Return the slim sidebar menu

[julianstolp]

NetBox version

v4.0-beta1

Feature type

Change to existing functionality

Proposed functionality

The new sidebar is wider and there is no possiblity to hide this massive sidebar.
Proposed change:
Some sticky icon like in the old UI

Use case

Use the screen more efficiently and prevent/minimize horizontal scrolling in tables.

Database changes

External dependencies

[jeremystretch]

IMO the collapsed navigation menu in v3 is unnecessary and, when not stickied, rather annoying. I've been using the current UI for months on a relatively narrow (1280px) viewport without issue. I see no reason to retain the old functionality, but will leave this open for discussion if someone else would like to own it.

[julianstolp]

We have almost exclusively used the narrow navigation bar to display as many columns as possible. It would be nice if this option were available again.

[sleepinggenius2]

I also would like to see the collapsed navigation bar return. The new one is 33px wider than even the fully expanded one before and 241px wider than the collapsed one. When you are displaying a table with a lot of columns, every pixel helps. The worst offender for me is usually the Interfaces table, where I find it difficult to fit all the columns I need even on a 2560px wide screen.

I can tell you from experience with my end users that they have always been thrilled when I show them the ability to collapse the menu and get some valuable screen real estate back. From observation, the menu is almost never used in our environment, so even the collapsed version has been identified as an annoyance. The typical flow I see is users finding what they are looking for through the global search, then navigating around from there through breadcrumbs or other links within the view. In fact, most of my users don't even know where to find things in the menu because of how infrequently they use it.

[petersonbasso]

The collapsed navigation menu is very useful, especially for small screens.
Better to keep the option and leave it up to the user to keep it fixed.

[jeremystretch]

Opening this for a volunteer to implement it.

[julianstolp]

If someone is able to implement this, there is an open FR in the Tabler repository. It would certainly be good to implement this there so that no/less custom code is necessary in NetBox.

tabler/tabler#1803

[heroin-moose]

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please bring it back.

[jeremystretch]

@heroin-moose would you like to take ownership of this issue?

[heroin-moose]

@jeremystretch, yeah, why not. Would you prefer it solved via tabler/tabler#1803?

[jeremystretch]

Upstream support would be strongly preferred, but of course that's out of our control. We'd only accept a local implementation if it can be achieved in a clean, maintainable manner with minimal additional code.

[heroin-moose]

I'll do my best.

[bobbwest]

An interim solution would be to have a toggle that would disable the responsive full side navbar menu, keeping the dropdown navbar menu that is usually activated on narrow viewports. At least that means people wanting a wide tabular display can achieve that, and still maintain some access to the navbar menu.

[jeremystretch]

@heroin-moose are you still planning to work on this, or should we release it for another volunteer?

[heroin-moose]

I'm slowly getting there, but if someone gets there first I would gladly pass the issue. I have a PoC that mostly works, I will fix the remaining issues I see and submit it to Tabler.

[PaulR282]

This feature would be highly appreciated because the sidebar uses a lot of space on small displays.

[jeremystretch]

I'm going to close this in favor of #16392, which is being actively worked locally by @andrewgormley. Hopefully we'll be able to leverage @heroin-moose's upstream contribution to Tabler at some point in the future.