Sidebery features or better integration

[mr-cheffy]

Currently I am making use of the Sidebery extension in regular Firefox, along with the ArcWTF user chrome customisations, as a way to have vertical tabs and group projects (Panels) and different components of those projects (The tree structure and folders). It is currently the best way I've found to manage my tabs, as when combined with Auto Tab Discard and Container Tabs, it essentially means you can just leave everything open, but have it neatly organized.

I really like the direction that Zen browser is going, but I'm missing some key features that are currently stopping me from trying it out full time. I'd love to see some features from Sidebery make their way into the browser.

I believe the only thing missing from Zen, at least at a high level, is a tree style tab layout. I see that Tab Groups are being worked on, but it would be great to have tabs nestable under other tabs, along with nestable groups.

The alternative for me would be better support for Sidebery, as currently, its a bit awkward to try and use it on Zen, as its a sidebar extension. Ideally, I'd want to be able to move the unique Zen buttons, e.g. the Zen Sidebar etc, to another location, such as the top bar or hide them on the right side of the browser, as having a double sidebar is a little awkward.

Thanks for your work so far :)

Reference: https://github.com/kikaraage/arcwtf

~ Created automatically from issue: #114

[GitMurf]

Just so no one gets confused, this was copied over from a GH Issue (#114) and is NOT the Maintainer stating the above ;-) This was another user and Mauro copied it over from GH Issue to a GH Discussion (here).

[GitMurf]

Wondering if there are any updates on the Tab Grouping feature-set and/or if there is anywhere we can "follow" to see progress? Thanks!

[kwilcz]

I for one would ask for a rethink, to rather have tab groups than tree style tabs.
Nested tabs introduce a lot of additional readability issues, and it can easily be seen when you compare how Vivaldi and Edge solves this issue.

This would also fit better the vertical tab layout, as by default it is collapsed.

[mnadam-sudo]

@ChristinWhite I hadn't thought of tree style tabs as almost an accessibility option re: ADHD, but it really is. I don't think I've ever been able to truly organize my thoughts and workflow and have that reflected in a browser - until I tried TST and Sideberry. I feel far more productive, and the low level anxiety I'd get just trying to stay organized and on task with a flood of tabs is gone. I tend to think sequentially and having nested tabs just flows so smoothly for me.

I had the same experience as you when thinking to move to Vivaldi - it's a great browser, but man was tab organization poor (for me) after Sideberry.

Zen is fantastic otherwise and I'll switch full time the day something like this is implemented. Split tabs, the look, the speed, responsiveness - I'd really rather use Zen. ArcWTF+Sideberry is awesome, but kinda janky feeling at times.

[ChristinWhite]

@GitMurf It's been a couple of years since I used Arc as my primary browser, given their lack of respect for users, but I don't think so. I just fired it up briefly and didn't see a setting for it, I might have missed it, however. The browser that really got me on board with that was Sigma OS, but it was limited by only one level of nesting, Sidebery is where I figured out how essential it was.

@mnadam-sudo It really took me a while to figure out why it made such a difference, but I've been thinking a lot about how workflow, user customizability vs opinionated design and how much organization in general intersect with accessibility for neurodiversity. This UI pattern in browsers and other productivity has become one of the biggest examples for me.

Vivaldi is a great browser, tab groups in it were what started me to rethink how I use browsers, but I feel like they stopped pushing those features forward, and it's since got surpassed by many other browsers now.

I agree, I'll switch to Zen as soon as this feature and 1Password support show up (or I switch password managers).

[cmdillon]

@ChristinWhite "given their lack of respect for users" wow! I thought I was the only one who thought that. I stoped using arc as well for exactly that reason, but now I'm finding it very hard to find a replacement as I totally need groups. I'm using Firefox with sideberry (totally cool), but it also has some issues such as it takes much work to to get it to match the browser theme.

[ChristinWhite]

@cmdillon Yeah, there's not a lot of people who feel that way but that I've seen, but there are a few. Someone on the Sigma OS Slack characterized them as "arrogant" and I think that fits pretty well.

