Ask Vivaldi to fix side panels

[thangcuoi]

ImprovedTube: Browser Sidepanel is off, but the extension keep adding itself to my Vivaldi's browser sidepanel.

I believe this has been happening with every recent version of ImprovedTube update, for the past 2 weeks.

[7eggert]

Same here, it seems to happen on Kleinanzeigen.de and certain reddit.com postings. (Uninstalled for now before really analyzing it)

The annoying thing is that it also switches to that side panel.

[ImprovedTube]

hi & thanks @thangcuoi @7eggert @raszpl so the icon re-appears in the side panel with every update?
Please report this to Vivaldi @sgraham @dpranke
(You can compare with any other extension, such as: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/BookmarksSidePanel/jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh )

And it even opens itself @7eggert?

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For now you (or we) can also remove the side-panel declaration from our manifest.json. But generally it feels wrong that we keep doing things only for Vivaldi (or Opera GX). Vivaldi users are less than 1 in 1500 browser users. And ImprovedTube users are less than 1 in 1500 of YouTube users. Granted Vivaldi customization can raise productivity (and i don't know why Firefox would stop that). And thus there must be a more serious intersection in user-base. - And i just don't know if Vivaldi wants to stay a specific "Asperger niche with absolute opinions"? ( https://vivaldi.com/blog/why-vivaldi-will-never-create-thinkcoin/ - granted this is correctly describing majority of crypto currencies and activity. Yet some "only need a 100 servers and are empowering/paying bloggers, or so.)

[ImprovedTube]

To make it all more silly, after waiting for chromium for ~15 years, to move side panels to the main releases 1 year ago, now it comes unreliable, with an increasing minimum width otherwise and requiring manifest 3.
Yet there are at least two people up to to explain the unexplainable!💪 https://groups.google.com/u/3/a/chromium.org/g/chromium-extensions/c/xuk4ZuWTsBk (supposedly next to "team-extensions", there are "many other teams" voting for minimum width?) @oliverdunk @patrickkettner (then why isn't such optional minimum width definable in the manifest.json - or just inherited from the html body (within a reasonable range)

[oliverdunk]

@ImprovedTube As Patrick mentioned, we're very open to more control over sizing - Chrome is a large product though and we need to align both within our team and with others. Could you expand on what you mean by zoom level? I haven't heard that feedback before.

As a side note, we both try to keep an eye on discussions around the web on a best-effort basis, but the mailing list is definitely the best place to chat :)

[thangcuoi]

hi & thanks @thangcuoi @7eggert @raszpl so the icon re-appears in the side panel with every update? Please report this to Vivaldi @sgraham @dpranke (You can compare with any other extension, such as: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/BookmarksSidePanel/jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh )

And it even opens itself @7eggert?

Yes, ImprovedTube keep adding itself to the side panel and open itself, in multiple tabs and windows.

Side panel is a place for frequently access website. ImprovedTube (and most browser extension) does not belong there. It should stay hidden in the extension bar after initial configuration.

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( Answer by @ImprovedTube: ) hi @thangcuoi, please report this to Vivaldi for not implementing it correctly. ("adding itself" is not the right wording. Only thing we can do is the trade-off, to remove/delay the option further for all, to wait for Vivaldi. )

[ImprovedTube]

hi! & thanks @oliverdunk, could be refined as min-width: min( 360px, calc(3vw+1vh)), if any. Chromium is the nr.1 browser & open source. Side-panels are made for extensions. And what else? So a non-configurable size can only say "Fail" or more specifically, "We still don't dare to let extensions be lean & integrate well into daily browsing but want to marginalize them"

