Solved Horizontal Tab Scrolling Instead of Shrinking
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@4seasonsvivaldi That won't be that easy. For something like minimum width for all tabs you need more code than only for active tab: scrollbars, auto-hiding them etc.
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Ok, I'm not a programmer, so I didn't know. I just hope for the best. Maybe they (the developers) can achieve it at some point.
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Hoping this gets addressed. Firefox is constantly crashing, and I can't wait to dump it. Vivaldi does everything I want and need, EXCEPT for scrolling tabs. As Vivaldi appears to be based on Chromium, and Chrome has the exact same problem, I'm wondering if it's a technical issue. Really, who in their right mind would think that limiting usable tabs to 30 or so is a feature? I've seen complaints about this going back years in both Vivaldi and Chrome. While I otherwise love Vivaldi, it seems it won't be able to replace Firefox in the foreseeable future.
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@rchadwick I don't see it getting fixed any time soon, but nobody knows; or if they do they're not allowed to say.
While you're waiting, try one or more these work arounds:
- Place the tabs on the side
- Open multiple windows
- Use tab stacks
- Save tab sets as sessions, then close them until you need them.
- Don't open so many tabs.
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This has been something I've wanted since Vivialdi first came out. I don't see why it has been reasonable to leave it as it is for so long since the not-so-edge case of many horizontal tabs means shrinking them to complete unusability. It forces a certain way of using the application upon a portion of the userbase, which seems counter to Vivialdi's central claims of being a user-centric, customizable, power-user's browser.
I've effectively been forced to learn to live with tabs on the side. It works but I still don't enjoy it. Especially when using sites like youtube that are generally designed for certain aspect ratios. Or when a bunch of tabs would be more usable if I could see more of their titles (eg. a site with a long name where you can't differentiate between tabs on the same site when using narrow tabs) and it forces me to decide between easy of tab navigation and the usable space of the actual browser window (that is, making the vertical tab bar wider).
For years, tab users have been given the same lines by people who seemingly don't use tabs the same way as us:
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Use bookmarks: Bookmarks are a different tool for a different purpose. Vivaldi doesn't make it trivial to move, remove, or rename bookmarks, since you have to go into a separate screen. Their use case is for things you need occasionally over a long period and close after each use.
Leaving a tab open is more conducive to things you need many times over a short period and never again. For instance, when I'm programming, I might need a certain page of documentation open 24/7 for a week but never need it again after that. Bookmarking that page, continually opening and closing it, then deleting the bookmark after a week is a very different workflow. Especially when you consider I'd usually have a bunch of esoteric, one-off pages open for that leg of the project, so managing that many rotating bookmarks would become prohibitively time-consuming. -
Don't open so many tabs: Imagine you are the developer of an accounting application. If a user submits a bug report stating that trying to enter a transaction with two decimal places gets rounded to the nearest whole number, is it reasonable to respond, "Don't track cents"? The Vivialdi devs gave us the ability to open arbitrarily-many tabs and billed the browser as a power-user's browser. It seems unreasonable to say that we should actually not use the browser that way. The flippancy with which this line has been used to dismiss our feature requests over the years is insulting, at worst.
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Use sessions: Again, this is a different tool for a different purpose. Loading sessions in and out of the browser is only useful when you have distinct sets of tasks in each session. For instance, a session for work and a session for personal use, which you never use at the same time. However, when you have tabs that you do want loaded at the same time, you can't use this feature.
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Use multiple windows: Again, a different tool. I do use multiple windows to differentiate between areas of concern for my tabs and to allow for multiple things to be visible at once. However, each window still only nets you a small number of additional horizontal tabs before they start shrinking. It's unreasonable to propose that we have dozens of arbitrarily-organized windows floating about just to avoid tab shrinking.
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Use tab stacks: This is a very subjective tool. The way that stacks are created, destroyed, and navigated is either going to resonate with a user or not at all. For instance, only the active tab in a stack is immediately visible in the tab bar. This has implications for visual navigation (when one is trying to find something or landmark through their workspace) and for notifications (you can't see notification badges or other title-based changes on inactive tabs in the stack).
I appreciate that stacks exist and I'm glad the devs are coming up with creative ways for people to use the browser. But it's not a replacement for horizontally-scrolling tabs.
This is something people have been asking for since the start. I hope the devs are able to find time to schedule this.
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Hoping people who want this feature vote for it. Just a few more votes, and it might get on the radar of the developers.
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Of all the feature requests, Tabs is the most popular, with the most posts and the most topics.
In the tabs category, this topic has by far the most views and the most posts, but it is only in third place for votes in the Tabs category. The interest in this feature is definitely there, but without the votes it's not even on the 'Top Feature Requests' list.
If you have more than 20 tabs open at a time, or love someone who does, please vote.
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Yes! I'd love to see this ASAP
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@Pesala said in Horizontal Tab Scrolling Instead of Shrinking:
@rchadwick I don't see it getting fixed any time soon, but nobody knows; or if they do they're not allowed to say.