FF and Firebery gets close and thank god, I don't have to spend time every week re-opening 'automatically closed tabs' but it did take a lot of work and still isn't perfect, I’m very hopeful Zen will be the replacement we've been wishing for. There seem to be a lot of current or former Arc users in these discussions hoping for the same thing.

[cmdillon]

@cmdillon Yeah, there's not a lot of people who feel that way but that I've seen, but there are a few. Someone on the Sigma OS Slack characterized them as "arrogant" and I think that fits pretty well.

FF and Firebery gets close and thank god, I don't have to spend time every week re-opening 'automatically closed tabs' but it did take a lot of work and still isn't perfect, I’m very hopeful Zen will be the replacement we've been wishing for. There seem to be a lot of current or former Arc users in these discussions hoping for the same thing.

@ChristinWhite
automatically closed tabs for sure was my big issue—that is where they lost me. I also got totally fed up with having to constantly decide if I need to keep a tab or not. now I'm using edge as I get syncing of tabs. I have a desktop and laptop so this feature is important for me. sidebery doesn't support tab syncing so had to move on from that also. super sad 😭 as I still think sidebery has the best tab solution for Mozilla based browsers.

[No2515]

Sidebery integration would be amazing. So much options for a tailored browsing experience.

Floorp is still my main only because of Sidebery. I also have hundreds of tabs, all organized in trees, and Snapshotted for import. This feature pretty much replaced bookmarks for me.

If Zen can import Snapshots from Sidebery, I'd be a very happy man!

[Kevadroz]

I think that implementing features would be a better way to go (at least when talking about tree-style tabs) as integration can be more clunky.

[jaidetree]

Similarly interested in Zen, but currently sticking to floorp due to Sidebery support. Without sidebery or similar features I feel drastically hindered.

I have no opinions on improving support for plugins like Sidebery or reimplementing those features. Below are my must haves:

• Nested Tabs - Follow the train of link clicking. Super helpful for auto-organizing research inquires.
• Tab Groups - Love creating these per-project. Can then have n nested tabs within them, when the project is done I often just close the tab group all at once.
• Tab Panels - I really like having Personal and Work panel tabs. With those I'm able to assign rules like opening any https://github.com/{MyWorkOrg} URL in my Work panel in the work container.

[x-ji]

The mod doesn't seem to hide the Zen sidebar now. It's empty but still takes up the space. (Or maybe this is how it's always intended to work?)

[Vistaus]

Is there a way to migrate Tree Style Tab to Sidebery? I really need tree tabs and if Sidebery integrated into the Zen sidebar offers me that, I don't mind migrating, but I do need a way to migrate.

Ideally, though, I would love to see tree tabs natively without any mods.

[GitMurf]

I really need tree tabs and if Sidebery integrated into the Zen sidebar offers me that, I don't mind migrating, but I do need a way to migrate.

Did zen recently integrate Sidebery?!! I haven't seen that yet.

[Vistaus]

There's mod on Zen Mods.

[Vortriz]

@Vistaus it is broken on latest version of zen 🤧

[darklajid]

Just to add to the discussion, for me there's one more thing that is important.

I need tabs to be structured for two reasons:

• Context/logical relations. If I'm done with research about X, the whole tree can go
• Screen estate. Right now, as nice as Zen is looking, it sucks as much as a horizontal tab bar. If I have to scroll in my list of tabs and cannot collapse groups then it doesn't matter one bit to me that this one is on the left vs the top. It's just as hard to use as default Chrome/Firefox tabs

[TaylorFinklea]

Also on floorp until this is better integrated. For me I use the sidebar extensively and currently in Zen it is taken over by sidebery

[plyght]

@mauro-balades any updates on tree style tabs (natively!) for zen on mac/windows?

[plyght]

@mikedlr why the thumbs down?

[mikedlr]

Just on the pinging developers with @mentions .. it's open source. We aren't paying and we are getting something for free without adverts. They'll get round to dealing with our problems when they feel like it and if we want it faster we should start trying to learn how to help.

