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Brief Summary
It might be nice to add a subtle border and background change for pinned tabs favicons. This would make some icons much easier to see when using Orion in dark mode.

Details:
Currently when you are in dark mode, some favicons are either really hard to see, while others are completely invisible (Github's when window is out of focus). When the browser is not in focus, like when it is on a 2nd monitor for example, the color dims making most dark favicons completely invisible so you just have to go off of memory on where the favicons are for each site. Even with Orion back in focus you have to squint to see some dark favicons in dark mode for pinned tabs in the sidebar.

See Arc's for an example of how they add a little bit of padding, a background color shift, and a border to pinned icons to make them visible no matter what background color the user is on.

Image/Video:
GitHub icon being invisible with dark mode Orion out of focus. There are two icons here, one is almost invisible while the GitHub one is completely invisible (at least to my eyes lol)

Arc for example of how we could implement something similar (but Orions is always better =P)

Edit: okay actually even when focused sometimes the sidebar is so dark that GitHub and other favicons are invisible, not sure why sometimes it lightens up a little bit

    a year later
    Merged 1 post from Border and background color for pinned tabs favicon's in sidebar.
      Vlad changed the title to Larger icon/show title for pinned tabs in sidebar .

        Looks like a lot of users coming from Arc want to have this feature. I would really want to understand the main reason behind the need (is it visual/aesthetic only or there is functional?) so we cna better understand the need.

        • 8pxl replied to this.

          Vlad hi, just made the switch! i like to pin many tabs of the same website (google docs, amazon, documentation, etc), and I need the titles in order to distinguish between these. also, it can be difficult to recognize a pinned tab based on just the favicon alone, especially when pinning unfamiliar websites.

          slightly unrelated but the drag to pin feature is missed šŸ™

          • Vlad replied to this.

              8pxl Ok so it is mainly about if there are two pins of the same website, it is not clear which is which. And making them larger so that titles would show, would solve that?

              I just tried Arc, and it appears the icons are just larger with no additional text or distinction?

                  Vlad arc has bookmarks which display just the icons, as well as pinned tabs (which display as normal tabs but are pinned to the top).

                  personally i use the pinned tabs for more temporary things that i still want to have quick reference to, while bookmarks are website that i'll visit daily.

                  an icon changing option would also be helpful, but personally i dont think it should be a replacement for showing titles

                  • Vlad replied to this.

                      Coming from Arc, I use pinned tabs as bookmarks for each space. It has really helped my daily workflow. Tabs are below the line, pinned tabs above. Pinned tabs can be sorted into folders. Pined tabs can be loaded, and then when the x is pressed they are 'closed without being removed'....really suspended. Then if clicked again they are removed.

                      My vote would be to bring this kind of functionality. I'd be using Orio 100% of the time right away.

                      • Vlad replied to this.

                        8pxl Orion has such bookmarks in the form of "Bookmark bar". It features folders, icons and titles. Have you tried using that? Looks like that would cover all your needs.

                            movingimage Unfortunately I am utterly confused. "Pinned tabs can be sorted into folders" I do not think this can be done in Arc? You can sort 'favorite' tabs into folders. which is something you can already do with Orion's bookmark bar.

                                I would find it useful to have bookmark tabs act as pinned tabs. So when clicking on your bookmark, rather than opening a new tab of that bookmark, have it open the webpage and highlight the bookmark in some fashion to show it is open and being used (similar to arc).

                                If people do not like this, you can make it a setting to toggle. If turned on, when clicking on your bookmarks, the webpage will open in place and the bookmark will be highlighted. This saves new tabs being created and allows for more room for additional tabs to be created. It also makes it easier to go back to your 'pinned' bookmarks whenever you want (and you can see which are active) compared to scrolling through all your tabs to find it

                                • Vlad replied to this.

                                  Niko Can you show video/screenshots of what you mean?

