6 ms·

It's funny, in the golden age of Firefox extensions sidebars where very popular, and when Chrome released without one people where complaining. The response wa

It's funny, in the golden age of Firefox extensions sidebars where very popular, and when Chrome released without one people where complaining. The response was that a popup that appears when you click a toolbar button was enough. It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it.

ionforce 11y ago
It's that whole 80/20 thing. Most features of products go unused. So Chrome has finally reached a level of maturity where it can concentrate on rarely used features.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Could be that some users are keeping and eye on Vivaldi. https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/
Gys 11y ago
I use Firefox by default with an add-on 'Vertical Tabs'. This moves all tabs away from the top into a narrow sidebar. Screens are more wide then tall and for me my vertical space is more valuable. Every line that holds only static info (address bar, open tabs) is not strictly needed at all times, so I want them either to popup (like the menu bar in full screen view) or at least move to the sides ('cheaper' space). I am somewhat surprised this is not more common opinion.
- malnourish 11y ago
  I use Tree Style Tabs as well. As you said, vertical space is a premium. Back in the day (and perhaps still), there were user chrome tweaks you could make to hide the address bar until you hover over it.
  - Retra 11y ago
    Vertical space is not really at a premium when it comes to viewing static documents under access to a scroll wheel. Why does the developer console open on the bottom, constraining your vertical space? Because there is such a dearth of horizontal space that that it would be uncomfortable to do otherwise. The reason things keep eating up vertical space is because that's the only space that's not at a premium.
    - sp332 11y ago
      Most monitors are 16:9 with the 16 being the horizontal dimension. It's also difficult to read very long lines of text, so my browser windows tend to be narrow and tall. When I use the developer console, I pop it out into another window and put it next to the original window.
      - Retra 11y ago
        Most monitors are 16:9 because horizontal space is more important than vertical.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Most monitors are 16:9 because horizontal space is more important than vertical. Most monitors are 16:9 because that aspect ratio fits certain popular entertainment media content that people consume, and a significant usage of general purpose computers is consuming that content (and, also, a significant use outside of general purpose computers of displays is for consuming that content, which effects the economics of producing panels.) That doesn't necessarily reflect the relative value of horizontal vs. vertical space in other applications.
        sp332 11y ago
        With a 1080p display, my windows only use half the screen, and I hardly ever feel that it's too narrow. What pages are you browsing that benefit from being wide?
    - ohaal 11y ago
      For me, vertical space IS at a premium. Especially when browsing the web. How many web pages do you see utilizing the full width of the monitor? Very few, which is also the reason I choose to dock my developer console to the right instead of the bottom. This also doubles as an easy way to resize the viewport when testing responsive design/media queries without resizing the entire window.
  - Gys 11y ago
    I am currently experimenting with 'Toolbar Autohide' (Firefox). It also hides the address bar and other tools. Meaning I now have the complete vertical screen space available for website content.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  That's the exact logic that MS had when they added the sidebar to Vista. It sounds good, but for some reason no one ended up actually interested in using it.
  - Gys 11y ago
    From my point of view, the OS is a completely different thing then the browser. Because an OS is not specifically vertically oriented, where websites (for 99% ?) are. Therefore I do not like some kind of default sidebar in my OS. I remember using a Vista machine for a short while and immediately looking for a way to disable it (also because it kept asking for widgets to put in there, if I am not mistaken; but that is besides the point).
Mahn 11y ago
> It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it. But that's because up until now we couldn't care about it anyway if Chrome didn't support it. Sidebars can easily make a comeback if the functionality proves to be useful, and I can picture many extension developers experimenting with it if it's made available.
- brlewis 11y ago
  From the API proposal doc: Additionally, we’ve seen numerous extensions create sidebars by injecting HTML content into the current page. It is likely that the majority of sidebar extensions would use a native sidebar if available. Here’s a sample of some of our favorite sidebar extensions... Some of these tools charge over $5,000/yr/seat and have hundreds of large corporations like Facebook, eBay, Salesforce, Pinterest, Twitter, and Netflix using their software, which demonstrates the immense value that can be provided by a sidebar.
digi_owl 11y ago
I still have ctrl+b and ctrl+h drilled into my fingers for when i want to dig something out of either bookmarks or history.

