The UI should allow for advanced customization

[bsclifton]

Carried over from brave/browser-laptop#246

The idea would be to allow users to customize the location of features like the URL bar, bookmarks toolbar, tabs, etc.

Original issue details:

The concept of Brave looks like it will be a real browser for power users again. Would be nice to have advanced customization features aka a full status bar or being able to combine urlbar elements with the tabs if possible, or more advanced elements movement in the UI.

Thanks for considering :)

Some other requested functionality:

• Change size of tabs
• Change font used in tabs
• Customization similar to Atom; a simple doc you can edit

[Brave-Matt]

+1 from reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/bkgmyp/say_hello_to_several_new_folks_who_just_jumped/emjklqf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

[Sa-Ja-Di]

Will there ever be progress - as you see many users show interest in features like that or do you plan to stay a generic simple user only browser?

At least you could make the black theme fully covering all UI elements, also the right-mouse context menu or the Brave settings menu - Even Chrome is able to do that in the meantime.

Or at least to be able to put the tab row beyond the address/url bar - that are very limited basic functionalities, which should at least be considered.

[Brave-Matt]

Several +1's from Community -- 4 different users requesting in following thread:
https://community.brave.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-move-the-bookmarks-button-to-where-it-is-in-chrome/48785/4

[Sa-Ja-Di]

Several +1's from Community -- 4 different users requesting in following thread:
https://community.brave.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-move-the-bookmarks-button-to-where-it-is-in-chrome/48785/4

What would also be nice - and fits to this topic as it belongs to advanced customization - would be an optional REAL status/menu bar - Vivaldi features both. Same like a side-bar.

Almost no other Chromium browser features this, would be great if Brave would follow Vivaldi in that way, would also bring over many frustrated(ex-) Firefox power-users towards Brave. I personally use Brave as backup browser after i dumped recently Chromium because of the upcoming Google plan to restrict ads-blocking capability.

Would be for sure nice to use Brave a little bit more often, but in that bare-bone kind of way - this makes it impossible for me to do. And there are for sure other potential Brave users which are driven in the end away because of this very same reasoning.

So, it would be great if you guys could put stuff like that a little bit under higher priority - and why? Because it benefits in the kind of way that your user number is only growing more :)

[Arandhras]

I don't know if the info contained in the issue referenced by the OP is still relevant, but if Brave's UI is still largely HTML/CSS/JS code, it should be easy to allow for some heavy customization. Alternatively it would make sense for me to give at least some degree of flexibility to the power user.

It would not have to be "easy to use", as most regular user wouldn't care for it anyway, but it should be still accessible if one has the time and patience to hack it a bit. I miss the possibility to make my browser truly my own, like it was possible to do with older versions of Firefox.

[bsclifton]

@Arandhras unfortunately the UI is not HTML/CSS/JS anymore- it's all C++ using Chromium views. It's quite a bit harder to edit, but definitely doable (we want to do it- work hasn't been prioritized, as far as I know).

[Sa-Ja-Di]

@Arandhras unfortunately the UI is not HTML/CSS/JS anymore- it's all C++ using Chromium views. It's quite a bit harder to edit, but definitely doable (we want to do it- work hasn't been prioritized, as far as I know).

@bsclifton Why not making a compromise and delivering priority in a fair share to all elements Brave related?

A real menu or full status bar would be good for a start ;)

[Arandhras]

@bsclifton It could be worked out like what wxWidgets does with its XRC system ( https://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.0/overview_xrc.html ): the whole UI is defined as a set of scripts (in Wx's case, XML... but it could be anything) that each describe a hierarchy of panes, dialogs and widgets. You don't have to redefine behavior, just size, positioning, color etc.

Once you have this system in place, all you need is to modify such scripts. Using non-executable file formats such as XML or JSON has the benefit of not allowing potentially malicious stuff being run in the user's browser.

[crawlgsx]

Yes please for the love of all let us move or remove the bookmark button! Terrible placement!

[Leon0402]

@Arandhras unfortunately the UI is not HTML/CSS/JS anymore- it's all C++ using Chromium views. It's quite a bit harder to edit, but definitely doable (we want to do it- work hasn't been prioritized, as far as I know).

