The UI should allow for advanced customization

[bsclifton]

Carried over from https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/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

[teodor440]

Tab, address and bookmark bar heights should be customizable, the UI scaling gracefully with those.

Personally, I wish the new tab button would also be bigger, similar to Firefox. This issue was closed in favor for this one, because total user controlled customization could have solved it.

[rmdhnreza]

I think it would be better if option Use wide address bar off, the icon should move to the side of the address bar. So there is no empty space between back-forward-refresh and extension icons like this.

Screenshot


[lazymonkey2]

@rmdhnreza I like the icons in the current position, and if your idea will be implemented it should be optional.

[Sa-Ja-Di]

@bsclifton Will Brave ever implement something like that? Its sad to see that this seems to you guys of zero priority or interest. Using other browsers like Pale Moon or Edge as Brave is so horribly bare-bone.

And i am not the only person who thinks that way, perhaps you could at least make some things of higher priority, perhaps a tab bar below the url bar, a proper status bar or Treestyle/Side-Tabs

Thanks for considering, hopefully you read that comment here.

[ygoe]

@Sa-Ja-Di Have you considered trying Firefox? I went back to it some time ago. It's probably the most customisable browser of all.

[keilmillerjr]

I wouldn't seek customization if the GTK+ theme actually looked like GTK. gnome-web (epiphany) is a good example. I love the idea behind brave, but it should look like a native app.

[xlollomanx]

@Sa-Ja-Di Have you considered trying Firefox? I went back to it some time ago. It's probably the most customisable browser of all.

Honestly yes, firefox is the best about UI customization but it really lack in resource optimization, chromium is much better on this side. For now I'm using edge since is the only browser (except firefox) that give u the option to have a bookmark button to show all your bookmarks (for more details check my previous post). So without going too much off topic I'd say that if brave browser will implement an UI customization like FF I'll use it for sure, I tried it but for now the UI brave, at least for me, it's unusable.

[igorr0driguez]

Came from Firefox to Brave and although I'm not that into customizing, a simple UI Scaling feature or tab height increase option would definitely come in handy.

I think that Brave is going on the right direction, but lacks basic UI customization.

[igorr0driguez]

For everyone interested in UI scaling maybe they'll give some attention if this Feature Request in the official Brave Community get enough votes: https://community.brave.com/t/disability-accessibility-not-available-larger-tabs-and-menu-icons/385725

[sami155]

Please implement this! It can be like on the Samsung Browser where you can drag and drop buttons on the toolbar.

For example, i dont want the "Startpage" and "Search" button, so I would remove it. And i want to change the arrangement of the other buttons such as the Bookmark and Tab button.

Can you approximate when the feature will be available?

[dhry]

Came from Firefox to Brave and although I'm not that into customizing, a simple UI Scaling feature or tab height increase option would definitely come in handy.

I think you can already do UI scaling via the command parameter: --force-device-scale-factor=

[Brave-Matt]

This issue has been open for a long time and hasn't had much traction. Users have been requesting various features related to this type of customization — most notably requests to increase the font size of tabs:

• https://community.brave.com/t/make-font-size-bigger-for-tabs-etc/264476
• https://community.brave.com/t/brave-user-interface-ui-improvements/439004
• https://community.brave.com/t/tabs-and-menu-too-small/385637/2
• https://community.brave.com/t/ada-issue-disability-accessibility-not-available-larger-tabs-and-menu-icons/386384
• https://community.brave.com/t/text-on-tabs-and-menus-is-way-too-small/439264/3

Commenting here to hopefully get some traction on this. cc @rebron @aguscruiz

[ghost]

So after 4 years you still cannot move buttons to work with Address bar width size?

As you can see, I have huge screen, it is hard to cope. I would enter the git and change it myself because it looks like the Brave project is abandoned.

[rmdhnreza]

So after 4 years you still cannot move buttons to work with Address bar width size?

As you can see, I have huge screen, it is hard to cope. I would enter the git and change it myself because it looks like the Brave project is abandoned.

I've commented for this issue a while ago https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/774#issuecomment-1040074289, but Devs not interested on this issue I think ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[Sa-Ja-Di]

@bsclifton @brave-dev @brave-browser-releases

Why is this issue still open when you never will add much customization towards the browser? It is pretty much a disappointment that Brave makes the decision to stay a minimalist browser without much choice 👎

[KieranDevvs]

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

[BrajBliss]

Any updates on this?

[SamiSuleiman]

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

[KieranDevvs]

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.

[inson1]

+1

[panchalkalpesh]

+1

[svanschalkwyk]

Any traction on this? Tab text, search bar etc. need to be settable. On smaller (34" 4k) monitor, text is barely readable.

[makiwata]

Any news? We need this feature, it is ridiculous that we do not have it... We need ability to make tab text size bigger, and tab height adjustable so it can be made higher.

[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 https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/774#issuecomment-1176846861 - 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.