The usability of the sidebar could be greatly enhanced if the sidebar panels looked more like something the user is used to. They could look like the cards in a card file, as in the URL given. A small (~3-pt) bevelled border around the outside of the panel, contiguous with the border around the panel heading itself, would be needed to make the panel as a whole look like a cardfile card.

Funny you say that. I was working on just this because recent usability testing shows the panels are too bland to be distinguishable, users loose track of the panels. I have a 'fix' (using XBL) working on my local machine since last night. I am going to forward to Don and Slamm to see whether they're OK. Enclosing screenshot in a second. Don can we take this fix? This is low risk and will not be affecting other areas of the code. In addition we can take the stuff I already have working so it takes little of Slamm's time. Thanks.

Need to check with marketing for PDT+ call. We like it, but need to check with khaki people :-)

The My Sidebar khaki person says yes. Usability studies point out problems with what we currently have, and this is an improvement. Ship it if we can - just do it. Don now needs to assign it to someone.

Putting on PDT+ radar.

Steve, can you grab Ben and check out German's really cool new design for this?

Ok, judging by the screenshot, the tabs as implemented are a vast improvement over the previous controls ... but here's a list of things to tidy up to make the tabs look perfect:-) * All tabs should be the same width -- about 75% of the width of the sidebar. This would increase clickable area for panels with short names, and would make the column of tabs look nicer than the current irregular width, while still retaining the tab look (which would suffer if you went to 100% of the width of the sidebar). Tabs in the real world don't shrink to fit their contents, so why should these ones? (When fixing this, ensure that the tab labels are either left-aligned or right-aligned, depending on the language, *not* centered. Centering would make the labels ragged down the left side, while the tabs themselves were flush left.) * The area of the header not covered by the tab should be the same color as the area above it -- because visually, that's what that area is, it's part of the tab above. In the current skin, this means it should be: - light gray, normally; - dark blue, if it's the first tab (to match the sidebar border); - white, if it's the tab below the currently selected tab. * The scrollbar needs to be inside the border, not outside it. Otherwise, the scrollbar is (a) separated from, and (b) longer than, the viewport it is scrolling. Neither of these are good from either a usability or aesthetic point of view. * If the active tab is white, then the border around the content should also be white, not gray. Otherwise the panel and the panel's tab look like they're not connected to each other. * If the UI is set to a language which is normally written from right to left, the tabs should be aligned with the right side of the sidebar, not the left side. (They might do this already, I'm just making sure.:-)

OK I'll dump the code and step by step instructions to slamm/ben tomorrow, it's really pretty simple and very low risk using hyatt's xbl. mpt's points are all good ones, I think we can get by without the last one, as I think bi-directional fonts are not really well supported for beta1 in some portions of other UI, so I think that would be OK for beta1. We should be OK in all other points you're raising too, until tomorrow I will pick up on your suggestion to make sidebartabs equal 75% length and left align the text. Thanks as always fro your feedback!

Can we get a date for this landing? IT is very nice, and very good... but if it takes too long, we'll have to later it. Please a) add a landing date to the status whiteboard; b) Get this finalized and in RSN.

so the tabs are pretty, but in the screenshot, they are about 50% wider then the current tabs. Is there any way to shrink them down? The tabs for my ~10 panels will be taking up around 1/3 to 1/2 of my sidebar, and will be even worse in mail/news and aim which have even less room to spare.

By `wider' I assume you mean `thicker' ... Hmmm. I see your problem. Here are my solutions, in order from easiest (and least effective) to hardest (and most effective): * Get used to having fewer sidebar panels open. (What on earth are you doing with *ten* of them???) The search popup menu in the location bar, once fully implemented, will probably eliminate the need for a couple of sidebar panels. * Shave a couple of pixels of vertical padding off the top and bottom of each tab. * Make tabs 50% of the width of the sidebar, and arrange them in rows of two. No, this wouldn't cause the same usability headache as multiple rows of tabs do in Windows dialogs; because unlike Windows tabs, the sidebar tabs would retain the same y-order when selected. However, it might give the impression of a relationship between pairs of sidebar panels, when no such relationship exists. * Replace the sidebar panel headers with a single popup menu at the top of the sidebar. * Use dockable windows for the things now done by sidebar panels, and (gasp) get rid of the sidebar.

Paul: Reasons for doing this more visible size and shape: In the search studies we ran  for search we got a lot of  'free data' on the sidebar also, some of which  strongly suggested that the panels headers need to be a) more visible establishing a hierarchy of elements in the sidebar and  b) have a larger target area to click on. Also once we introduced the new  design on the usability machine, people were readily able to identify them  as 'file folders with stuff in them' and understood where they went when collpased.

I like the new design, I just think they are a little 'thick'. I'll hold further whining until it's implemented. And yes, I probably have too many panels :-) German, I'm not concerned about the space in browser, I'm concerned about the space in mail/news and aim, where you are already pressed for space. In AIM, you can't get rid of the sidebar at all...

I checked it in.

marking verfied, any problems with the tabs should probably come in a new bug

Tabs aren't present in latest (2000-03-07) Mac nightly build, four days after slamm checked them in. So, reopening. I know Windows users are seeing the tabs, because they've been discussed in MozillaZine and the n.p.m.ui newsgroup. So, marking as Mac only and adding pp keyword.

Can we have verification that this is not fixed on Mac, along with a planned landing date. To be honest, I'm not psyched to carry this further along. I'm setting the "w/b minus" to 3/9

It's not possible to test this in a release mac build, because the build crashes before the sidebar is displayed (bug 30477). Pls verify tomorrow.

I'm looking at today's mozilla mac build 030808 and the tabs are there. I don't know if an old build got posted or what yesterday, but this is okay. Marking resolved and verified.

verified on 030808 mac commercial and mozilla builds