ionforce 11y ago

It's that whole 80/20 thing. Most features of products go unused. So Chrome has finally reached a level of maturity where it can concentrate on rarely used features.

digi_owl 11y ago
Could be that some users are keeping and eye on Vivaldi. https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/

Gys 11y ago

I use Firefox by default with an add-on 'Vertical Tabs'. This moves all tabs away from the top into a narrow sidebar. Screens are more wide then tall and for me my vertical space is more valuable. Every line that holds only static info (address bar, open tabs) is not strictly needed at all times, so I want them either to popup (like the menu bar in full screen view) or at least move to the sides ('cheaper' space). I am somewhat surprised this is not more common opinion.

malnourish 11y ago
I use Tree Style Tabs as well. As you said, vertical space is a premium. Back in the day (and perhaps still), there were user chrome tweaks you could make to hide the address bar until you hover over it.
- Retra 11y ago
  Vertical space is not really at a premium when it comes to viewing static documents under access to a scroll wheel. Why does the developer console open on the bottom, constraining your vertical space? Because there is such a dearth of horizontal space that that it would be uncomfortable to do otherwise. The reason things keep eating up vertical space is because that's the only space that's not at a premium.
  - sp332 11y ago
    Most monitors are 16:9 with the 16 being the horizontal dimension. It's also difficult to read very long lines of text, so my browser windows tend to be narrow and tall. When I use the developer console, I pop it out into another window and put it next to the original window.
    - Retra 11y ago
      Most monitors are 16:9 because horizontal space is more important than vertical.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Most monitors are 16:9 because horizontal space is more important than vertical. Most monitors are 16:9 because that aspect ratio fits certain popular entertainment media content that people consume, and a significant usage of general purpose computers is consuming that content (and, also, a significant use outside of general purpose computers of displays is for consuming that content, which effects the economics of producing panels.) That doesn't necessarily reflect the relative value of horizontal vs. vertical space in other applications.
      - sp332 11y ago
        With a 1080p display, my windows only use half the screen, and I hardly ever feel that it's too narrow. What pages are you browsing that benefit from being wide?
  - ohaal 11y ago
    For me, vertical space IS at a premium. Especially when browsing the web. How many web pages do you see utilizing the full width of the monitor? Very few, which is also the reason I choose to dock my developer console to the right instead of the bottom. This also doubles as an easy way to resize the viewport when testing responsive design/media queries without resizing the entire window.
- Gys 11y ago
  I am currently experimenting with 'Toolbar Autohide' (Firefox). It also hides the address bar and other tools. Meaning I now have the complete vertical screen space available for website content.
MichaelGG 11y ago
That's the exact logic that MS had when they added the sidebar to Vista. It sounds good, but for some reason no one ended up actually interested in using it.
- Gys 11y ago
  From my point of view, the OS is a completely different thing then the browser. Because an OS is not specifically vertically oriented, where websites (for 99% ?) are. Therefore I do not like some kind of default sidebar in my OS. I remember using a Vista machine for a short while and immediately looking for a way to disable it (also because it kept asking for widgets to put in there, if I am not mistaken; but that is besides the point).

Mahn 11y ago

> It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it. But that's because up until now we couldn't care about it anyway if Chrome didn't support it. Sidebars can easily make a comeback if the functionality proves to be useful, and I can picture many extension developers experimenting with it if it's made available.

brlewis 11y ago
From the API proposal doc: Additionally, we’ve seen numerous extensions create sidebars by injecting HTML content into the current page. It is likely that the majority of sidebar extensions would use a native sidebar if available. Here’s a sample of some of our favorite sidebar extensions... Some of these tools charge over $5,000/yr/seat and have hundreds of large corporations like Facebook, eBay, Salesforce, Pinterest, Twitter, and Netflix using their software, which demonstrates the immense value that can be provided by a sidebar.

digi_owl 11y ago

I still have ctrl+b and ctrl+h drilled into my fingers for when i want to dig something out of either bookmarks or history.