Vlad I personally prefer having the urlbar in the sidebar because it allows the website's top navigation bar to be at the top of the browser window, giving website more space vertically. While focus mode is a great option, it's not meant to be open all the time. I believe some people like Arc-like design because it provides more space for website and allows for both urlbar and top navigation bar to be at top simultaneously without any extra cost or additional mouse motion or shortcuts.
105
Changes to Orion's Sidebar / Vertical tabs handling
- Edited
A few thoughts:
I'm torn between a URL in sidebar solution and URL bar on top of the page.
I think the people that are designing Arc browser have found a way so keep things rather clean and I have been thinking if this could work for Orion.
They only show the URL, no lock, no refresh icon. On mouse-over more info is revealed. You can pin your favorite extensions in the URL field and the rest is shown in a sub window.
I made a mockup of something similar but with the extensions below the URL bar. The icons in the URL bar show up on mouse-over. Below the URL bar is a user customizable area where you can place extensions or action buttons. Or the forward/back icons for that matter.
I'm curious what others think and what I might've missed in my thinking.
Regarding the proposal that @vlad did for hiding the top URL bar in focus mode.
Even for non-focus mode I would like a setting to auto-hide the URL bar e.g. when scrolling down a page. The URL bar shows again when the mouse pointer comes close, when you've scrolled back to the top of the page or you type a shortcut.
janpeeters I agree, the URL in sidebar is just too much. Between not being able to see the full URL, the additional buttons appearing on hover, and the increased clutter, I say forget it.
Go with Sigma OS and keep things simple. Keep those buttons at the bottom of the side panel though, that was a great idea.
ForumNinja404 I’m not against the URL in the sidebar. It could work just fine.
What I don’t find useful though is that there is a URL bar when bookmarks or reading list are shown. That gives two input fields (one for URL and one for search) in one view and that could be confusing. In most use cases I think that people go to either one of those sections to find a URL or article and click it to visit the respective site or article.
I would probably leave the URL bar out of those views and switch back to the tab view after clicking a bookmark or article.
My $0.02 regarding the ability to view the URL.
I am an Arc and Safari user. When I want to see the full URL, I press CMD + L. In Arc, it does not show the side bar for that, they have another UI element and in my opinion, works really well.
- Edited
New concept.
Focus mode on toolbar - same as current focus mode but also enables toolbar and sidebar auto-show on mouse over.
And new concept to show both widows (vertical strip) and tabs in the same sidebar. How does this look? THe alternative is to switch widnows independently on sidebar like it is done now.
Vlad I like this. Autohiding and a focus mode toolbar control is an excellent idea, I'd definitely use that.
The window strip is a good idea too though I think it should maybe be a different colour or have some sort of other border demarcation so that it's not contiguous and flat with the rest of the side bar. And probably needs to have a show/hide toggle in that menu.
I'd also hop in this thread giving my 2 cents. I would also love a vertical tab bar that is a bit more narrow, like the ones in Brave / Edge behave. Imo the tab group and the permanent "close tab X" are taking way too much space in the vertical tab sidebar.
Vlad Love it but would not need to show windows because I swap between groups within a single window. I still think having those buttons at the bottom for switching to the respective panel is the best idea.
I think the windows and tabs together is a lot of icons. I agree with @ForumNinja404 that the bottom buttons to get to the different views is better.
- Edited
this looks pretty good. However, I'd like to see the name of the windows instead of icons only.
Could we have double sidebars? or substitue the current window design (vertical strips) to a list of window names but enable auto-hide?
or we can just go back to switch widnows independently on sidebar like it is done now.
and is it possible to move the bottom buttons to get to differnt views to the top since I am worried that the bottom will require the users to travel too much ditance to click them an that while using a browser we are natually drawn toward the upper-left corner.
7 days later
When using vertical tabs, I found that it's difficult to see my bookmarks and reading list. This button is so small and I need to click it very carefully. I'm thinking that maybe we can make this button bigger or have a better way to toggle between these lists.
Maybe we can have a button like "[ Tabs v ]" rather than "[ v ]".
