Vivaldi takes tabs to the next level, literally

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The solution to too many tabs in a tab bar is here – a second tab bar in Vivaldi.

Six years ago, in Vivaldi’s first public appearance on desktop and notebooks, we unveiled Tab Stacks – the ability to group and manage tabs together. Today, we introduce Two-Level Tab Stacks, a feature that takes our tab functionality to the next level, literally.

With Two-Level Tab Stacks, in our latest version Vivaldi 3.6, stacked tabs are displayed in a second tab bar. This first-of-its-kind functionality opens up a new way of viewing and managing tabs on desktops and notebooks.

Tabs are an essential part of browsing but many struggle when it comes to organizing and managing tabs.

Over the years, we have strengthened our comprehensive tab functionality with modern, built-in features that adapt to how you work today (even more so in times of remote-working).

Our plethora of tab features such as Tab Stacks, Tab Tiling, Vertical Tabs, and Auto Stacking help you view, manage, and navigate between tabs in the browser easily.

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Two-Level Tab Stacks explained

Tab Stacks in Vivaldi help you organize a group of tabs by dragging one tab over another.

In Vivaldi’s original implementation, stacks take up no more space than a single tab. This keeps the browser window tidy and is an efficient way to quickly access a large number of tabs. Clearly, the focus is on staying compact.

While Compact Stack is still a great view for those of you who wish to maximize screen space, Vivaldi’s new view – Two-Level Tab Stacks – goes a notch higher.

Two-Level and Compact tab stacks in Vivaldi browser. — Tab Stacking – Compact and Two-Level

By simply clicking on a stack, you expand and show the content of the stack, with full-size tabs on a new line. Having full-size tabs means that you can manipulate them like any other tab, using the same methods to open, close, activate, move or select tabs within a stack.

You can organize Tab Stacks any way you like while keeping a full overview – drag, hibernate, mute, and even rename as needed. All the tabs are instantly accessible, without the need to constantly switch windows, profiles, or workspaces.

The feature is enabled by default and you can easily switch between Compact and Two-Level Tab Stacks. Simply head to Tabs in Vivaldi Settings.

Two-Level Tab Stack and Compact View menu in Vivaldi browser. — Switch between Compact View and Two-Level in Vivaldi Settings

I use @vivaldibrowser which has tab search already built in. It also lets you put the tab well vertically with a scrollbar, which means you can always read tab titles and icons. This, in addition to automatic tab hibernation, makes the number of open tabs a non-issue. pic.twitter.com/PCbT0WsWDR

— Arild Fines (@rogue_code) January 9, 2021

Two-Level Tab Stacks: better display, more control

The new feature is useful for people who would like to display their stacked tabs in full size. It works whether the tabs are placed on the top, bottom, or to the side.

Two-Level Tab Stacks in the vertical view of Vivaldi browser. — Vertical view of Two-Level Tab Stacks

The new, second level makes reorganizing stacks or creating new tabs within a stack a breeze. For example, the “+” button on the new line lets you easily create tabs within the stack. The feature offers all the other benefits of normal-sized tabs, like easier to read page titles, tab notifications, and (if enabled) tab thumbnails.

In addition, Two-Level Tab Stacks can be locked, which avoids changing the page view height when switching between tabs, and makes it simpler to create new stacks from any single tab.

Vivaldi’s Tab Management: Tabs for an organized life

Turn into a Tab Master with Vivaldi’s built-in Tab functionality

The extensive tab management tools in Vivaldi are fun, efficient, and rewarding for tab hoarders. You are in control of tabs. Our built-in tools also stop you from being reliant on third-party add-ons.

There’s a variety of options: from placing tabs at the top, bottom, or to the side to rounding the corners of your tabs. The thoughtful structure and design benefit everyone from first-time Vivaldi users to the most demanding pros.

You can have a split-screen view of multiple sites with Vivaldi’s Tab Tiling or easily view open tabs in tree-style in the Window Panel.

Switching between tabs is seamless with Tab Cycling – the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Tab lets you cycle through open tabs and display them as thumbnails (the horizontal cycler), or as a list of titles (the vertical cycler).

For speedy navigation, you can use the pre-set keyboard shortcuts for tab related commands or assign different keyboard shortcuts based on personal preference.

Similarly, editable Mouse Gestures help perform tab related commands. Instead of clicking on a tab, switching tabs is faster through Quick Commands.

There are multiple ways to open and close tabs. Jumping to the previously opened tab with one click is a nifty time-saving trick while an accidentally closed tab can be easily retrieved from the Trash.

Looking out for tabs is much easier when you display Tab Thumbnails. Tab Notifications, displayed on both pinned and regular tabs, act as reminders of new content waiting to be read – useful on social media sites.

View and Manage Two-Level Tab Stacks at the bottom.

Naming and saving a session works as a charm when you have a zillion tabs open especially while researching a topic. Placing tabs in a Web Panel avoids clutter and is handy when using a translation tool or a messenger app on a daily basis.

Fun customization options enable you to add personality to your tabs such as the ability to round tabs or make them angular, add custom window background to the Tab Bar or the accent color via Themes. Simply increasing the width of the active tab improves workflows and is useful when you have several tabs open.

Yep, @vivaldibrowser has been my main browser for about six years now!