                                      I hope OP does not mind, but Iā€™m looking for the exact same thing and only Arc does it this way. See the following video:

                                      1. Normal/temporary/default tabs are on the bottom
                                      2. Above them are pinned tabs, which persist and cannot be closed, but otherwise act just like normal tabs. You can navigate inside of them, but can always return to their pinned URL, which "resets" them.
                                      3. Favorite tabs are at the top, as minimized icons (similar to pinned tabs in Orion)

                                      Both normal tabs and pinned tabs can be grouped in folders ā€“ real folders whose function is to collapse/expand multiple tabs and which do not open a webpage. This is in contract to the first tab in a group/folder/stack acting as the "folder", which is currently the case in Orion and other browsers.

                                      The important part is that pinned tabs are permanent and cannot be easily closed/removed, like bookmarks (you can right-click and remove them, but not close them with a keyboard shortcut). But in contrast to bookmarks, they ARE the tabs and do not open new tabs, which would just pollute the tab bar with a lot of new tabs when using the bookmarks constantly. If you navigate away inside of a pinned tab and the URL is on the same domain, a "Back to pinned URL" button appears which "resets" the pinned tab to the URL it was pinned to.

                                      Orion has pinned tabs, but they appear as small icons without text, which is not viable if I want to make multiple tabs with the same favicon permanent. Also, without being able to group in folders, pinning is unfortunately not an alternative to old-school bookmarks. The folders in Arc can be nested infinitely, which makes them fully-fledged "bookmarks".

                                      There was a topic on the forums where you presented a UX study about grouping tabs, which I also found really good, but it seemed to be put on hold. This in combination with OPs feature request would make Orion an instant replacement for Arc for me.

                                      • Vlad replied to this.

                                        Thank you @jannisborgers for illustrating my point and providing a video!

                                        It is exactly as @jannisborgers has pointed out. Orion's pinned tabs are a bit different to what I had in mind.
                                        @Vlad the links you provided I feel like is similar but also touching on the whole design of the vertical bar again, hence creating confusion as thats a wider discussion.

                                        I believe what people appreciate about Arcs approach on tabs, as @jannisborgers mentioned, is the 3 stages of tabs that they have in one place neatly and intuitively displayed.
                                        Normal tabs, their pinned tabs which act as a normal browsers bookmarks with added functionality, and their favourite tabs which act as constants and favicon across all spaces at the very top.

                                        Im not particularly fussy on how they look and whether they should be bigger, id leave that to the design team to keep it coherent to Orion's design language.
                                        I was more so suggesting to have the bookmarks bar act as pinned tabs.

                                        Right now, if I click on any of my bookmarks in the bookmark bar, it opens a new tab or replaces the website I am on (depending on the setting configuration). I would like it to function as a pinned tab just as is shown in @jannisborgers video. Clicking on them whilst on another website will not replace the website I am on, but just take me to that pinned tab/bookmark. I can then close that pinned bookmark without it deleting the bookmark/tab from my bookmarks bar/folder.

                                        Adding folders and bookmarks to the vertical bar is a different feature request that was raised and you provided a UX mock up as @jannisborgers mentioned, which I am also a fan of and hope to see that further developed.

                                        • Vlad replied to this.

                                          Niko

                                          I believe what people appreciate about Arcs approach on tabs

                                          My understanding is that for the subset of users who like Arc's opinionated approach to tabs, they really love it. But for vast majority of users who tried it, it does not resonate, which is probably why Arc is pivoting all the time.

                                          We want to entertain all good ideas, so this is why I am trying to understand the building blocks of such user experience. One thing to understand when describing features is none of us are Arc users so we do not know where you are coming from. The ideas need to be described in a way that help us get from where Orion is to where we want Orion to be, while continuing to serve and benefit all Orion users.

                                          A successful feature suggestion post explains (in detail if possible) a single feature to be added to Orion. If there are multiple features they need to be broken down to multiple posts.

                                          Here is what we are tracking:

                                          I referenced those posts as it appeared to me the closest to what is being asked for here.

                                          So my ask would be if the feature suggestion you ar advocating for is not captured in those two linked posts, to express it in clear and simple language, with screnshots/mockups/videos if possible.

                                              Merged 6 posts from Bookmark tabs to act as optional pinned tabs.
                                                Vlad changed the title to Larger icon/show title for pinned tabs in sidebar + Favorites in sidebar .