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.

 

[ardetahost]

sidebar then bookmark... why not set float ? (the bookmark).. it really "fat"

[DonutRush]

The release branch version of vertical tabs have several visual annoyances that weren’t present in the preview versions that really should be reverted.

• The tabs now have a strange amount of spacing between each of them, wasting space on the sidebar.
• The tabs now have a big X that appears on hover that covers a significant portion of the tab, leading to accidental closures if you are trying to quickly switch tabs with the mouse. This was not an issue in the preview versions.
• This issue is compounded when the tab is playing media, the mute switch does the same thing in the opposite corner of the tab. So now you have to pixel hunt.

I *could* use keyboard shortcuts to navigate tabs to get around these latter irritations but sometimes I just wanna use my dang mouse. I’m not sure the reasons why these were changed but it’s a pretty obvious visual and functional downgrade from preview. Please let us change it back.

edit: grabbed an example pic from reddit since I’m not at my desktop. look at how messy this is

[hute37]

Tried new vertical layout in FF.136.
Nice, but i Have several pinned tabs with active web-icon (GMail, Slack, WhatsApp, etc )

I can show only 5 pinned tabs. I haven’t find an easy way (mouse or about:config) to resize (enlarge) pinned tabs area.

[hute37]

FF.136. Is it possible to have tab title tooltip on mouse move over the tab icons ?

[probablywrong]

Please unlink the "expand sidebar" button from vertical tabs. I never want the sidebar expanded so it's annoying that whenever I remove the button from my toolbar, Firefox also just hides vertical tabs altogether. It's annoying.

Also, I would love an option to hide/expand the top navigation bar on mouseover and only have my narrow strip of vertical tabs always showing. That was what initially drew me to Zen Browser but I'd much, much rather just be on regular Firefox.

[sephigruen]

I only want two things: the option to expand the sidebar on mouse hover (already wip, iirc?) and the option to make the expanded sidebar float instead of shifting around the site layout. I'm used to it from Vivaldi and it would make life on my little netbook much easier.

[Raygen]

Please gives us an option to HIDE the extensions form the sidebar.
I don't want to REMOVE the extension! Just hide its icon!

[hselaps]

I love the new sidebar - firefox looks even more sleek and modern.
I do also love the vertical tabs - though so much so that I stuck with TreeStyleTabs - the Tree aspect is just too useful to ditch it for the native implementation.

[asafko]

Hi folks,

Updated sidebar and native vertical tabs are now live in Firefox 136 (stable channel). Thank you so much for all your feedback, patience, and ideas voiced in this thread. We wouldn't be where we are without y'all's bug reporting, pointing the cumbersome parts of experience, and stress-testing the earliest version.

It's a soft launch for both features, and we're still polishing things, so please peek into this post to:

• check how to turn vertical tabs and the new sidebar on (tl;dr - toolbar or tab strip context menu is a quick way to turn on the vertical tabs)
• what improvements we're prioritizing next.

We will try to consolidate feedback and future improvement requests in that newer post🙌.

[Jon]

Sidebar and vertical tabs are now officially in Firefox 136 🎉

@asafko and the team working on these exciting features just kicked off a new discussion thread, which also includes instructions on how to enable it along with a sneak peek at what's next. Please check it out and share all new feedback there:

Sidebar and Vertical Tabs Launch in Release 136 

With that in mind, we will close this thread out to new comments (everything will still be visible, but again we are directing all new posts to the release thread linked above).

See ya over there 🙌