Please see Implementation of Feature Requests
While you're waiting, try one or more these work arounds:
- Place the tabs on the side
- Open multiple windows
- Use tab stacks
- Save tab sets as sessions, then close them until you need them.
- Don't open so many tabs.
I certainly hope the developers change their minds. While some features are 'nice to have', Vivaldi becomes unusable when too many tabs are open. Tabs on the side are likely the best current workaround, but it sure looks awkward and ugly. I already have multiple windows open, but it's not enough. 'Don't open so many tabs' is insulting, especially considering many of my open tabs are Vivaldi's fault! As tabs become progressively harder to find, I wind up opening up a new tab when I can't find the old one. I hope this is seen as the necessary feature that it is. Even with a relatively low number of tabs, they shrink and truncate the text, making Vivaldi progressively more difficult and frustrating to use. I LOVE everything else about Vivaldi, and would gladly ditch Firefox forever, if it were not for this issue.
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@RChadwick said in Horizontal Tab Scrolling Instead of Shrinking: 'Don't open so many tabs' is insulting, especially considering many of my open tabs are Vivaldi's fault!
If you lose track of tabs that are already open due to opening hundreds of tabs and then open the same tab again, don't blame Vivaldi.
A scrolling tab bar at the top is not going to help you if a scrolling tab bar at the side does not prevent you from opening duplicates. Neither method shows tabs open in other windows, and nor does the window panel.
Use Quick Commands, which lists your tabs in all windows, and lets you search them.
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I find the windows panel helps navigation when I have a lot of tabs: easy to see many tabs with more details, assigning a keyboard shortcut to it... I would consider it the Vivaldi way of addressing this problem.
Doesn't tabs-scrolling has its own problem? I felt frustrated when using Firefox occasionally and finding my tab "disappear", and one probably will need to scroll carefully and patiently to find the right tab...If mouse only action is wanted, maybe just add a button on the tabs bar (and a mouse gesture?) to show the "Display Tab Cycler as List"?
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Scrolling tabs may not be perfect, and Firefox's implementation could certainly be improved on, but it's the most usable thing I've used. One way Firefox wins is scrolling quickly through tabs with the scroll wheel. This works fast and intuitively. On Vivaldi, using vertical tabs, scrolling with a scroll wheel is slow, clunky, and unreliable. Every time I try the scroll wheel by habit, I have to take time out to find out where I was, then click the scroll bar to go where I want to go.
Honestly, if horizontal tabs is not something the developers want to do, then they should hard code tab limits, as tabs become unusable when you don't know which tab is which, and every tab looks identical. Multiple windows causes it's own problems. Half the time, only one window comes back after closing.
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@Pesala I lose track of tabs because I cannot identify the tabs. When the width of tabs shrinks to a certain point, all the tabs look the same. Yes, that is certainly Vivaldi's fault.
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+1 for this feature request. The lack of tab scrolling is the only reason I can not use Chrome-based browsers for my daily work.
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+1 Chromium based browsers are unusable for me because they all lack this feature. Having this tab scrolling behavior has also been on the feature request list for Google Chrome for 10 years, but google devs refuse to implement it. I beg you, Vivaldi devolopers - MAKE IT HAPPEN!
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+1 Tab scrolling is essential for a comfortable surf !! for me too, it's the only reason i don't use Chrome-based browsers !!! so please Vivaldi Team go for it ! and i am sure a lot of FF users will go tu use Vivaldi
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+1 This feature, but would like to add to it:
Why not extend this feature to tab stacks? By hovering over your mouse over the tab with the tab stack, be able to quickly scroll on your mouse to switch tabs would be exceptionally nice. This would mitigate these problems: tab stacks get hard to click, because the height of them are fairly small and especially if you have multiple tabs in a stack. -
I'm surprised that, considering all the votes and views for this feature, it's still listed as 'Nice to have'. Hopefully this feature gets more votes.
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@longvoid said in Horizontal Tab Scrolling Instead of Shrinking:
Optional tabs scrolling like in Firefox.
If it is optional(can be disabled in the setting) I am fine with this feature thought I don't need.
@beuzbeuz78 said in Horizontal Tab Scrolling Instead of Shrinking:
Tab scrolling is essential for a comfortable surf !! for me too, it's the only reason i don't use Chrome-based browsers !!! so please Vivaldi Team go for it ! and i am sure a lot of FF users will go tu use Vivaldi
It's not essential actually it's the opposite, when you have a lot of opened tabs(over 200 or so) Firefox like tab scrolling makes your surfing a living hell, because you have a very limited amount of tabs that you see at a time and in order find the one you need(if your not using some kind of text tab search) you have to scroll and scroll and scroll. And what's worse Firefox tends to scroll you back when it focuses on the tab somewhere in the beginning. Personally, I think that it is a waste of time implementing something like horizontal tab scrolling when you already have vertical tabs which are pretty much the same except with a way better ergonomics.