Chrome is developing a Sidebar API

I remember all the fuss that was made about a sidebar in Windows (was it in Vista?) At the end of the day its just a souped up menu in a different position.

ohaal2• 11 years ago

In the comments so far, there seems to be some confusion on what this is. The Chrome Sidebar API is an API for Chrome extensions, adding a sidebar surface to Chrome.

The proposed API allows Chrome extensions to access and control a sidebar panel - a per-tab split-pane HTML container to the right (to the left in RTL environment) of the main page content with the ability to resize horizontally.[1]

In short, it provides extensions an alternative to using popups or injecting HTML directly into web pages in order to display something to the user.

With it, you could for instance (re-)implement something like the old Side Tabs feature, which was removed from Chrome because the complexity of a tree-style interface in terms of usage is beyond what most users need or want, and in terms of implementation is more than passes the cost/benefit test for building into Chrome natively as an option.[2]

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/102hfWTM5cMl-95PyfGcn89YH...

[2] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=344870#c...

smurfpandey• 11 years ago

We had a sidebar extension on Chrome called Teamgum[1]. But it was removed from store last month because we were using remote iframes. And when we asked for more explanation nothing from their end. And now I see they are developing there own sidebar.

[1] http://www.teamgum.com

bhilburn• 11 years ago

Awesome explanation. Thanks for sharing.

It looks like Mozilla is making a new push with Firefox, as well, to attract devs back: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/07/big-ch...

If successful, it will be interesting to see how Chrome evolves for developers to compete.

(I was reminded of this because the Firefox sidebar was always wildly popular - I know lots of people that continue to use it specifically for that purpose)

eloisant• 11 years ago

It's funny, in the golden age of Firefox extensions sidebars where very popular, and when Chrome released without one people where complaining.

The response was that a popup that appears when you click a toolbar button was enough.

It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it.

ionforce• 11 years ago

It's that whole 80/20 thing. Most features of products go unused. So Chrome has finally reached a level of maturity where it can concentrate on rarely used features.

digi_owl2• 11 years ago

Could be that some users are keeping and eye on Vivaldi.

https://vivaldi.com/

Gys3• 11 years ago

I use Firefox by default with an add-on 'Vertical Tabs'. This moves all tabs away from the top into a narrow sidebar.

Screens are more wide then tall and for me my vertical space is more valuable. Every line that holds only static info (address bar, open tabs) is not strictly needed at all times, so I want them either to popup (like the menu bar in full screen view) or at least move to the sides ('cheaper' space).

I am somewhat surprised this is not more common opinion.

malnourish• 11 years ago

I use Tree Style Tabs as well. As you said, vertical space is a premium. Back in the day (and perhaps still), there were user chrome tweaks you could make to hide the address bar until you hover over it.

MichaelGG• 11 years ago

That's the exact logic that MS had when they added the sidebar to Vista. It sounds good, but for some reason no one ended up actually interested in using it.

Mahn• 11 years ago

It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it.

But that's because up until now we couldn't care about it anyway if Chrome didn't support it. Sidebars can easily make a comeback if the functionality proves to be useful, and I can picture many extension developers experimenting with it if it's made available.

brlewis• 11 years ago

From the API proposal doc:

Additionally, we’ve seen numerous extensions create sidebars by injecting HTML content into the current page. It is likely that the majority of sidebar extensions would use a native sidebar if available. Here’s a sample of some of our favorite sidebar extensions...

Some of these tools charge over $5,000/yr/seat and have hundreds of large corporations like Facebook, eBay, Salesforce, Pinterest, Twitter, and Netflix using their software, which demonstrates the immense value that can be provided by a sidebar.

digi_owl2• 11 years ago

I still have ctrl+b and ctrl+h drilled into my fingers for when i want to dig something out of either bookmarks or history.

jebblue• 11 years ago

It'a good idea, it reminds me of IE Bands, one of the few things I liked about IE:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc1...

vyrotek2• 11 years ago

Finally! Our customers have been begging us to provide this for years. We build "Employee Engagement" (aka gamification) tools that extend various CRMs. Not all of them support a way to extend the UI but a sidebar would be perfect.

iolothebard• 11 years ago

Build an application.

vyrotek2• 11 years ago

We currently have a free-floating chrome application which looks like a detached sidebar. The problem is our customers want to see it all the time and don't want it to go behind or on top of the browser. As far as I know, there's no good way to "dock" it to the side of a screen and prevent other applications from using that space.

username3• 11 years ago

Is this going to make Sublime Text mini maps possible for webpages?

kuschku• 11 years ago

Yes. While they have been possible in Firefox since forever, they should now be possible in Chrome, too.

