103

Giving my two cents her regarding @milos mockups: I have to say I am against this new concept of tab groups. We already have a lot of group structures in Orion (Profiles > Windows > Tabs) and this just seems to add another level of complexity on top, while being a less flexible version of the already planned tab folders.

The idea of having the all the sidebars other than the vertical tabs one on the left side is a good idea ane I am all for it. This will also give a solution to all the problems regarding how to handle opening/closing of a sidebar while in vertical tabs mode.

    eirk can you elaborate why you don’t want Orion to follow Arcs sidebar UI? I think it’s THE reason that so many users flocked to or kept using Arc instead of Orion.
    I think that the concept that @jannisborgers created in the other thread https://orionfeedback.org/d/5377-larger-iconshow-title-for-pinned-tabs-in-sidebar-favorites-in-sidebar/47 would make working with Orion on a daily basis more ‘in the flow’.

    • eirk replied to this.

        janpeeters regarding just the UI, ie the sizing of stuff/icons, it's fine to change. it's purely a cosmetic difference

        But, Arc's novel sidebar implementation with tabs and bookmarks combined into one concept is indeed the reason why a ton of people flocked to arc, but it's also why a lot of people choose not to use arc. The average user uses apps with zero learning curve, and arc has a decent learning curve. I do appreciate the ingenuity of arc's implementation, but I don't see exactly how it benefits everyone. I think the existing concept of the browser with bookmarks and tabs as separate concepts should be maintained

            laptudirm I agree, sorry I wasn't clear enough. If Tab Groups are to be added, Windows should go. So it'd be Profiles > Tab Groups > Tabs. That's if there's a concensus that Windows are hard to understand, and Arc's folders (which are essentially Tab Groups) work better.

            I didn't know about Tab Folders and that they're Planned - and I quite like the UX Study shown there. It's looking good! I'd probably just remove chevrons all-around. Somebody clearly gave it more than 10 mins of thought 🙂 That's it, no need for tab groups then. Thanks for sharing.

            @eirk Thank you! Regarding laptudirm's comment of what's already planned, I feel like there's no need for a repost.

            On a side note, some of the stuff that Arc has that I love to already see in Orion:

            • ⌘⇧C to copy link
            • ⇧+Click to open a link in Peek (Preview) window

                milos Given that your alternate sidebar idea is not a part of the main statement of this issue, I encourage you to create a new feature request asking for it, as I also believe it to be an improvement.

                    eirk I understand your point. I do hope though that the new implementation will provide something like pinned bookmarks/bookmark folders in the left sidebar that open websites 'in place'. And have a location that you can return to. That way you can have a folder for News, Science, Tech so that often visited sites are easily accessible.
                    Below this section there could be a section for open tabs in tree mode. But even tree mode is a complex feature for users that like it easy, "why are my tabs indented"?

                    I like @milos design where the bookmarks and other useful things like history,some websites are in a expandable right sidebar. It's how Vivaldi 7 does it and works great. I would love something like that for Orion!

                    The left sidebar can then be used for:

                    • Pinned tabs and Pinned tab folders (or call it bookmarks as suggested before)
                    • Below that (in another section) open tabs.
                      It would forgo of Arcs favorites but that could be easily replaced by pinned (compact) tabs.

                    I do agree that a lot of users find Arc too complex. But that can be easily circumvented by making features opt-in. Even Orion is a niche browser. Most people just take Safari, Edge, Chrome because it's preinstalled. It's a challenge to make people download another browser.

                    • Vlad replied to this.

                        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.

                        I wanted to highlight this comment. As much as some people liked what Arc did, it was pretty opinionated which is why Arc ended being a niche browser.

                        On the other hand Orion has been built as a general purpose browser, a true user agent, built both for a techie and techie's grandma. Everything we do needs to adhere to:

                        • Apple HIG
                        • Acknowledging that our resources are limited and our challenge is 10x bigger than Arc's

                        Now since this thread is very constructive I want to acknowledge that and thank for everyone's contribution.

                        milos thanks for thinking this through.

