[Schlaefer]

Originally Posted by ata

Command-shift-M

Sidebars can be hidden just as easily as drawers. I like the idea of switching to a sidebar; consistency with the rest of OS X (now that it actually is starting to look somewhat consistent as a whole) would be a good thing.

Sorry, but this isn't so easy. As of Tiger Mail is the only app I know of (please correct me if I'm wrong) where this is really an option. In Leopard you can completly hide the thumbnails in Preview, but sorry, no shortcut. There are other apps, like the Finder with its a non sidebar (aka spatial) mode or iTunes, where you can open "sub"windows with no sidebar, but this isn't really the same. The majority of apps does not allow to hide the sidebar.

And while we speak of consistency: why is the sidebar in Preview on the right side? And can we choose left/right if OmniWeb should ever switch to a sidebar (as we can now with drawers)? And if not, does this qualify as visual improvement but a functional step backwards? ;)

[cleverdevil]

I'd also like to see the drawer banished for a sidebar. No Apple applications that I can think of use drawers anymore. They're antiquated, work poorly with Spaces sometimes, waste space, and are rendered with crazy drop shadows over top of them in Leopard.

Ditch the drawer, and move to a sidebar, as long as it can be positioned on either side.

[Handycam]

Originally Posted by cleverdevil

Ditch the drawer, and move to a sidebar, as long as it can be positioned on either side.

Yes, please.

No, seriously -- please!

[Stormchild]

Originally Posted by Forrest

Ah, didn't know that. Still, all that does is widen the message viewer area. It doesn't remove the area the sidebar is.

That's true, and I think it's a good point. Some people will want to hide a sidebar to increase the usable area of a window (as when hiding mailboxes in Mail, or to do items in iCal), while others will do so to make the window itself smaller. It seems to me that both behaviors are valid choices.

I think there should either be an option to toggle whether hiding the sidebar shrinks the window or widens the view area -- and/or an option to view tabs in Drawer or Sidebar, which might be a little more intuitive.

[Stormchild]

Originally Posted by Schlaefer

Sorry, but this isn't so easy. As of Tiger Mail is the only app I know of (please correct me if I'm wrong) where this is really an option.

In iCal you can hide the to-do sidebar. (Command-option-T)
In Address Book you can hide the contact list and groups. (Command-2)

Apple's pro applications all have very extensive abilities to customize which parts of the UI are shown and toggle them on the fly with keyboard shortcuts.

Originally Posted by Schlaefer

In Leopard you can completly hide the thumbnails in Preview, but sorry, no shortcut.

Command-shift-D.

Originally Posted by Schlaefer

And while we speak of consistency: why is the sidebar in Preview on the right side? And can we choose left/right if OmniWeb should ever switch to a sidebar (as we can now with drawers)? And if not, does this qualify as visual improvement but a functional step backwards? ;)

I couldn't tell you why Apple put the sidebar in Preview on the right side, but to me it makes sense. That said, I don't see a problem with choice.

I would assume OmniWeb would let you place the sidebar on whichever side you want. That's just the way Omni is.

[zottel]

I guess it boils down to what usage one prefers: maximized window browsing or "normal" window size browsing. I understand that drawers are an annoyance to those who prefer the maximized version—I'd feel the same if I did. But I do prefer "normal" window size, and some sidebar suddenly reducing the horizontal space for the actual browser window would be very annoying to me in turn.

So please, if OW should ever support a sindebar, make it an option, not a replacement for the drawer. Thus both browsing habits could be satisfied.

[Handycam]

I'd rather have neither, just Safari-like tabs at the top. Personally, I don't need to be looking at thumbnails of all the pages I have open in tabs -- that why I opened them in TABS, to keep them available in the background. I never understood the value of that drawer.

So if we were to have normal, space-efficient tavs on the top, perhaps some unobtrusive UI to quickly show which tab is which is worth coming up with? Either a hotkey to show/hide the drawer/column (like in SafariStand) so you can see what you've got open? Or "tab expose", which I don't really like but does serve the purpose?

[owuser]

The Omni Group could borrow something from Opera, as far as tab identity goes, if they ever implement the traditional tabs. Opera's default currently has the tabs across the top that, once the user rests his cursor over one, displays a thumbnail popup of the page. So basically the thumbnails are called up on an individual basis and not seen when they aren't needed to the user.

Just an idea.

[Schlaefer]

Originally Posted by Stormchild

Command-shift-D.

I couldn't tell you why Apple put the sidebar in Preview on the right side, but to me it makes sense. That said, I don't see a problem with choice.

I was testing Shift+Command+M like in Mail. Of course it is another shortcout, because it is another app. I'm a fool. ;)

My problems with the (right) sidebar in Preview:
* I'm visually totally used to the the windows resize handle at the bottom of the scroll bar. I know it sounds strange and I should search at the lower right corner of the window, but I'm constantly irritated by that.
* PDFs do not reflow like (good designed) browser content. If I have an PDF open so I can comfortably read it and I open up the sidebar the PDF scales down (unreadable) or the sidebar overlays the right half of the PDF (unreadable too). Clearly a regression from the drawer.

As soon as you show/hide a sidebar (left and/or right) the app has to change the size of the content, size of the window; overlay or shows much unused space in the document window. Everytime!
Most of the time (I usually don't use full screen windows, especially in document based apps) the drawer gently expands arround the content, but the sidebar messes up the view on the content and disturbs my workflow because I have to resize the window or do some other adjustments. I find this visual fuzz annoying at best.

To put it short: I'm not convinced of sidebars as the per se better solution.

[Stormchild]

Originally Posted by astark

One functional benefit of a column over a drawer is that the toolbar would not have to change size when switching to tabbed browsing. For me, jumping to tabbed browsing currently makes my bookmarks bar take up a second line--sort of annoying.

That is only the case if your browser window doesn't leave enough room for the drawer. For me, hiding and showing the drawer has no effect on the width of my browser window, because the browser is only using maybe 60% of the width of my display. I couldn't imagine having it fully maximized, as there are sites that will expand to use the entire width, and text becomes very difficult to read when the content area is that wide. Of course, that's something every site should handle properly in the first place, but as we all know, a lot of them don't, and many of them never will.

I would never want the size of my browsing area to be affected by hiding and showing the drawer. I have it set for a certain minimum width that avoids having a vertical scrollbar on any site I visit, and I don't ever want it to increase or decrease the width of the content area unless I explicitly resize the window.

Point taken though.