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.

[NR2BJ]

is there a way to change sidebar scroll speed? I have a lot of tabs, but its too slow to scroll up and down. I don't want to change the whole scroll speed in firefox, just the sidebar

[probablywrong]

Just want to say I love the new implementation of one-click closing vertical tabs. Perfect. No accidental closes, extremely easy to understand, works flawlessly. Nice work, folks.

[wirdoworld]

I really liking the vertical tabs, especially since the close tab icon is now there, the only issue I'm currently running into is that in full screen mode the vertical tabs don't hide automatically like the horizontal tabs do.

Edit: I realize now that it is the sidebar that does not hide when in fullscreen mode, not just the vertical tabs. I would still like the sidebar to hide in fullscreen mode just like the menu bar.

[CapedCrusader]

Dear Firefox Development Team,

I’d like to share some suggestions that I believe could significantly improve the user experience in Firefox. I often switch between using Arc and Firefox, but there are a few changes I’d love to see in Firefox that would make it my primary browser. Here are my key recommendations:

1. Unify Sidebar Buttons: Combine 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 streamline the interface, reduce visual clutter, and simplify navigation.
2. Centralized Sidebar Settings: Move sidebar customization options into the main Preferences menu. Centralizing these settings would make them easier to access and manage.
3. Simplify Scrollbars for Tabs: Currently, there are separate scrollbars for pinned tabs and other tabs. This makes it challenging to view all pinned tabs at once. A single scrollbar for both pinned and regular tabs, like in Microsoft Edge, would greatly improve usability and ensure all tabs are easily visible and accessible.
4. Keyboard Shortcut for Expanding/Collapsing Tabs: Add a keyboard shortcut for expanding or collapsing the tabs sidebar, similar to the Arc browser’s functionality. This would allow users to quickly manage their tab view without relying solely on mouse interactions. This feature is particularly important to me and would significantly improve my workflow.
5. Automatic Expand/Collapse on Mouse Hover: Enable the tabs sidebar to automatically expand when the user hovers near it and collapse when the mouse moves away. This behavior, similar to Microsoft Edge, would make navigation more dynamic and reduce the need for manual clicks.
6. Tab Grouping/Workspaces: Introduce a feature for organizing tabs into groups or workspaces. This would help users manage multiple tasks or contexts, such as work, personal projects, and research, in a more structured and efficient way.
7. Improved Memory Management for Tabs: Enhance memory management by allowing users to hibernate inactive tabs, either manually or automatically. This feature, like Edge’s “Sleeping Tabs,” would free up system resources and improve overall performance.

I’d particularly like to highlight the importance of simplifying scrollbars for tabs and adding a keyboard shortcut for expanding/collapsing tabs. These features are essential for me to transition fully from Arc to Firefox as my primary browser. Please prioritize these enhancements to make Firefox even more efficient and user-friendly.

Thank you for considering these suggestions. I look forward to seeing how Firefox continues to evolve!

[ggppjj]

It is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to accidentally close tabs when the sidebar is minimized. Please add auto-expand quickly.

[noname1966]

Yes as

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@ggppjj wrote:

 Please add auto-expand quickly.

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[vroby65]

the button to close the compressed tabs is great. only that it must be to the right and not to the left at least in case the bar is on the left

[_kud]

Hi. Thank you so much for this feature; it's really great. However, you guys added a cross on the tabs, and it's really painful for me.

1. I think they should be shown only on hover.
2. Since they are here, I misclick a lot, especially on a Google Meet tab because there is also the icon for sound. So, between the cross and the sound icon, it's hard to click on the tab now. I mostly use my keyboard to close a tab, and I would like to hide those crosses to be fair.