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.<p><i>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.</i>[1]<p>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.<p>With it, you could for instance (re-)implement something like the old Side Tabs feature, which was removed from Chrome because <i>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.</i>[2]<p>[1]: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/102hfWTM5cMl-95PyfGcn89YHDTffBMMumLUBOnxLp0A/preview?sle=true" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/102hfWTM5cMl-95PyfGcn89YH...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=344870#c113" rel="nofollow">https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=344870#c...</a>
It's funny, in the golden age of Firefox extensions sidebars where very popular, and when Chrome released without one people where complaining.<p>The response was that a popup that appears when you click a toolbar button was enough.<p>It's funny to see they're going to release one now that nobody cares about it.
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: <a href="https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/?tag=sidebar&order=popular" rel="nofollow">https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/?tag=sidebar&order=po...</a>.<p>Vivaldi, basically a modernized Opera 11/12, has supported some sidebar elements from the beginning.<p>Since Opera and Vivaldi are both Chromium-based, it's not surprising to see sidebars getting into upstream.
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.
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.
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.<p>[1]: <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpnenekpadlanbbkooimhnj?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/honey/bmnlcjabgnpn...</a>
I've been working on a graphical command-line for manipulating webpages with natural language queries (<a href="https://contextscript.com" rel="nofollow">https://contextscript.com</a>). 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.
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.
Awesome. I built Intab (<a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/intab-beta/bfaekmalldododidalckpccilpcdefme?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/intab-beta/bfaekma...</a>) but it's admittedly a bit hacky. Hoping this API will support the same use case in a much more stable way.
It'a good idea, it reminds me of IE Bands, one of the few things I liked about IE:<p><a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144099(v=vs.85).aspx" rel="nofollow">https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc1...</a>
Opera already has support for Sidebar extensions, you can check it out here <a href="https://dev.opera.com/extensions/tut_sidebar_actions.html" rel="nofollow">https://dev.opera.com/extensions/tut_sidebar_actions.html</a>
This could make the octotree[0] extension even more awesome. Let's see.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/buunguyen/octotree" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/buunguyen/octotree</a>
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.
I haven't read everything in detail, but this reminded me of the API developed for modal dialogs. It ended like this:<p><a href="https://dev.opera.com/blog/showmodaldialog/" rel="nofollow">https://dev.opera.com/blog/showmodaldialog/</a><p>Both the ideas seem good, but it's hard to not think about "Embrace, extend and extinguish".