[Vistaus]

@mikedlr He was only asking if there was an update, i.e. if there was anything new to mention, not for development to go faster or anything. So your post doesn't make any sense.

And what do you mean “we aren't paying”? So the whole Patreon thing is a sham? Because AFAIK, you actually do pay there to support the development.

[plyght]

Just on the pinging developers with @mentions .. it's open source. We aren't paying and we are getting something for free without adverts. They'll get round to dealing with our problems when they feel like it and if we want it faster we should start trying to learn how to help.

@mikedlr I never asked them to "hurry up the proccess of making x feature", I was just wondering about the status of tree tabs. Why does this bother you when you weren't @mentioned, and you're not a contributor to Zen Desktop? If the devs have an issue with me asking the progress of a feature, then they can explicitly tell me.

[guigirl42]

Given atm there's several separate GitHub items / issues / threads all related to the concept of "Sidebery in Zen", "Tab Groups", "Tree Style Tabs in Zen", etc, i'm posting this remark into each of them... it would be easier to follow, IMO, if only one GitHub item / issue / thread existed, but that's not how it is atm, so we have this confusing fragmentation.

---

Dear @mauro-balades , thank you so much for all your brilliant work so far, it's amazing, & a beautiful gift to us. I read all the latest posts in the Zen subreddit each day, all the Zen Browser posts/toots in the fediverse, & often look thru the GitHub Issues. Especially from the subreddit recently i'm growing discomforted by the apparent direction you might be going in, & numerous other users seem to be urging you in, regarding tab management.

In my Firefox-Nightly, Firefox, Floorp & Zen, i have profiles respectively assigned to use the native vertical tabs capabilities such as they currently exist, & other profiles assigned to disabling the native tabs & using the brilliant Sidebery AddOn. I'm completely hooked on Sidebery, & i use large swathes of its numerous options, but its most important one is simply its ability to have infinite nested collapsible tabs within its tab tree, in each of an infinite number of Tabs Panels [its Workspaces analogue]. There is nothing even close to this tabs management sophistication natively in any browser. Merely single-level tab groups as exist in Vivaldi, Chromium, Firefox-Nightly, Firefox-Beta atm, simply pale into functional insignificance by comparison.

For those reasons, months ago i was thrilled & encouraged by this subreddit comment of yours:

• https://l.opnxng.com/r/zen_browser/comments/1eqqzlt/the_one_feature_that_will_win_me_over/lhtlywh/?context=3#lhtlywh

  • Yes, tab groups/folders and trees are on the way!

• https://l.opnxng.com/r/zen_browser/comments/1eqqzlt/the_one_feature_that_will_win_me_over/lhv19c4/?context=3#lhv19c4

  • Natively

I don't know ofc, but i substantially fear, that both Floorp & even the excellent Zen Browser might be simply going to adopt Mozilla Devs' uninspiring non-tree single-level tab groups once that design stabilises into Firefox-Release version. Lots & lots of recent subreddit chatter, by numerous other users, but also by some comments & pictures from you iirc, have given me this fear.

So, i ponder this impertinent question for you pls; is it still your intention to incorporate native vertical tab trees per that August subreddit? If not, are you aware of any design plans you currently envisage that would prevent users unable to give up full Sidebery functionality, from running it still in future Zen? [eg, since last week, though Sidebery itself still works well in Firefox-Nightly, its primitive native vertical tabs can no longer be completely hidden, only collapsed, which is inelegant & inefficient given it robs otherwise useful horizontal pixels from the browser pages].

Thank you.

[GitMurf]

I as well really hope nested vertical tabs (sidebery style) is still on the table. This is the single feature that will determine which browser I use moving forward.

[mikedlr]

@guigirl42 you mentioned before in this comment that there are a bunch of issues related to this. Could you please point to the ones you think are important?

[guigirl42]

I'm not sure i understand exactly what you're asking me. Is there some part of my other comments in this thread where my meaning / explanations were unclear?