Really, where do I find the ui code? There is an ui repo with reusable elements, which is written in typescript ... and in brave-core I find js, css and html code in the ui folder https://github.com/brave/brave-core/tree/master/ui
It seems like I have not understand completely how you structure the project? At least to me all seems a little bit messy (for example having like 300 branches)

By the way, is it possible (or do you appreciate) help from the community like pull request regarding new ui features/changes. And if so, is there a guide to get started showing things like the project structure etc.

[makiwata]

@rebron what do you think, maybe you could help us out to get this issue the attention it needs? That would be awesome!

[rebron]

Hi @makiwata We are making some updates to the ui now and we'll take a look on how we could make those changes customizable.

Related, there are some customizations on the way coming from chromium for drag and drop and re-order of toolbar buttons.

[vincentvanhoven]

I'm trying out Brave for the first time today, and the small tab size - especially for pinned tabs - is the only thing I dislike so far. I'm not complaining about free software, mind you, but I figured I'd add my perspective as a new user. It would be great if there was an option to tweak that a little bit, or even if there was a toggle to make the tab size a set percent bigger.
I very much appreciate the current feature to hide certain buttons, by the way.

[reverofevil]

Five years of tracking this issue was enough to understand a thing or two about how things work here.

I definitely don't expect any progress anymore. Bye.

[vincentvanhoven]

I wouldn't mind attempting a PR for this, but before I do would like confirmation that the Brave maintainers would - at this point in time - accept a feature consisting of

• a setting for changing the padding of tabs (percentage modifier, perhaps);
• a setting for changing the font size of tabs;

@bsclifton

[xlollomanx]

I'm not a developer, but what if Brave add the possibility to modifying the UI using css code and store it in a custom folder, like vivaldi did? So the users will do it themselfs. Honestly not sure if it's possible or not in brave code but it could be a good start.

[EFHDev]

For now, for those with bad sight like me, you can change the address bar and other icons for brave using the Windows Scaling setting,

Windows 11 it will be in System > Display > Scale and Layout

However Brave should undoubtedly have their own setting in app to modify the size of address bar and such.

[vincentvanhoven]

With the latest Brave update, the tabs are looking much better now. Not sure if I'm a fan of the bottom rounded borders and the full light grey borders for pinned tabs, but it's at least much more spacious now!

[Templayer]

With the latest Brave update, the tabs are looking much better now. Not sure if I'm a fan of the bottom rounded borders and the full light grey borders for pinned tabs, but it's at least much more spacious now!

Spacious doesn't automatically mean bigger. Sure, there are empty margins there, great. But that doesn't mean it's scaled up. And the bubbles look butt-ugly.

[vincentvanhoven]

Spacious doesn't automatically mean bigger. Sure, there are empty margins there, great. But that doesn't mean it's scaled up. And the bubbles look butt-ugly.

I could be mistaken, but it seems to me like the padding of the tabs is greater than before, making them bigger and therefore easier to click on. The font size & icon size look like they are unchanged but for me personally, that wasn't really a problem.

[Templayer]

The font size & icon size look like they are unchanged but for me personally, that wasn't really a problem.

Lucky man. It's tiny on a 2K screen. Due to this, I wouldn't even consider using it on a 4K screen.

[vincentvanhoven]

Lucky man. It's tiny on a 2K screen. Due to this, I wouldn't even consider using it on a 4K screen.

Ah, I can see how that would be a problem. I'm guessing DPI scaling isn't working well on your OS of choice?

[Templayer]

Lucky man. It's tiny on a 2K screen. Due to this, I wouldn't even consider using it on a 4K screen.

Ah, I can see how that would be a problem. I'm guessing DPI scaling isn't working well on your OS of choice?

I prefer to use it on an app-basis.

(and yes, I dislike the mouse going over to a different screen on the edges... so I just put the connection between the screens in a corner! :D )

[wknapik]

For general scaling, the --force-device-scale-factor=<number> command-line option can be passed, as mentioned by @dhry in #774 (comment) - that's what high DPI display users should probably try first

[JamieRCHI]

Id like a way to hide these buttons, preferably by either right clicking -> hide, or an option flag would also suffice.

