Work required before we can release Sidebar

[bsclifton]

Description

We have a Sidebar that is available in Nightly which can be enabled via brave://flags/#sidebar

Some specific issues have been captured and labeled with feature/sidebar

This issue is intended to track work required before we can release an MVP (minimal viable product) of sidebar

P1

• Clicking a sidebar item should open in the current tab, not new tab (Handle sidebar web type item/settings buttons #15084)
• Show “Add to sidebar” menu on hover (Show 'Add to sidebar' menu bubble on hovered over item add button #15713)
• Clicking a sidebar item that is already open in any tab/window should bring that into focus instead of opening another tab (Handle sidebar web type item/settings buttons #15084)
• Settings button in sidebar does not work (Handle sidebar web type item/settings buttons #15084)
• Show sidebar options don’t work (Implement more sidebar show options - On mouseover and On click  #15592)
• Drag to reorder sidebar items (Enable re-ordering of sidebar items #15135)
• Bookmarks in sidebar is empty (Bookmarks screen does not display properly in Sidebar #14950)
• Responsive History - Settings ribbon needs to be hidden - (Not valid anymore as we don't include history item)
• Responsive Bookmarks - Settings ribbon needs to be hidden - (Fixed by using sidepanel's one)
• Clicking a Sidebar item should bring focus to the existing tab if the sidebar item is already open.

P2

• “Added to sidebar” tooltip should be limited to 3 times; not forever. (Show "Added to sidebar" feedback bubble only three times #16018)
• Use correct icon for Wallet in the sidebar #21655
• Add to Sidebar text is truncated in Bulgarian locale #21597
• Settings icon should have Show Sidebar options, instead of opening the Settings window #21060
• Sidebar color does not adhere to a new profile theme color #21590

P3

• Resizable sidebar panel
• Sidebar item missing selected state when open in the current tab (Need more discussion for this item)
• Clicks and hold on the sidebar item should show options (Show sidebar item's menu with long press #16017)
• Sidebar options menu should use Brave menu component (applies to all sidebar icon menus and show sidebar menu)
• Show sidebar on top of webview rather than resizing the webview (Show sidebar on top of webview rather than resizing the webview  #16059)
• Add to sidebar by dragging the site information (lock) icon in the URL bar into the sidebar
• Add to sidebar by dragging the tab into the sidebar
• Drag a sidebar icon off to remove it
• Need focus states
• Incorrect typography treatments on “Add to Sidebar” menu

BUG

• Incorrect sidebar mouse event detect area with On click option (Incorrect sidebar mouse event detect area with On click option #15745)
• Sidebar event dectect area is visible in full screen (Sidebar event dectect area is visible in full screen #16157)
• Sidebar UI should be hidden only when tab-initiated full screen (Sidebar UI should be hidden only when tab-initiated full screen #16160)

[bsclifton]

Some other concerns which came up:

• No URL is shown for content loaded in sidebar. This could be a problem as there's no way to ensure which site you're on
• Trying to use functionality which requires microphone/camera (ex: Brave Together) will ask for permission... but this ends up being hidden because there is no visible omnibox for the sidebar (where you'd typically see the permission requests show up). Maybe we can have a "Permissions UI" area of sidebar for this?

[srirambv]

#14402 should be part of MVP as well (just a suggestion)

[NumDeP]

I hope you don't mind me adding just a few more additional features/issues/tests

• Purposely cause a crash and see if it asks to restore and does it actually restore on the sidebar and not the normal tab place.

• Does it allow to reopen closed tabs, including in private tabs as well (it's going on 2 years soon or is over 2 years since a fix for this has come to horizontal tabs, still waiting for upstream fix)

• When you've set 'Continue where you left off' and close the window/browser, do the tabs open on sidebar

• Indicate the number of tabs open near "OPEN TABS". Perhaps you could indicate it like "67 OPEN TABS" (This would come in handy if it was implemented before crash test; I've occasionally had restore not work effectively for me)

• Right-click - Bookmark tab to... / Bookmark all tabs to...

• Some tabs shouldn't be easily removed/dragged as suggested above without confirmation, case and point - webtorrent. Not that I use it regularly but the UX for this feature isn't great if you'll pardon my bluntness and closing such a tab with a file on download or downloaded can be frustrating. When this is toggled/On and other similar proprietary brave solutions, perhaps they should always remain pinned to the top.

• If horizontal tabs is going to be redundant by the use of the sidebar tabs, is there any point to have the empty bar left over from the horizontal tabs. I mean, with the exception of the minimize, maximize and close button which you can push down, is there any point of an empty bar, it's a waste of space right? Maybe be linked to - (Feature Request: Hide all the tabs #16384)

[AshrayaCoder]

When Might This Drop?
Any Estimations?

[JeswinSunsi]

Any updates on this? 👀

[plandem]

is it possible to prevent reloading when I switch apps on siderbar? right now it fresh reload everytime I switch app

[JeswinSunsi]

Hey is the sidebar still limited to those 4 tabs?

[niutech]

Could you please open the web type items (websites added to the sidebar) in an overlay instead of the current tab, like it is in Opera?

We already have a bookmarks bar for opening websites in the current tab.

[IMrCreepyI]

just wondering how far the progress is cause im really looking forward to this.
if its still being worked on

[JeswinSunsi]

This isn't a sidebar though. These are bookmark icons on the side. Something like the one in Opera would be very useful to many users. Only reason I haven't switched to OperaGX yet is privacy.

[simonhong]

just wondering how far the progress is cause im really looking forward to this. if its still being worked on

@IMrCreepyI Sidebar feature is already available. It's not shown by default on Stable release.
You can enable it via app menu.

[IMrCreepyI]

just wondering how far the progress is cause im really looking forward to this. if its still being worked on

@IMrCreepyI Sidebar feature is already available. It's not shown by default on Stable release. You can enable it via app menu.

i have that enabled but i mean like what they have in operaGX and in a message above they show a picture of it

[bsclifton]

Closing issue as this is now live 🎉 We can open individual issues for specific items we'd like (that aren't already implemented)
cc: @rebron in case we needed to file items