Side bar for only Speed Dial option | Opera 60

A Former User

Totally agree. Please return the ability to show side panel ONLY on speed-dial screen.

weirdtuned

weirdtuned

This update is the one of most annoying ones so far. I've always been kind of neutral about changes in Opera and addition or exclusion of various features, but this time it directly impacts the experience from using the browser. The first rule for any software that deals with visual content is "do not obstruct the view of the content".

Side Bar is a very useful thing and allows for easy access to the majority of settings, nice bookmarks page, extensions, etc., but having it intrusively sticking from the left of the screen takes up space and makes it look clunky overall. It creates half a frame for viewing any content and draws too much attention to it.

Using the Side Bar in the Speed Dial was a good alternative to using the convoluted drop-down menu from the Opera symbol in the top-right corner, but now you have only two options: either get a distracting half a frame of side bar and navigation bar, or deal with the absence of it and resort to using a rather inconvenient drop-down menu.
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Whew, sorry for the abundance of words - had to spill it out.

nunya

nunya

Yeah, add another user to the list.
I want that stuff on my home page. I don't want it interfering with my web browsing.

opera-user-from-2002

opera-user-from-2002

Speed dial change was the reason I registered on this forum. May be that was Opera's secret plan to increase the community activity?

Roverandom

Roverandom @opera-user-from-2002

@opera-user-from-2002 said in Side bar for only Speed Dial option | Opera 60:

Speed dial change was the reason I registered on this forum. May be that was Opera's secret plan to increase the community activity?

Same for me.

lonelyblade

lonelyblade

I've learned a lot while getting annoyed at the sidebar change in the latest update. The best thing I learned was how to revert to version 58 which I liked! Simple and it works perfectly - https://forums.opera.com/topic/31873/solved-how-to-revert-to-opera-58/4

A Former User

+1 that miss the side bar only in Speed Dial. On my desktop with a big screen the side bar do not bother me, but when I use my small laptop, it's very annoying.

Cayde

Cayde

Second this.. sooo annoying.
I can't understand why would you ever REMOVE functionality as simple and useful as this. What are you gonna remove next? Speed dial?

ant8672

ant8672

Agreed! I miss the ability to access settings, extensions, downloads, etc from the sidebar in speed dial!

sas41

sas41 @leocg

@leocg said in Side panel.:

Just unpin/hide it.

This reply is so low effort and so invalid, I am surprised it's coming from a moderator.

A function that was in by default, automated and served a legitimate purpose has been removed, and you are suggesting we recreate it's function manually, that's the text book definition of regression, downgrading.

If that's the case, why not just switch to Vivaldi altogether, if I have to manually fiddle w/ the side bar, I can do that and much more in Vivaldi.
All the missing features can also be implemented as addons/extensions, and at which point why use Opera?

I have been using this browser for over a decade, I have always recommended it to everyone around me.
The main reason I have used it was it's customizability, ease-of-life / quality-of-life features and it's willingness to progress and innovate. It's a shame that the very user base that popularized it are being ignored.

I wonder how many thousands of people are really annoyed at this change but won't say a thing about it and eventually just switch...

I have been test running Vivaldi for a while (since the sidebar change), I have few reasons to switch, but this sidebar thing is my tipping point, along w/ the attitude I am seeing by staff.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @sas41

@sas41 Moderators are just regular users, they don't work for nor represent Opera.

And my reply was an answer to what was said in that post.

Cayde

Cayde @leocg

@leocg Moderators on official opera forum don't work for Opera? Isn't that a little odd? Can you at least get someone from Opera to respond to this?

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Cayde

@Cayde Not only in Opera forums but in almost any official forums the moderators are usually regular users who help organizing the forum.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Cayde

@Cayde If they think it's necessary to reply to a topic, they will.
However, my experience says that they usually don't reply to feature requests.

Cayde

Cayde @leocg

@leocg Didn't know that - but then again, I never really thought about that till now. Makes sense though I guess - this way, they don't spend money which could be used to remove some useful functionality like this.

Yeah, why would they?
(phew.. that's a lot sarcasm)

barbekon

barbekon

@Roverandom Same thing. But also - when you open a bookmarks in "incognito mode" they opens in normal mode. Who give them that "bright" ideas - I hate him!

asmund11

asmund11

I don`t wanna see side panel on any sites except start page. Can you add some feature for that?

A Former User

Why I cannot see sidebar on the speed dial when I turn it off? It works very well before, I could really quickly hide notifications from my chats by turning it off during calls, but now the options to turn it off and turn it on is so hidden that it takes a while to do that... so many click, fix it please.

sgunhouse

sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer

You can right-click a blank area and the sidebar items will be on the menu. But in version 60 (and later) when the sidebar is off it is off completely.

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

In earlier versions, when you turned off the sidebar, the start page would show its own sidebar. Its sidebar was implemented in code in the start page itself. Opera removed that start page sidebar code and hasn't said why. They also haven't said whether they're bringing it back or not. But, I hope they do.