Given atm i can't answer you more directly til i know exactly what you're asking me, i'll just include the remarks below... which might or might not help.

Since i first created my OPs on wanting Sidebery-integration in Zen...

• Sidebery features or better integration #114 (comment)
• Sidebery features or better integration #114 (comment)
• Sidebery features or better integration #114 (comment)
• Sidebery features or better integration #891 (comment)
• Sidebery features or better integration #891 (reply in thread)

...my attitude to Zen has changed considerably, & not for the better. The Dev iirc afaict entirely fails to engage in THE central question here, NONE of my & our questions get replied-to at all wrt Sidebery. Instead, all i see for multiple Zen updates now for months is a litany of "idiosyncratic" UI design changes that do nothing for my fundamental objective of choosing a default web browser; its efficiency at helping me manage my daily & historical web browsing efficacy.

There are two major aspects of this either currently afaict ignored by the Dev, or otherwise have been actively rejected by them:

1. Full Sidebery integration into Zen. Everyone in the reddit sub for Zen is regularly losing their minds over all manner of inconsequential aesthetic design changes, & acting all excited over upstream Firefox's belated stab at native vertical tabs that are now flowing into Zen. To be blunt; to anyone who knows & relies on superior tab management sophistication like [at least] Tree Style Tab AO, or [best of all] Sidebery AO, the native FF design [& hence Zen's] is sadly amateurish. None of the benefits of Sidebery is present, & ofc the most fundamentally important one of these is... infinitely-nestable tabs. Single-level tab groups like in Vivaldi, Chromium, & now FF, are utterly incapable of helping with optimum tab management that derives from nesting. If Zen is not going to provide this, i am not going to keep using Zen.
2. A permanently visible, directly accessible, dedicated second sidebar for Web Panels. The Zen design that hides the WPs away behind superfluous clicks, is just inadequate [inefficient]. The Dev flatly rejected my earlier request, citing instead a preference for aesthetic minimalism over function. The way that both Vivaldi & Floorp do their WP sidebar is far superior to the Zen design. Hence, despairing at the bad compromise i was forced into accepting if i continued using Zen, i was subsequently delighted to discover the excellent project Firefox Second Sidebar https://github.com/aminought/firefox-second-sidebar.

Using Firefox Second Sidebar + Sidebery, i have now reverted to Firefox Nightly as my default browser, & it is a magnificent daily browsing experience.

[antler5]

@guigirl42
thx for sharing what worked for you!

i was able to use MrOtherGuy's css, but not out of the box -- i thought because you said "horizontal tabbar" that maybe i needed to toggle zen.tabs.vertical, but that re-arranged all sorts of things, so i put it back and added my own CSS until i was happy with it. the tab sidebar kinda half-shows if i omit the import (so i still need it), but they seem to be working together. i doubt anyone will use this but it pleases me to leave it here c:

@import url("hide_tabs_toolbar_v2.css");

#sidebar-splitter {
  display: none !important;
}

#navigator-toolbox {
  width: 0 !important;
  min-width: 0 !important;
  position: absolute !important;
}

#sidecar-box,
#zen-tabbox-wrapper {
  margin-right: 0 !important;
}

i also played with getting 'Firefox Second Sidebar' to work:

i was able to load it, but only in private-browsing windows because some of Zen's .getAttribute("chromehidden") calls hit null. I tried to fix that, first in second-sidebar's JS by setting _shouldHaveWorkspaces and _workspacesEnabled on misc objects and then by patching ? into Zen's JS, but i couldn't find the right element (or access the right Document?) for the former, and returning undefined from the latter, uh...

so anyway i don't have time to get any further with that rn but it's been fun
tempted to summarize my experience and feedback but this doesn't really seem like the right place, i'll join the discord

[cmdillon]

Sidebery is cool and all, as I stated here in a previous thread. it's the best tab solution for Mozilla based browsers, but it's missing one main thing—tab group syncing.

tab group syncing is supper important especially if you are using more than one device, as I do. I have a laptop and desktop device and got totally frustrated with not having my tabs synced so I moved on to edge. Microsoft edge has tab groups that sync across devices, but it does not have deep nesting of groups—that's the tradeoff.

so if tab groups does come to zen—then please add syncing of tab groups.