                        Since you already made mockups in other threads:
                        https://orionfeedback.org/d/5377-larger-iconshow-title-for-pinned-tabs-in-sidebar-favorites-in-sidebar/
                        https://orionfeedback.org/d/8917-vertical-tabs-design-improvements
                        https://orionfeedback.org/d/8933-imagining-the-orion-panel/

                        This is becoming very hard for us to track and think about. The real challenge for us is when we have so many different opinions about a topic we do not know much (none in our team are passionate Arc users). This can lead to us interpretting requests in the wrong way.

                        I wonder if you could summarize these into the minimum amount of changes (so that it is doable by the team) that would accomplish maximum amount of desired functionality (fully acknowledging that Arc did some things well)?

                            janpeeters

                            But that can be easily circumvented by making features opt-in.

                            Making features opt-in is the worst thing we can do from a development standpoint. It take more time to build (you are now doing 2x, 3x... work),it produces more bugs and and it makes it harder to maintain (Orion works on macOS 10.14!). This is why we are looking for reasonable defaults and options only if we have to.

                            To put things in perspective:

                            Arc - built on top of Chromium so got the browser app framework for free. Only option for the user is vertical tabs. That's it, if you do not like you are out of luck. Team size >100.

                            Orion - building with WebKit, browser app needs to built from scratch (no Chromiuim equivalent for WebKit). Orion supports Horizontal tabs, Vertical tabs, Compact Tabs... Multiple other customizations avaialble. Built as fully native Mac app. Team size 5.

                            Let's not ask us to add more options, but find ways to remove existing options instead and have good constructive discussions that will produce sane defaults. Thank you 🙏

                                Vlad Summarizing the last few posts here, we seem to have reached a consensus on the following issues/features:

                                • #8917 The bigger margins will help separate the tabs better, and the chevrons being embedded in the tab icon will also prevent the tabs from jumping left to right.
                                • #8933 Having a separate panel for all the non-vertical tab sidebars on the right hand side will make the behavior related to hiding/showing those tabs while in vertical tabs mode more intuitive, currently there are a few recurring issues regarding hiding/showing the other sidebars while in vertical tabs mode, which would all be fixed.

                                For now I would encourage everyone to either show support or express their concerns regarding these two issues. Once their future is decided, more divisive topics can be discussed.

                                    Vlad good point, thanks for clarifying the context. I Agree with you regarding the not adding options.

                                        Vlad I wonder if you could summarize these into the minimum amount of changes (so that it is doable by the team) that would accomplish maximum amount of desired functionality (fully acknowledging that Arc did some things well)?

                                        Sure, I'll try to make a comperhansive list of quick-win feature improvements that I think could work well for all of the Orion users. I'll add a reply to this tread in the next few days.

                                            laptudirm Thanks, we will wait for visuals proposal from Milos and will let community wage in.

                                              Tried Kagi a couple years ago. It was fast and I loved the zero telemetry. But Arc's organization... pinned tabs, folders, active tabs, spaces... was superb. And their mobile app is matching in excellence. Glad to see the sidebar being thought about here. It was my biggest turn off to using Kagi, the windows things or whatever it did with the total tab numbers instead of just giving me folders... And after spending two years with Arc, there's no way I would ever go horizontal again.

                                              All to say, if the sidebar is done right I think a lot of Arc folks would land here for a faster and more private experience. Will return to this thread in a few months to see if there's been any progress.

                                              Good luck folks!

                                                For those of us on this thread that want a more Arc-like sidebar in Orion, I'm wondering if it's possible to support this new Chrome extension that delivers almost exactly that (for Chromium-based browsers: https://www.sidespace.app

                                                3 months later
                                                6 days later

                                                Kuakeye1 I am new to Orion and a current fan of Arc. I just want to say that I too would love to see a structure similar to Arc for "tab groups". As much as I value Orion's dedication to privacy, I have been spoiled by Arc's ease of use.

                                                  8 days later

                                                  This would be perfect. As another person coming from Arc, This is the feature I miss most. I'd also love to not have profiles be seperate Orion Windows entirely (which feel more like seperate apps tbh) and instead being the swipable spaces in the side bar, thus creating a unified window.