Another idea is vertical tabs.

degenerate• 11 years ago

Is this the best one out there?

https://github.com/diox/firefox-minimap-scroller

7952• 11 years ago

This would be great for messaging clients which are painful to use in tabs.

wooger• 11 years ago

Looks good, now they need a way to hide the existing tabs (and perhaps the addressbar too) and we can move to a nice slick side-tabs extension for Chrome.

ksk• 11 years ago

Relax guys, nobody is going to abuse this API!

nathan_f772• 11 years ago

Funny timing for me, I'm just about to start working on a Chrome extension with a sidebar. Maybe we'll be able to use this when it comes out.

aarohmankad3• 11 years ago

I'm currently working on creating a sidebar app similar to Honey's UI [1]. Have you made any progress implementing the sidebar look? It doesn't seem very documented and even Honey seems to do it in a hacky way.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...

nathan_f772• 11 years ago

Sorry I haven't used Honey, and the demo video didn't seem to show a sidebar? Also I actually inherited this codebase, but yeah our sidebar looks good. It just injects a container div into the site.

nathanathan• 11 years ago

I've been working on a graphical command-line for manipulating webpages with natural language queries (https://contextscript.com). So far I've been using a bookmarklet, which has the benefit of working across browsers, but it has a lot of drawbacks too. If I go the browser extension route, this looks like it would be very useful for developing the UI.

curiousjorge• 11 years ago

thank god. I've been asking for this a long time and its finally making

dragthor• 11 years ago

Sounds like a mechanism for ads. (unfortunately)

ytdht• 11 years ago

nothing adblock plus can't handle, but that is what first came to my mind too.

jessaustin• 11 years ago

If the user installs an extension that delivers ads, then perhaps it is the user's intention to receive ads? Barring some kind of exploit, this won't be something that a website can do to you.

aarohmankad3• 11 years ago

Does anyone know how Honey [1] implemented a sidebar like UI in their chrome extension? It seems pretty solid and I wonder how they got around the current limitations against Sidebars in chrome extensions.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...

highwind• 11 years ago

I think they just inject iframe into the actual DOM. It's not an UI element that's part of the browser.

aarohmankad3• 11 years ago

alright thanks! The consensus seems to be injecting a sidebar div into the current page.

amk_• 11 years ago

Opera recently sidebar extensions back in for the first time since the re-architecturing of a few years ago. That was a month ago and there are already quite a few extensions available: https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/?tag=sidebar&order=po....

Vivaldi, basically a modernized Opera 11/12, has supported some sidebar elements from the beginning.

Since Opera and Vivaldi are both Chromium-based, it's not surprising to see sidebars getting into upstream.

ThomPete• 11 years ago

Finally!

I have been waiting for this for a long long time.

shwetank• 11 years ago

Opera already has support for Sidebar extensions, you can check it out here https://dev.opera.com/extensions/tut_sidebar_actions.html

spdustin• 11 years ago

In reminded of :

  target="_search"

Sure was a handy way to get a sidebar opened with a "mini" web app

ushi• 11 years ago

This could make the octotree[0] extension even more awesome. Let's see.

[0] https://github.com/buunguyen/octotree

hmhrex• 11 years ago

Never heard of this. Looks like a really cool project.

iansilber• 11 years ago

Awesome. I built Intab (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/intab-beta/bfaekma...) but it's admittedly a bit hacky. Hoping this API will support the same use case in a much more stable way.

Chrome is developing a Sidebar API

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