Yeah I managed to hide the bookmarks but the other two don't have options. It also goes to show how much of a mess the UI is. Some buttons you can right click and hide, others you have to find a flag, and others don't have any option at all. We really need a better customizable experience.

Icons in the URL that show something was blocked are very annoying. I want the option to disable all icons in the URL on the Right side. For me, the bookmark button on the left is not an issue.

[Templayer]

For general scaling, the --force-device-scale-factor=<number> command-line option can be passed, as mentioned by @dhry in #774 (comment) - that's what high DPI display users should probably try first

Not completely an ideal solution, as now my address bar (and that entire panel) is huge, but at least I can now read shit in the tabs.

[DeN-AlB]

+1 from me. Would be great to customize the toolbar! 👍

[Templayer]

Meanwhile, with one of the newest updates (I assume), the tab texts now have margins or something like that, which cuts the text off, making it unreadable. Feel free to compare it with the previous screenshot that I have posted here.

I might just go to Thorium one day (already did on my home desktop). I do have some awesome trapezoid-shaped tabs there!

[Templayer]

Meanwhile, with one of the newest updates (I assume), the tab texts now have margins or something like that, which cuts the text off, making it unreadable. Feel free to compare it with the previous screenshot that I have posted here.

I might just go to Thorium one day (already did on my home desktop). I do have some awesome trapezoid-shaped tabs there!

[HornyPrivateGamer]

@Arandhras unfortunately the UI is not HTML/CSS/JS anymore- it's all C++ using Chromium views. It's quite a bit harder to edit, but definitely doable (we want to do it- work hasn't been prioritized, as far as I know).

I am from reddit "https://community.brave.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-move-the-bookmarks-button-to-where-it-is-in-chrome/48785/9"

That any new one the ability to move the book mark on the right?

[HornyPrivateGamer]

This need to be in p3 not in P5

[steviator]

This really should be a number one priority considering that it has been demonstrated over the course of many years that the brave devs are utterly incompetent in this regard.

[tadeubas]

This really should be a number one priority considering that it has been demonstrated over the course of many years that the brave devs are utterly incompetent in this regard.

Hey don't be so rude, maybe there are other priorities at the moment. Brave developers for sure are very competent and I think it is because of this that you use Brave browser and is demanding changes. Just contribute the way you can to the project and to the developers to maybe get this issue done faster.

[armaf-f]

maybe there are other priorities at the moment.

... it has been 6 years... since just this ticket was opened, over 8 years since the first requests. I have been waiting to switch to Brave from Firefox for literally half a decade if I could just arrange the menu/toolbars/layout to meet my needs. I imagine many normies and the impaired would love to use Brave but are instantly turned away by the inability to do basic UI layout changes that firefox has shown is not only possible but simple to meet nearly every need. At some point we just give up waiting. I have LOVED using Brave on my phone, destroys the firefox app and will switch the moment I can, but come on, we must wait for a decade(s)?!

[dhry]

maybe there are other priorities at the moment.

... it has been 6 years... since just this ticket was opened, over 8 years since the first requests. I have been waiting to switch to Brave from Firefox for literally half a decade if I could just arrange the menu/toolbars/layout to meet my needs. I imagine many normies and the impaired would love to use Brave but are instantly turned away by the inability to do basic UI layout changes that firefox has shown is not only possible but simple to meet nearly every need. At some point we just give up waiting.

I walked away from Brave due to the shitty UI which got worse each update, specifically the horrible tab area. Switched without regrets to Vivaldi and haven't looked back since. While you can't drag toolbars around you CAN modify the UI extensively with CSS, something you can't do with any other Chrome browser. Font, tab height, icon sizing and spacing. Takes a little fiddling but the fact that it's even possible was a big deciding factor in my move. Vivaldi's also very responsive and has built-in ad and tracker blocking as well.

[azulika]

So, considering 6 years negligence, is there no hope on this? That's a shame :/