Sidebar and vertical tabs: release channel experimentation

[asafko]

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.

 

[asafko]

Hi! Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback. Having you list specific use cases of keyboard navigation that are important to you is very helpful(it's not something the browser tracks, hence it's tough to quantify how many folks use them with any regularity). We are working to bring the new History panel to parity on quite a few items you mentioned, but it will take a few releases to get there.

[tilwiti]

Will there be a User Study?

[Maestro_V]

The newest version removed the firefox theme from the sidebar

Also , kindly add expand on hover feature

[jclulow]

This new misfeature was just sprung on me with the update to Firefox 134.0, and it's awful.  It adds 60-70 dead pixels on the left of every browser window, and it doesn't appear to have an "off" button?!  If you right click in the dead space trying to find a way to turn it off, it seems to conflate all of the dead space with whichever extension (e.g., Bitwarden) has displayed a button most directly above the dead space, so you get a "Remove extension" option which seems like something you could click on to remove the bar -- except obviously it's now trying to remove the extension, which is basically a dangerous misdirection.

Why is this on by default?  Why is there no immediate "please, no, turn that off" button prominently displayed?  The new toolbar button only allows you to choose to make it even bigger or the original size?

The only reason to use Firefox instead of Chrome is to retain some small amount of control over your Internet browsing and your computing devices.  If Mozilla is going to start forcing things like this on people, there will be literally no reason not to just accept Chrome.

[absolutelynot]

> If you’re not ready to engage with these new features

The usage of A/B testing and refusal to treat users as human beings is absolutely disgusting. You don't get to decide what is good for other people and decide that they're just not ready when they reject your forced ideas.

[absolutelynot]

It's like you're trying to treat users with the same disdain that Google does, without having Google's power to coerce them into using your product anyways.

[Serandel]

I just want to say that the new sidebar is far from perfect but good enough to have made me abandon Arc and return to Firefox in all my computers, both work and personal.

I look forward to improvements to tab groups (nearly useless with vertical tabs in the sidebar) and being able to resize the sidebar (as I use an ultrawide monitor, I would really want to drag it to be wider).

But congrats to the company, you won one user back!

And I'm absolutely appalled by some of the destructive criticism I'm seeing in this thread. I hope Mozilla takes the useful feedback but just ignore tantrums.

[probablywrong]

Agreed. I made a similar switch a while back: first to Zen Browser (a Firefox fork) then to Firefox Nightly. The vertical tabs implementation is good here (and getting better, as evidenced in the latest Nightly) and people are being honestly ridiculous. I get being frustrated by a feature you don't want, but good lord.

[alcornoqui]

Long-time Tree Style Tabs user here. I miss TST now that I'm giving this sidebar a try, but at the same time it's a complicated extension and I still had to use additional CSS tweaks to get what I wanted, so I'm willing to sacrifice some features for a native and more simple functionality.

My main asks are:

1. Autoexpand: I'd like to be able to remove the toggle button and autoexpand on mouse hover.
2, related to 1: Configurable width of contracted sidebar. Just like the sidebar width can be changed with drag and drop when expanded, the contracted position shouldn't be fixed at X pixels (weirdly, it lets us drag and drop too, but with no effect, is it planned?).
3. A keyboard shortcut for expand/contract.
4. Keep the possibility of tweaks through userChrome.css (aka Keep Power Users Happy).

Thanks for all the work you're doing, Firefox+uBlock Origin is still the best browser.

[ThreeFatSamurai]

I have followed these stupid instructions on how to remove this **bleep** sidebar that’s literally about to send me into an autistic meltdown and it still won’t go away. What it did instead was get BIGGER. I’m going back to chrome. 

[myspace]

It's growing on me. Now just trying to get used to the vertical tabs with tab groups experience. 

[Slusho]

I have been using Arc and Zen for months and I'm so happy this feature is now on Firefox! I do have some feedback:

1. I prefer how Arc has a line that separates "pinned" and non-pinned tabs, and the pinned ones return back to their set URL (including the grid they call Favorites and Firefox calls Pins).

2. Firefox is a bit visually busy, with the "AI chatbot", "Tabs from other devices", etc buttons at the bottom of the sidebar that could just be icons, tabs not being renamable (this is a consequence of my first point), and a lot of icons in the top right. Also, the Groups are fairly ugly in my opinion, and spacing/sizing in the Pinned grid and vertical tab list could be adjusted/increased a bit so play/pause buttons aren't almost covering icons, etc.

3. I want the option for the sidebar and tabs to sync between machines 1:1 rather than being only accessible through one of the several "Tabs from other devices" areas in Firefox. This allows you to pick up what you were doing when you switch to a different computer. I've seen other people say this is what is keeping them from switching back to Firefox.

4. I would like an option to move everything (address bar, extensions) to the sidebar, to give more vertical space in the way Zen does it with an expansion of the top bar on mouseover to make minimize/maximize/close buttons appear, or even just leave everything where it is and have it hide until mouseover.

5. The option to have grids within Groups so you have multiple separated grids of tabs is something I've seen people try in Zen using custom CSS and I think the idea has merit.

6. When you expand a Group and the sidebar becomes full so that you have to scroll up and down, it puts you at the bottom rather than the top, which means you have to now scroll up in order to collapse the Group again, which is annoying.

[FoxandCatFan]

Hi, I really like the new sidebar and vertical tabs (Using Firefox Nightly, if that's important). One feature that would make the experience really good is if you could implement a keyboard shortcut that presses the sidebar button. I like using the sidebar as an immersion/focus type deal, since I don't have to see the other tabs I have unless I expand the sidebar ( I previously used fullscreen mode to achieve a similar effect, but not being able to see my extensions and other buttons annoyed me; the new approach suits me personally more).