Vivaldi update brings tab dragging between windows
Vivaldi is without doubt one of the most promising web browsers that came out in the last couple of years.
While it has made great improvements ever since its first snapshot was released -- a first stable version was released earlier this year for instance -- there are still some features that are not implemented yet.
One of those features is dragging tabs between windows. Today's update to Vivaldi 1.5.618.8 changes that by introducing the feature in the latest snapshot version.
Snapshots are development builds used for testing features before they land in stable versions of Vivaldi. If past updating is anything to go by, you won't have to wait a long time before the next stable version of Vivaldi gets released that includes the feature.
The last stable release of Vivaldi, Vivaldi 1.4, happened at the beginning of this month. You can download the latest snapshot release on this page.
Vivaldi Tab Dragging
Vivaldi supported tab dragging in the same browser window ever since it was released. The developers knew obviously that the browser did not support the dragging of tabs between windows, and implemented options to move tabs around using the context menu.
So, previously you had to right-click on a tab to move it to a new window or an existing window.
Today's update keeps that option, but introduces mouse dragging as well which many users may find easier to do.
What's interesting about the feature is that you can use drag and drop operations not only for single sites but also tab stacks.
Tab stacking is one of the great features of the Vivaldi browser. It enables you to move multiple tabs to a single tab location effectively merging them together. This works similar to how the old Opera browser -- classic Opera 12.x and earlier -- handled tab stacks.
Tip: Firefox users may want to check out Tab Utilities as the add-on introduces similar tab stacking functionality in the browser.
Additionally, you may drag and drop tab selections to another window as well in the new release. As you may know, you can hold down the Ctrl-key to left-click on tabs to select them to process all selected ones together.
Note: The feature is still a bit buggy. It happened that I could not drag tabs from one window to another. These bugs will be ironed out though before the next stable release is pushed out.
Vivaldi Performance improvements
If you are not interested in tab dragging capabilities, you may be more interested in performance improvements that you will experience when using the new version.
Vivaldi claims that theming performance was improved by "roughtly 400%", and that the browser start up improves from that as well.
Closing Words
Vivaldi continues to improve the web browser, and that is a good thing. There is still some work to be done before feature parity is reached with other major browsers, at least where major features are concerned.
Now You: Have you tried Vivaldi? What's your taken on the browser's state?
I wonder how good the privacy and security will be with this browser as time goes along?
Bookmarks management in Vivaldi is a disaster.This browser is still very buggy.
Still slow on my pc
I tried the built-in updater in Vivaldi. It says version 1.4.xxx is still the latest.
If you are on the stable channel, that is true. You will have to wait for the next stable release then, 1.5 which will be out soon.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the article. Maybe I will try Vivaldi 1.5 stable later. I would like to point out that Tab Utilities
does not work with Firefox 49.0.
ok i just tried this and it doesnt work. im done trying vivaldi, i keep wanting it to be good, but it blows. i give up f this software
Cause as we all know, every modern web browser started out a a fully flushed, feature complete browser starting with it’s first major version. /sarcasm
Nice. The tab dragging in general needs some work though. With loads of tabs for example trying to drag the tab to be last or first is a pain, usually just tries to move it 2nd/3rd last unless you shake your mouse like a crazy person so Vivaldi notices you want it to be actually the last one and not just somewhere around the last ones.
“Vivaldi claims that theming performance was improved by “roughtly 400%”, and that the browser start up improves from that as well.”
Awesome. Currently probably takes 20-30 seconds for my Vivaldi to start which is ridiculous :)
finally i can use it
Tab moving between windows still doesn’t work on private mode. And it’s interesting that I can drag a tab to firefox even on private mode.
Great! I’m using the browser, but hadn’t switched completely because of the inability to drag tabs to another window (among other minor things).