1936379 - Add Sidebar and Vertical Tabs checkboxes in about:preferences and remove from Nightly Labs

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Sidebar, task, P1)

Description

[Ania]

Starting from Nightly 136, we need to:

• remove Sidebar and Vertical tabs checkboxes from Labs.
• introduce the new Browser layout section for sidebar and vertical tabs settings in about:preferences#general.

Browser layout section location: between Tabs and Language and Appearance sections.

Horizontal tabs
This option is selected by default, unless a profile already has vertical tabs enabled prior to setting being introduced.

Default values:

• sidebar.revamp = false
• sidebar.verticalTabs = false

Vertical tabs

If a user had vertical tabs enabled (sidebar.revamp = true + sidebar.verticalTabs = true) prior to the setting introduced, the radio state should reflect it. If vertical tabs radio button is enabled:

• sidebar.revamp = true
• sidebar.verticalTabs = true
• sidebar.visibility = show
• Show sidebar is pre-checked and disabled. A user will have to switch to Horizontal tabs to change the Show sidebar setting.

Show sidebar

This option is not pre-checked by default:

• sidebar.revamp = false

If Show sidebar checkbox is enabled:

• sidebar.revamp = true
• sidebar.visibility = show (the launcher is visible until a user clicks the sidebar button to hide it)

The checkbox follows the current behavior of the sidebar.revamp pref:

• Enables new sidebar
• Adds the sidebar toolbar button into the default location if a user didn’t have the sidebar button.
• Leaves the location of the button intact for users who already have it in the toolbar

Strings

Section title:
Browser layout

Radio labels
Horizontal tabs
Display at top of browser

Vertical tabs
Display on the side, in the sidebar

Checkbox label and description:
Show sidebar
Quickly access bookmarks, tabs from your phone, AI chatbots, and more without leaving your main view.

Comment 1

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

should this bug be morphed into moving the sidebar checkboxes to elsewhere in about:preferences? or maybe that's going to be covered by https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/FIDEFE-6159

Comment 2

[Sarah Clements [:sclements]]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #1)

should this bug be morphed into moving the sidebar checkboxes to elsewhere in about:preferences? or maybe that's going to be covered by https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/FIDEFE-6159

Yeah, I think it'd make sense for the removal of sidebar and vertical tabs in Nightly labs to be in the same patch to add the about:preferences changes (and since your patch in bug 1933524 is only removing the chatbot from labs). I'll link that placeholder JIRA ticket.

Ania, can you update this ticket when you have final strings for the about:preferences checkboxes?

Comment 3

[Ania]

Attachment: Screenshot 2025-01-24 at 6.40.47 PM.png

Comment 4

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

Attachment: Bug 1936379 - Add new browser layout section to about:preferences, remove Labs sidebar section. r?#sidebar-reviewers

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/235d7e641b21
Add new browser layout section to about:preferences, remove Labs sidebar section. r=sidebar-reviewers,fluent-reviewers,settings-reviewers,sclements,Gijs,bolsson

Comment 6

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/235d7e641b21