Loooooove it

The two features I love:
– tabs stacked vertically on the far left (maximizes up-down reading space)
– hotkey search for instantly locating open tabs (I have like 60+ open most often)

— Clive Thompson (@pomeranian99) December 30, 2020

There’s more in Vivaldi 3.6

The desire to meet individual needs is something that motivates us to continue to polish our existing features while we introduce new ones. Our work on configurable menus is ongoing. You’ll notice that working with right-click menus is much easier. Now you can change and configure the entries that you could not before, e.g. in Downloads Panel, Windows Panel.

Configuring menus is not just about adding entries or moving items around but also about removing items you know you will never use. This will help you work more efficiently.

New year, new version

With the new version, you can handle an extraordinary amount of information while staying organized. Two-Level Tab Stacks is an example of how we innovate for you. Thank you for putting your trust in us. You deserve it.

Do download Vivaldi 3.6 and try out the ‘next level’ of tab stacking. 😊 We’d love to know what you think.

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More details in the changelog below.

Changelog from 3.5 to 3.6

New

[Tabs] Two-level tab stacks (VB-10529)
[Configurable menus][Bookmarks] List menu (VB-74664)
[Configurable menus][Download][Panels] List menu (VB-75428)
[Configurable menus][History] List menu (VB-74901)
[Configurable menus][Notes] List menu (VB-74824)
[Configurable menus][Settings] Add copy/paste handling (VB-74460)
[Configurable menus][Windows][Panels] List menu (VB-75257)
[macOS] Add support for TouchID (VB-62339)

Address bar

Content no longer selected on new tab/new window (VB-73936)
Crash with valid URL (VB-71940)
Line breaks in form requests result in a broken URL (VB-69747)
Some URLs containing spaces triggers searches (VB-75336)
[Settings] Show full address does not update already opened tabs (VB-74338)

Linux

[Media] Update proprietary codecs to 87.0.4280.66
[Windows][Menus] Separators can be displayed at end of main menus (VB-75450)

macOS

Render UI in system font on macOS 11 (VB-75888)
Update Sparkle update library to version 1.24
Update application icon to reflect Big Sur visual direction (VB-75254)

Notes

Focus disappears when creating a note from manager (VB-75760)
Improve search (VB-72567)
Manager replaces note tabs when new note created (VB-64498)
New note button triggers error (VB-75082)
Note opened in a tab is blank after restart (VB-64369)
Slow Notes Manager (VB-74259)
‘Go to URL’ does not work in manager (VB-72162)
“New Folder” in the panel not selected on creation (VB-71722)
[Crash] Browser went into a “crash loop” after viewing the Notes panel in markdown mode (VB-74699)
[Panels][Quick commands] Note created from quick commands does not show up in panel (VB-75839)

Panels

Use same code to fetch favicons for Tabs and Web panels (VB-75761)
[User Profiles] Crash by right-clicking in a web panel in Guest Profile (VB-75067)
[User Profiles] Web panels shouldn’t be remembered in the Guest Profile (VB-75160)

Quick Commands

[Bookmarks] Partial matching in quick commands bookmark search (VB-74998)
Nickname search doesn’t trigger (VB-74941)

Settings

Hangouts is controlled by Chromecast media-router (VB-75371)
[Panel][Bookmarks][Notes] Hide Folder Counters (VB-75738)
[Panels] Lazy Loading option (VB-75737)

Sync

[Settings] Problems after syncing “Window Controls Position: Right Side” to Windows 10 from a Linux machine (VB-75182)
[Settings] Sync settings are empty in the private window but should just be unavailable (VB-71664)

Tabs

Activate Right in Tab Order Close Tab Activation not always working (VB-75509)
Allow tab stack renaming by default (VB-76106)
Close tabs by middle-clicking on tooltip thumbnails (VB-75807)
Closing the last tab with fullscreen video leaves the browser in fullscreen mode, that cannot be closed (VB-75106)
Cycler getting stuck (VB-43227)
Keyboard shortcut for selecting a tab should cycle tabs in stacks (VB-45876)
Moving a tab stack into a new window breaks the tab stack and tiling (VB-75218)
Not all cloned tabs from inside a tab-stack join that stack (VB-75048)
Tab stacks moved to new window unstack and then restack (VB-75780)
Tabs opened from links in a pinned tab do not follow tab order setting (VB-75775)
Tiling a single page should not be possible (VB-75916)
[Crash] on window.open() if the tab was recently moved to a new window (VB-75809)
[Menus] Null openerTabId for chrome.tabs.Tab opened with “Search with” feature (VB-54472)

Themes

Disabled controls not distinct enough (VB-74684)
Missing pressed state for radio buttons and checkboxes (VB-74685)
More nuanced border contrast (VB-74682)
No more ugly pale color on twitch.tv (VB-75194)
Updating color generation. Adding success, warning and error colors (VB-38068)
[Settings] Move color settings to Themes section (VB-74822)

Others

[Bookmarks] Searching does not show the children of a matched folder (VB-75712
[Chromium] Upgraded to 88.0.4324.99
[Private Window] Update the icon (VB-38446)
[Spatial navigation] It should be possible to select elements with onclick event handlers
[UI] Use page title for URLs dragged to desktop (VB-3716)