I'm still using zen, but unfortunately not as my daily driver—waiting for tab groups and their syncing...

[gtzedaki]

I am in the same boat. I have been using firefox less and less because of how simpler my life is with edge synchronizing my tabs. I really miss the tree structure as well and occasionally check if I can find a firefox based solution that will have both syncing workspaces and the tree structure.

[q2wew]

Totally agree, it's incredibly convenient

[kohded]

Would it be possible to support/utilize the native Firefox tab groups currently in development? It's very similar to Chrome tab groups and available in the Nightly version, or can be manually enabled via about:config. Works well with horizontal tabs in Firefox but has issues with vertical tabs in Zen. The groups don't visually collapse, and when a tab outside the group is closed while in a collapsed state, the browser crashes or displays a black screen (GIFs below). Support for this would be great.

user_pref("browser.tabs.groups.enabled", true);

[TheFuzzStone]

@guigirl42, could you please share ideas on how to completely hide the native sidebar in Firefox Nightly?

I see that Firefox Nightly has implemented vertical tabs pretty well. But I want to completely hide the native sidebar and use Sidebery.

[bannert1337]

@TheFuzzStone Check here:
https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-hide-native-horizontal-tabs

[guigirl42]

@TheFuzzStone Check here: https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery?tab=readme-ov-file#how-to-hide-native-horizontal-tabs

No, that mod broke several months ago, so i used other workarounds, which later also broke. Since 21/11/24 i had used https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/blob/master/chrome/hide_tabs_toolbar_v2.css, & it worked perfectly. Then on 29/11/24, Nightly 135.0a1 (20241128215411) Installed on: 29 November 2024 at 14:39:15 partly broke something in that code [it still hid the native horizontal tabs, but the window controls went missing]. On 30/11/24, the MrOtherGuy site was updated to fix that latest problem, by editing their existing https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/blob/master/chrome/hide_tabs_toolbar_v2.css. Ironically only today 13/2/25 the latest Nightly update, Nightly 137.0a1 (20250212161131) this morning broke the mod, so now the native horizontal tabbar has reappeared. Looking at https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/tree/master/chrome i cannot yet see any new updates relevant to this new problem, so i shall keep monitoring the site daily in hope of another fix soon appearing.

[bannert1337]

@guigirl42 @TheFuzzStone Well that's the benefit of using Nightly 😄

[guigirl42]

@guigirl42 @TheFuzzStone Well that's the benefit of using Nightly 😄

Ha. Well, lovely news, only a few hours later, the update arrived, & it works fine, ie, now the native horizontal tabbar is once again hidden...

https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/blob/master/chrome/hide_tabs_toolbar_v2.css

Thank you, @MrOtherGuy 🎉 🥳 👯‍♀️

[TheFuzzStone]

I just found out about Zen Browser. And yes, the first thing I did was to see what plans there were to integrate Sidebery into Zen Browser.

We listen to our users and build the features they want.

Then hopefully the developers have noticed how many people are waiting for Sidebery to be fully integrated. :)

[inviter42]

I will delete Arc and move to Zen the moment this gets added.

[inviter42]

I'm using Zen just fine with Sidebery. It is a few extra steps to set up and if you want to sync tabs across multiple devices that could be an issue, but if your setup is one desktop/laptop and one mobile phone (Firefox sync) then it works fine.

Could you tell me how you got rid of the zen sidebar? there used to be a zen mod that that did it, but is no longer available

I suspect that he's just using compact mode for sidebar + CSS for better Sidebery integration. It's junky and it is one of the main reasons this issue exists.

[kohded]

Arc will no longer get new features, and their team have moved on to developing a new browser.

[hipur]

I'm using Zen just fine with Sidebery. It is a few extra steps to set up and if you want to sync tabs across multiple devices that could be an issue, but if your setup is one desktop/laptop and one mobile phone (Firefox sync) then it works fine.

