said you couldn't share bugs here. But the support page for this web site says this isn't the correct forum for bug reports and isn't the correct forum for support. Here is text from the Support page for Mozilla Connect:

• Where should I go for product support?
  Visit Mozilla Support for help with any technical or performance-related issues. There you can ask any how-to questions in our discussions forums or get self-service conveniently with articles from our extensive Knowledge Base.
• Where do I submit bug reports?
  Please submit any bug reports to our Bugzilla site. That way the issue can be properly tracked and addressed by our internal teams.

And if you want to ignore the intended use of this site, you still chose a bad location. If you want to draw useful attention to your problem the place to report it is an on-topic thread or in a new thread. Hiding a video display issue in a discussion of the sidebar isn't a good way to receive appropriate attention.

Edit: My goal wasn't to tell you not to report bugs. My goal was to tell you of a place where you could get help on your problem. It seems like a support issue and not a bug as I haven't heard other reports of a large number of video sites not working on Nightly.