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thuvasooriya I'm new here, I saw this feature marked as planned, is there any schedule to this, I'm sorry if this is dumb question.

Planned is more like it’s on the roadmap, but not necessarily a solid date as to when it comes out or gets implemented. For this particular feature request, I think we still have to pass the UX stages before it can be handed over to the developers to implement the feature in Orion and be released in the RC builds.

      Vlad Orion's vertical tab implementation has won me over (it's my primary reason for wanting to switch to Orion). I empathize with how difficult managing the sheer volume of feature requests (+ bug reports) Orion gets must be, and I think the team does an admirable job of responding to them. I think the characterization that Orion does not listen to user feedback is wrong. Orion takes an methodical, and some times opinionated, approach to design that's aligned to Apple's HIG. I appreciate this, and I think it is the reason why Orion feels closer to an Apple browser than Safari in many respects.

      I just read through the entire 200+ post discussion procrastinating my work. I used to be a big fan of compact tabs in Safari, but I ultimately dropped them, because Safari's implementation is just bad in the corner cases. One consistent theme in the discussion is many users requesting that the URL bar + tab is integrated, and the team insisting that it shouldn't be. The reasoning laid out is the following (my summary):

      1. the URL bar is a core UI element so it should not move around
      2. the primary reason for using compact tabs is to save vertical space, and the horizontal placement of the URL bar does not affect this

      I believe these reasons are not sound, and here's why:

      1. I agree that core elements should not move around. The example of the back/forward buttons is a good one. I do not agree that the URL bar is equivalent to the back/forward buttons. The URL is associated with the website currently being viewed. For most users, it is a "more precise" description of the title displayed on the tab. These are interpreted as the "identity" of a website. Would you say that the title of a website/favicon moving around is bad UX? No, because those elements are associated with an object that should move around on the screen just like a file in Finder. An over-zealous application of this logic would be to have a dropdown menu for all tabs instead of the tab carousel we see in most browsers.
      2. Before I tried Orion, I felt that this was the reason I liked Safari's compact tabs. Orion made me realize that this is not the case, since Orion's compact mode offers more space for content than Safari's compact tabs. Actually, compact Orion + vertical tabs w/ favicons only maximizes this metric. Instead, I realized that Safari's compact tabs were pleasing because they removed visual clutter. Part of that is the integration of the URL + tab. I totally agree that being able to quickly access the URL for the currently viewed website is crucial for any browser. I disagree that being able to see it at a glance is required or even useful. I (and probably most users) must spend <5% caring about the URL of a website beyond the domain name. Even then, the title of the website offers all the infomation that a domain name would.

      I took the time to write out this explanation, because I felt it was never explicitly articulated in the full discussion. I hope what I said makes sense. While I completely agree with your approach/thought process to this issue, I think you are missing a few details that end up resulting in a different conclusion that I would.

          darsnack great thoughtful approach to discussion! Is your conclusion that safari compact tabs are the only way that should be considered, or that orion's approach has some merit and it it is fair to wait and see what it comes out to be, giving the team benefit of the doubt like with many other design decisions that turned out well so far? in other words, what is the ask and is there a third thing that we should be considering?

              I would say it is fair to give the team the benefit of the doubt until the design is released. The only ask is that the team considers integrating the URL bar + tab as a possible option. In other words, maybe it is a settings toggle in the final design if enough users continue to request it. This is in contrast to a hypothetical request moving back/forward buttons, which I think the team can objectively reject as a possible option.

                @Vlad I think at the end of the day, any dissenters here are simply asking that you give the same open mindedness to the Apple design as we're trying to give to the Orion implementation.

                I personally trust and believe that your implementation will fulfill your goals, and will you will execute it exceptionally well.

                But your implementation does very different things, interacts in different ways, and there are two different use cases and desires here.

                Can't wait to see and play with your design, even if it's not the feature I'm looking for.

                • Vlad replied to this.

                  Hybrid

                  open mindedness to the Apple design

                  Open-mindedness comes at the expense of resources. Apple has 100 engineers working on Safari, we have 2 on Orion. We already spent enorumous amount of time to produce different variations and we still have 2,000 issues open on this site. Being open-minded is easy, doing product management for a project of this complexity with just 2 engineers is the hard part. So when you are asking to be open-minded, you are actually asking for quite a lot.