I'm using the Sidebery Mod but whenever a new tab opens/closes, Zen's sidebar unhides and hides again (using compact mode). Is there any other workaround or is this a feature and not a bug? (°ー°〃)

[Airradda]

I'm using the Sidebery Mod but whenever a new tab opens/closes, Zen's sidebar unhides and hides again (using compact mode). Is there any other workaround or is this a feature and not a bug? (°ー°〃)

Uncheck the Briefly make the toolbar popup when switching or opening new tabs in compact mode. setting.

[Midnight1938]

I'm using Zen just fine with Sidebery. It is a few extra steps to set up and if you want to sync tabs across multiple devices that could be an issue, but if your setup is one desktop/laptop and one mobile phone (Firefox sync) then it works fine.

Could you tell me how you got rid of the zen sidebar? there used to be a zen mod that that did it, but is no longer available

I suspect that he's just using compact mode for sidebar + CSS for better Sidebery integration. It's junky and it is one of the main reasons this issue exists.

I have found that its an extension no longer available on the zen mod store. I had that in my other system, which after an import and a line, works fine

[inviter42]

So apparently they added new setting that allows to completely hide the sidebar in compact mode, so it wouldn't show even on hovering over it. It is available only in v1.8t for now though.

'zen.view.compact.show-sidebar-and-toolbar-on-hover' in about:config

[inviter42]

This is indeed progress, but:

* In this mode, you can reach Zen settings anymore

* The title bar on top is hidden as well, even when we only want the sidebar to not be hoverable

I think they might have broken the title bar part in 1.8.1, because afair it wasn't the case when I was testing it in 1.8.0

[jamez243]

My biggest problem with sideberry is when I drag a window out it doesn't go to where I drag it like the native tab bar does... it just goes right on top of the open browser

[ChristinWhite]

For me, the biggest annoyances are that it spawns immutable tabs a lot that it won't let me close and which don't exist in Zen's sidebar. So much so that I created a trash panel and just throw broken tabs in there.

It also has trouble restoring after restarting Zen or restoring a snapshot to a new window. At a minimum, I usually end up with like 25 extra pinned tabs spawned from the ether, but often time I'll have entire workspaces lose their tabs or a different workspace. Snapshots save the day, but it's a pain to verify everything is there and then kill pinned tabs one-by-one.

I don't think this is a sustainable solution, at least in its current form, and it's enough of an issue that I keep thinking about switching back to Firefox. I really hope native functionality appears to replace it soon.

[inviter42]

Sidebery was written for Firefox originally. Zen is moving very quickly with its development, so I would expect things to break along the way. Personally I've just cloned the Sidebery repo, fixed a few things that annoyed me the most and I'm using this custom version for now.

[antler5]

i'd noticed a few funny things in my time with Zen today, with and without Sideberry -- totally understandable stuff like tree-style tab related bugs (new tabs inserted under the wrong groups), but also stuff like losing pinned/essential tabs, strange behavior when essential-ing/pinning/unpinning, the first new-tab page being blank and about:home having toggle buttons that disappear when enabled. I didn't have any issues with workspaces (though they sure don't seem plumbed* up with Sideberry >u<), and love the minimalism and mods system -- saving my feedback for elsewhere just want to be clear that these are solvable issues and i think the product is really impressive c:

didn't use sideberry extensively, but it sounds like our issues are mutually exclusive -- i'd love to see your checkout!

* kind of thing i'd love to get paid to do, if anyone really wants that?

[hyperdotbat]

If this along with proper syncing of tree-style tabs / groups (as using Sidebery with multiple devices is a no-go) gets added it will make me instantly switch from Firefox to Zen, looking forward to any progress!

[DockterTeagle]

where can I find the proper zen tab bar code so I can try and add tst logic to it? or has someone else already done this?

[ImTheSquid]

It seems to be all in here, mixed around in different files and subdirectories. I might look into this too but there is a lot of code to go through.