• Otherwise for example a 40px vertical bookmarks-/icons-bar could be the oldest & most used extension. Instead such extensions required detour, trying to fit with with any page DOM, frustrating users & developers. - And that requires permission for all sites 😲. ( And a browsing enhancement/customization like Vivaldi could mostly come as an extension. Like some Linux distributions could be just a Theme. )
  • Equally there should be a "transparent, border-less panel" too, so for example this https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/top-and-bottom-scroll-but/dbofniohnfjigodceiebfkcfdhncnici also would not need permission for all sites. (Think of security, trust & time wasted in reviewing such extension with unnecessary all sites permission), when their actual feature is UI only. ( More relevant while the most wanted extension-permission is also missing "permission to upload data to __://grammarly-cloud" or so )

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best place to chat

Don't have permission to answer in the mail-group (as most of the times i otherwise might have reported or responded somewhere at groups.google)

Zoom:

Sorry, seems i didn't need to mention zoom, which might only occurred to us as of our html (and Jackie Han's too)

[patrickkettner]

Don't have permission to answer in the mail-group (as most of the times i otherwise might have reported or responded somewhere at groups.google)

@ImprovedTube can you elaborate? In what way do you "not have permission"?

[ImprovedTube]

hi & thanks! @patrickkettner just noticed this group can be joined

[7eggert]

For me the problem manifests as follows: I open an offering on e.g. Kleinanzeigen.de, then the side bar opens and jumps to the IYT controls. There isn't even a video on that page.

[raszpl]

I noticed and reported this a week ago #2263 (comment)

This is not a Vivaldi bug, Improvetube is the only extension doing this, something is wrong either in its Manifest-v3 json or in background.js

[ImprovedTube]

something? @raszpl

Yeah, it's a Vivaldi issue, I already reported this to vivaldi, waiting on them to fix it. You can try other extensions that support the side penal, they will popup right after you install them without asking for permission.

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Side panel (on intentional click only), was undone (see version 4.938 in Chrome Webstore & #2288). Sometimes updates are pending for a while, keeping us from releasing other work and Chrome Webstore still doesn't allow to upload the next version already while the current one is pending(, which sometimes makes these decisions harder, to do something in favor of Vivaldi only, etc.(, which was one of the stranger feelings here a few times over the years, since maybe less than 1 in a million people actually use both Vivaldi and ImprovedTube)

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( As for making sure we had no bug in using the API, it can be efficient to watch the same "side_panel":{"default_path":"html/sidepanel.html" in other extensions, such as https://crxcavator.io/source/jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh/2.3.0?platform=Chrome
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lesezeichenleiste/jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh
Besides that no manifest.json options are meant to cause such a bug.)

[raszpl]

I dont agree with your #2293 assessment

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/reference/api/sidePanel
The side panel can be set initially from the "default_path" property in the "side_panel" key of the manifest to display the same side panel on every site.
Imo clearly states setting side_panel will make defined side panel force itself into the sidebar

Edit: I kept reading and 2293 author says the same thing #2293 (comment)

this is NOT vivaldi bug

[ImprovedTube]

hi @raszpl, then why does it only happen in one Browser and wasn't noticeable in our uninstall-/reinstall-count? & Why does removing "default_path" from the search for any sidepanel.html hardly increase the amount of results? https://github.com/search?q=sidepanel.html+language%3AJSON+default_path&type=code

[raszpl]

re any of those real extensions? I gave up after clicking 10 in a row and not being able to find one in google store.

it force added itself in Chrome too, but Chrome sidepanel sucks making people click several times to open it

[ImprovedTube]

example above @raszpl

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lesezeichenleiste/jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh

[raszpl]

install it
set chrome-extension://jdbnofccmhefkmjbkkdkfiicjkgofkdh/html/settings.html#sidebar_general to first option "Open on top of websites"

it still forces itself into sidebar, author didnt understand documentation and misconfigured it

[ImprovedTube]

Side panels open through a click by default. Defining a sidepanel.html doesn't strangely overpower an extension, it is just an alternative to the index.html. A side panel can only automatically be opened with sidePanel.open(), if ever

[ImprovedTube]

*@raszpl 2293 was based on mood. Hope nothing decreases yours.