                      Vlad

                      I can’t speak for all, but in my case my reference to open mindedness is in regards to understanding the validity to the Apple approach, not requiring you to implement it.

                      • Vlad replied to this.

                          Hybrid I can see arguments for it, and I still hold a position this core element of the browser UI should have a fixed position to enchance productivity and familiarity with using a browser. If the goal is to remove visual clutter, other ways should be explored.

                              Don't put Tabs in the Titlebar.
                              It's the stupidest design ever to hit the desktop.

                              You can't move the Window with Tabs the title bar, the titlebar is the only place area that allows window movement and any OS. It's been this way forever.

                              There used to be a MacOS classic extension in the 90's that allowed users to Command Click anywhere on any window to move it, (and some ancient Linux window managers) and this would have been a decent solution if tabs filled up the titlebar, but that's not the reality at this time.

                              No Tabs in Titlebar - Don't waste time on idiotic ideas that make using a browser more difficult.
                              User need to get it into their heads that Vertical sidebar tabs are far better solution.
                              Titlebar is already full of extension icons, what else you wanna jam in there, a photo slideshow date and time and weather......This whole topic is just dumb!!

                                puClvr Compact tabs, much like the vertical tabs, will likely be an option. If you don‘t like that option, you are more than welcome to not choose that option and go with vertical tabs instead.

                                  a month later

                                  I really like the compact tab bar in safari. I would really like if Orion had the same feature.

                                    Merged 2 posts from Compact tab menu.
                                      a month later

                                      I would love this!
                                      1 is my first pick because it looks the most macOS-like and minimal
                                      2 is my secondary pick because it is a bit less minimal but still good

                                        2 months later

                                        Hi.

                                        The tabs on desktop are jsut too wide. They should be more like safari, or brave/chrome browser for example.

                                        Just more compact. The tabs really need to be more compact, it's an eye sore. It should be another style option, open safari and you'll see how much cleaner the tab style looks

                                        Merged 2 posts from Tab style..
                                          4 days later

                                          Vlad fixed position to enchance productivity

                                          Delayed response, as I'm doing my quarterly checkin here.

                                          I disagree with this, but I think we already know we don't agree on our approach to User Interaction 🙂

                                          I was wondering if there was a timeline for your implementation?

                                          I'm still very much looking forward to switching over to Kagi / Orion ecosystem as a whole, and still following the progress ya'll are making.

                                          • Vlad replied to this.

                                              Hybrid We have over 1000 reported bugs and finding time to do this is hard, plus it will likely introduce even more bugs. We ar efocusing on stability over new features atm.

                                              I should say that if you want to become a member of Kagi/Orion ecosystem, the benefits far outweigh the lack of a single feature that is not even a thing in most browsers today.

                                                  6 days later

                                                  Vlad I should say that if you want to become a member of Kagi/Orion ecosystem, the benefits far outweigh the lack of a single feature that is not even a thing in most browsers today.

                                                  Hi Vlad, already using Kagi, and loving it. I did not mean to imply that my support was contingent on this feature, just that it would be the over the top to switch my browser over, as the experience of the compact tabs is just good enough that it prevents me from using other browsers.

                                                  Honestly, I'm the type of person that would prefer to just be able to hide tabs other tabs completely.

                                                      One of the smaller things I really miss about using Safari is the UI design for the navigation bar: colors and inline tabs.

                                                      The navigation bar adapting the navigation bar to the predominate color of the website like a chameleon is just a really nice touch. Nothing more to really say about that. It's just nice.

                                                      I love the tabs being in line rather than their own bar. It makes so much more sense to me. A tab bar takes up so much room and leaves so much dead space, both in the tab bar itself (if there's a small number of tabs, they still stretch the entire width of the screen) and in the top navigation bar where there's a bunch of space to the left and right of the URL bar. Safari's inline tabs can sometimes be a mess if you have a ton of tabs, but the benefits outweigh the downsides to me.

                                                      If it's possible to replicate those features, it'd go a long way toward making Orion feel like a true Safari replacement in my eyes. If nothing else, letting it be an option for people to choose would be great. Thanks.