[whizzzkid]

I'm moved away from Chrome to Firefox only to be bamboozled by Firefox and am now moving to Zen, I need this feature, what can I do to help accelerate this?

[plyght]

Apologies if I'm asking a repeated question; I'm a little confused.

Are tree-style tabs (like from Orion) coming to Zen natively anytime soon?

here's a screenshot of how Orion does it in the sidebar: (Orion goes about it by making a sort of sub-tab when you click "open link in new tab" which makes it easier to go backwards)

[ELLIOTTCABLE]

I've been trying Orion, in fact; it nails the tab-tree interface. Fully native. And it's WebKit, not Blink; so substantially faster and more battery-friendly. (Supports a lot of FireFox extensions, too.)

[Chilinot]

I have also gone over to Orion due to the missing tab-tree feature. However Orion does have plenty of its own issues to deal with, so I wouldnt recommend it yet to anyone else unless they have the patience for running a buggy browser as daily driver.

[ChristinWhite]

@Scribble4 Apologies for the slow reply, I found a few significant issues with my CSS, including no support for transparency and dark-mode (which I don't use), and it needs to be cleaned up. Unfortunately, I've run into significant tab loss problems and have moved to Floorp until there's native support for tree style tabs and folders rather than keep fighting Zen and Sidebery. Losing tabs frequently makes Sidebery untenable with Zen, at least for me.

[GitMurf]

Unfortunately, I've run into significant tab loss problems and have moved to Floorp until there's native support for tree style tabs and folders rather than keep fighting Zen and Sidebery. Losing tabs frequently makes Sidebery untenable with Zen, at least for me.

Dang! I was hoping it was just me and something I was doing wrong but I have also been experiencing significant tab loss issues. And at a certain point it seems Zen does not support very well "reloading" a certain number of tabs in sideberry. It has been frustrating battling this and the uncertainty of whether I will lose some tabs or not.

I have even had to clear all my tabs in sidebery and start fresh several times in Zen which is very disappointing :(

[ChristinWhite]

Dang! I was hoping it was just me and something I was doing wrong but I have also been experiencing significant tab loss issues. And at a certain point it seems Zen does not support very well "reloading" a certain number of tabs in sideberry. It has been frustrating battling this and the uncertainty of whether I will lose some tabs or not.

I have even had to clear all my tabs in sidebery and start fresh several times in Zen which is very disappointing :(

Yep, I was able to go a couple of weeks after wiping out all my tabs and rebuilding it, but then it started happening again unpredictably. The death blow for me was when it stopped restoring my windows from snapshots, then I couldn't even easily recover when I did lose tabs.

I exported my settings with snapshots, opened up Floorp, installed Sidebery and restored the settings file and the snapshot opened instantly with no issue and haven't hit any tab loss issues since. It unfortunately isn't nearly as good as Zen about unloading tabs, so Zen does run noticeably faster than Floorp if I don't restart it a couple of times a day, but it's better than tab loss.

[projectpjs]

this would be cool tbh

[gfhdhytghd]

I hope zen can copy the entire tab group function of vivaldi(I really love this shit but It's too stuck) and then add the tree tab group function.
At the same time, I hope there is an option or mod to adjust the height of the label. The current height is a bit too high for me.

[Erudition]

Hi all,

Since Zen's and Firefox's native vertical tabs are currently nowhere near feature parity with Sidebery, and since none of the hacks in this discussion seem to replace the Zen tab bar for real (without losing the ability to open other sidebars), I have created a mod to integrate Sidebery natively.

https://github.com/Erudition/zen-sidebery-mod/blob/main/zen-sidebery-integration.mjs

Unfortunately, there's little documentation on creating mods, and zero documentation on creating mods that aren't themes. So I haven't packaged this into a mod yet - the contents would go in userChrome.js rather than userChrome.css.

