Tip #476

Enable compact layout of menus if you prefer your menu items to be more tight-knit.

Vivaldi 6.7 introduced a new design to the browser’s main and context menus. Among other changes, each menu item is given more space (great for when your screen supports touch interactions). If you prefer the previous design, you can enable it with a quick setting change.

To enable compact menus:

  1. Go to Settings > Appearance > Menu.
  2. Enable “Compact Layout”.
  3. Restart the browser.

Join the Conversation

  1. Thank you. The menu changes had me ready to look for a new browser. I spent the last few days looking for a solution and the web in general had none. It would have been nice if the dev team had included an explanation about the menu changes and how to revert them in the “What’s New” page that loads after the update is installed. How having to scroll through the context menus was a good idea, I just can’t understand. Thank you again.

  2. Activating that compact option crashes the browser on start. 100% reproducably in my setup unless I disable all extentsions.

    great job guys. How about you fire the goons who thought it would be a good idea to make a space-wasting “feature” not a single person asked for opt-out (and then not test it)?

    1. When you’ve disabled all your extensions, start enabling them one by one again and test the issue between each enabled extension to find out which one is causing the issue.

      1. thanks, figured that out already (software dev myself).

        It should not be necessary, though – one does simply not introduce such a feature as a new default in the first place – if anything, you switch it on as opt-in only if you recognize a device such as a tablet or so but not when you can detect an obvious PC with a 4k monitor, for example. Unless of course Vivaldi as a company is fine with losing all Desktop users, especially power users who use the browser for their actual work and depend on a ton of addons.

        Apart from that: why does the “compact mode” even do anything else than before (it would not crash if it didn’t)?

        I can’t use a browser where I have to expect that it either breaks the UI to the point of uselessness or breaks compatibility with addons for no reason at all. I hope Vivialdi takes that as feedback from someone who is in the industry for 2 decades.

        Regards
        S.

        1. This particular update actually came from Chromium. Having received similar unhappy feedback from Snapshot users, we added an option to switch to the old menu style, but depending on what Chromium plans next, it might not be around forever.

          1. I understand.

            Unfortunately it is now broken completely on 2 other machines that got the update a little bit later. Unless I copy the whole installation over from another machine it is no longer possible to start the browser in either mode with extensions enabled.

            Regardless of the settings crash at startup, likely caused by an extension but I cannot remove it.

            Is there any way I can get you guys a debug output/error or crash log?

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