10 days later
Merged 1 post from It's difficult to toggle between tabs, bookmarks, and the reading list..
Currently, displaying the vertical bar on the side will change the size of the webpage being displayed. I think it would be better to display the side bar on top of the page.
- That is what the user cares about because they are going to it
- The size of the page changing is really annoying
Arc has the ability to pin the side bar for people who want it displayed all the time and want it to affect the page size.
9 months later
Vlad changed the title to Changes to Orion's Sidebar / Vertical tabs handling .
The URL bar on the sidebar when in vertical tab mode would look much better than the current implementation where the tab bar is still taking up room.
This would allow maximal viewport space and wouldn't affect any current user
Every bit of screen real estate in a browser matters -- the sidebar isn't really good UX in comparison to the other two since it limits the viewport space proportional to the window size a lot more than the other two do.
Merged 2 posts from URL bar on side when in vertical tab mode.
- Edited
Want to see if the community can agree on a set of proposed changes for Orion's sidebar. There is also a recent thread similar to this.
6 days later
- Edited
Hey guys, I like Arc, and I’ve been using it since it was invite-only, but I don’t think that we need to build a clone here. Some things like swiping left/right for tab groups and search bar in sidebar do work, but IF the browser supports vertical tabs ONLY. In Orion, we need to think about how it would all work with horizontal tabs, as well.
Another thing is that Orion, like Safari, has a customizable top bar. You can’t do such a thing as user customization with such a specific layout that Arc has. And being so specific is actually what Arc’s problem is — user either gets accustomed to it or not. You CAN NOT customize the layout. That’s why they’re calling it “niche browser” now. That’s why they’re building another browser.
And some screenshots in here are literary Safari-painted Arc.
Look at Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi or Safari setup of a three different people. Chances are that they’re going to have different buttons for different functions in different places. Look at the Arc setup of a three different people. Chances are that they’re going to have different background colors, that’s it.
I agree with everything being said about screen real-estate, I just don’t see it in Orion’s DNA. Maybe I’m wrong.
I do like the idea of topbar autohide, like in SigmaOS (also a niche browser). That could be cool. But then again, both Arc and SigmaOS don’t actually have traditional URL bars, it’s more like a command bar, like Spotlight, ⌘T at the center of a screen. So autohide could just as easily not work in Orion.
The Panel
All of that being said, I agree that some of the UX flows in Orion could be better, see The Orion Panel thread for suggestions. Here's a little preview:
Tab Grouping
Now, for tab grouping, it could be so (visually) simple: just add a subtitle, like macOS already does in sidebars. For horizontal tabs, do what Chrome Tab Group does. For compact tabs, do what Opera Tab Island does. And that’s it.
You sould also be able to select multiple tabs at once (which you can't right now) > right click > create tab group.
Here're quick and dirty sketches of the idea:
Pinning
You can also see my attempt at pinned tabs here, but I'm not sure if I like it. They're somewhat in between the current Orion Pinned Tabs and Arc Favorites. What do you think?
Disclaimer: I’ve recently started a thread about Vertical Tabs, and while searching for similar threads, came down to this one. This is not a rant, although I’m aware it may sound like one. Please take these opinions with a grain of salt, I’m not a hater, I promise 
Just thinking out loud, trying to solve the same problems as you do.
“If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter” - Blaise Pascal
Hey Milo,
I really like your ideas and initial mock ups. It looks clean and not too cluttered.
What do you think about the bookmarks location? You reckon it would still work if you can place your bookmarks on the vertical sidebar on the left and have them as a tab group essentially so you can expand/collapse them? They would in essence act as pinned tabs similar to in Arc and as you've shown.
As for bookmarks in the horizontal tab bar, they would act as pinned tabs and open the webpage in place rather than opening in a new tab.
This was discussed in the below thread:
https://orionfeedback.org/d/5377-larger-iconshow-title-for-pinned-tabs-in-sidebar-favorites-in-sidebar
I feel like these two threads come hand in hand, hence why I am mentioning it.
What are your thoughts?