Ctrl+Shift+J, paste, enter - to try it out

In the mean time, you can test this out by pressing Ctrl+Shift+J in Zen to open the Browser Console (or Menu -> More Tools -> Browser Console) - then pasting the text below and hitting enter to run the code. This runs the script linked above. The effects are temporary, and will be reset when you close Zen.

fetch("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Erudition/zen-sidebery-mod/refs/heads/main/zen-sidebery-integration.mjs").then((response) => response.text().then((code) => eval(code)));

Of course, read the source code to make sure you trust it. I'm not much of a FF hacker but most of it is copied from FF's source code directly with a few tweaks. The idea is to replace the zen tab bar element with an unwrapped frame of Sidebery, rather than render the Sidebar in its place. This means you can still use the sidebar for other sidebars!

Screenshots

Proof that it's independent of the FF Sidebar, unlike other contemporary solutions:

[hipur]

@Erudition
Quick update, unfortunately right button click is also not working.

20250420-0030-50.0019396.mp4

[Erudition]

Made a new batch of upgrades! Check out the repo and give it a star please :)

• Better theme integration, and the CSS is now built in (you can remove the old suggested CSS).
• Basic support for compact mode
• Many fixes (including the typing cursor issue, thanks @hipur )

Going forward, please report issues on the repo!

(@hipur - regarding right-click, you may have Sidebery's "Use Native Context Menu" enabled - turn that back off for now)

[nothingnesses]

Why this is a mod instead of simply being a native feature of Zen is beyond me. @Erudition Thank you for adding support for it though.

[InJJWeTrust]

I would highly recommend this type of work to get merged natively into Zen. Sure maybe they can tweak the UI or implementation as needed, but it needs a native solution like this for nested/tree-style-tabs. I totally get that workspaces can help split up groups for even larger groups of tabs (based on theme/task groups), but still... everything feels so hacked together with native Zen.

Praying that this or something similar will get looked at by the main devs. Keep up the great work!

[Erudition]

@nothingnesses @InJJWeTrust I'm merely combining the works of Zen and Sidebery - Sidebery is powerful and featureful and took a long time to make, so it's not so simple to "just" add all its features to Zen. It seems they will get there one day, but they're starting from scratch (extension code isn't really reusable as native code here), meanwhile Sidebery is already there, and mature, so for me - visual integration was the only missing piece.

[AhmadHddad]

can someone tell us what's the progress on this feature?

[nothingnesses]

#7359

[DockterTeagle]

this idea came to me, there are many extensions that have a vertical bar that would have been integrated with TST, it is of course unreasonable to expect all of these to work natively. However perhaps there could be a way to allow other extensions to extend this bar? or allow extnesions access to the bar instead of creating a new seperate tab? I apologize for commenting on such a stale and large discussion. but I did not want to open an issue.

[poseidon-rises]

#7359 was supposed to add folders and trees, but a new PR was split off (#9355) that only added folders. Is there any chance that tree tabs will be added eventually or are tab trees not planned?

[ImTheSquid]

I haven't looked too deep into the contents of the folder PR, but much of the UI/UX work of "tree-styled things" should be done so hopefully a tree-style tabs PR would be somewhat simplified.

[D3SOX]

I just tried out the folders feature and unfortunately it's really rough and does not help me at all. You have to manually create folders and drag tabs into them. There's not even an option to create a folder in the context menu when selecting multiple tabs, dragging two on top of each other or any other way I could find.
Furthermore, it's only an organization feature for your pinned tabs. This workflow is way too static for me and does not satisfy my needs as a long-time Sidebery user who is looking to switch to Zen, but the lack of a similar dynamic tree styled tabs concept keeps me from doing so. I understand that it's early in development but wanted to share my thoughts here again because I'm not really sure if this is actually the direction this feature will develop in.

[GitMurf]

Yep agreed. Very disappointed.

[maribox]

I just tried out the folders feature and unfortunately it's really rough and does not help me at all.

100% agree. The folders need to be a feature that works automatically. The browser needs to bring order into my tabs, not me manually.
Also folders are not really a great structure to begin with - We need more levels than just one to organize stuff

[DockterTeagle]

maribox you can nest folders, I do agree that it should be automatic. Also you can only create folders in pinned tabs