Code view: symbols panel is unhelpful and interferes with work

[dcupp]

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When I am viewing a code in Github's web UI, I used to be able to quickly jump between places in a file by double-clicking on a word (to quickly highlight it), and then quickly hitting cmd+c, cmd+f, cmd+v and enter, to copy and paste the symbol into the browsers search feature.

Now, half the time, when I double click on a word, this strange UI called "All symbols" appears on the right with a bunch of copies of that word, so using the browsers text search is useless, because there are a bunch of fake instances of the word. It seems to be very hit or miss with symbol detection, and all it does it present a wall of appearances with very little context.

I used to use github's web UI because it would allow me to browse code "statically" without all of the heavyweight interference you get from a modern IDE. It is very distracting to have the UI shift just because I double clicked on a word. It would be great if:

1. if there was a way to disable this. Or,
2. we could just hit ESC to make it go away
3. anyone can point me to a chrome/firefox plugin that can get rid of it

[claudio-luis]

+1

Was just now in the middle of reviewing a PR, and for one of the files I had the need to open the full file view, since it was easier to grasp the full context in this case, and I got unpleasantly surprised by this.

Not only does it actively make things much harder for me at least, but it has massive bugs that lead for the raw file to differ from what this new view is showing you.

In other words, I cannot even trust this new view to show me what the actual code looks like, because it's actively showing code that is actually not there.

As an example:

try {
    //...
} catch (\Exception $exception) {
    //...
}

is actually showing as:

try {
    //...
} catch (\Exception $ $exception) {
    //...
}

which is probably due to the backslash, and trying to select the text I see that there's a second layer of the same characters behind, so probably something is just causing a misalignment rather than messing with the code, but this didn't happen before with the previous view.

This new update should at least be given the option to be disabled, because it clearly isn't even stable enough for its view to be trusted yet, let alone the rest of the functionality it supposedly offers.

[JenieX]

I just don't think I'll ever get used to the new changes. 😞

Please add an option to switch back to everything that was great before.

[dcupp]

This is also breaking a chrome extension for viewing encrypted ansible files in PRs: gwatts/chrome-ansible#7

[cmcmA20]

This stuff doesn't respect even the lexing rules of my target language (Agda), not to mention scoping. In the current form the feature is not only unheplful, it's outright misleading.

You must disable this feature for files containing code in languages you don't have proper support of.

[evdcush]

Please allow us to disable this feature.

• It's dead slow (always freezes for a few seconds as it apparently reloads the index, again)
• We have no control over its behavior
  • even if you close the UI, it will pop-up (and freeze) as soon as you click somewhere in the code

Please don't force opinionated features on users.

[aschwtzr]

I second this. Might be useful at some point but currently feels half-baked and distracting.

[dmwin72015]

Please allow us to disable this feature.

• It's dead slow (always freezes for a few seconds as it apparently reloads the index, again)

• We have no control over its behavior

  • even if you close the UI, it will pop-up (and freeze) as soon as you click somewhere in the code

Please don't force opinionated features on users.

Agree with you，also it makes me very angry.

[michael-freidgeim-webjet]

@adamlui , does hiding help with slowness?
Can I apply user-script to Chrome on IPAD?

[mingyEx]

I support making this optional, because even in the IDE you don't open this panel by double-clicking on a line of code, it's just too obtrusive!

[chrisdahms-embark]

100% agree with the above that I find this new feature to be more a distraction than helpful and at a minimum this should be optional. I have 2 questions at this time:

1. How can we notify somebody at GitHub (other than making this post, but I'm not sure this post alone will be motivation enough for whoever made this decision to change it).

2. Has anybody found a creative way to disable this feature? I went through the account settings today and did not find an option to disable this.

[mingyEx]

Until an official solution to the problem is released
Maybe we can make a tampermonkey script or browser plugin to block mouse clicks on the code display area to temporarily satisfy the requirement.
But I don't know anything about this, anyone want to try it?

[JenieX]

Try this user script.

[mpiggott]

Its also distracting when clicking on part of the file and having text in the side panel changing.

[emteknetnz]

Please add an option to disable the feature entirely. I understand that some people will love this feature and I respect that. However many others will simply resent this feature. There is a long history of some people preferring lightweight text-editors and the github UI needs to allow for this.

[guzba]

You can block the symbols pane from messing with your UI with the following uBlock snippet:

github.com###symbols-pane:upward(1)

[Xant1k]

Developers, u must disable this shit. Useless.

[ghost]

OK it seems you can somewhat disable this now. click More file actions, then under View options disable Open symbols on click. Also, to disable the cursor, you can use this filter with uBlock Origin:

github.com##.code-navigation-cursor

or for another method, everything is disabled if you are logged out.

[AaronCloudZero]

Thanks to everyone who explained how to find this option, I would have never found it on my own. That symbols panel makes viewing code on GitHub an unpleasant experience.

[harshblog150]

Thanks @WhiteyDude, & Everyone , worked!

[ldcMasa]

I don't see any "More file actions" that I could click.

[ivanvoid]

Click 3 point menu button in a right top corner " . . . " and de-select "Open symbols on click". If you hover on it it will say "More file actions".
@ldcMasa

[Sleepful]

This is terrible in terms of accessibility, I like to use really large fonts on my computer to be able to read the text, so I zoom-in on the page.

Well now I cannot select any text while zoomed-in because the awful panel pops and drags my zoom all the way to the side of the page and stops me from reading the actual code.

[manaskarekar]

Not just that, it unselects the text if you close the dialog.

[stijnh]

Is there already a way to disable the symbols panel yet? The alignment is incorrect in firefox and there are strange "phantom" symbols behind the actual code that mess up word search

[wangchou]

I think a better approach on UX is memorizing user preference. If I clicked "hide symbols panel" button, GitHub should not show it next time until I open it again.

PS: I always close it either on 13" laptop or 27" 4k external display.

[SGrondin]

It's really distracting. I agree that it should open on demand, not by default.

[frobnitzem]

We get it. Stop spamming this thread.

[michael-freidgeim-webjet]

As a workaround you can use Raw button
From https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/23282#discussioncomment-3239808

[visortelle]

As a workaround, you can use the https://www.tampermonkey.net/ with this snippet:

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Hide GitHub Symbols sidebar
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      2023-12-06
// @description  try to take over the world!
// @author       You
// @match        https://github.com/*
// @icon         data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==
// @grant        GM_addStyle
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';

    GM_addStyle('div:has(> #symbols-pane) { display: none; }');
})();

[duduindo]

Filter with uBlock Origin:

github.com##.code-navigation-cursor
github.com###symbols-pane:upward(1)
github.com##.lbQLdc

[ugwuchijioke]

v1.1.0-IT-422-PR-12+BB-develop

[Hanrryshani]

That new All symbols panel in GitHub is getting in the way, right. Double-clicking just to search in my browser is a mess now.
Here's what we can do,Click n' flee: Double-click, then click outside the code area before the panel pops up. Bam, gone!
Keyboard ninja: Skip the double-click. Use Ctrl+F (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+F (Mac) to open browser search, then Ctrl/Cmd+G to jump to the word. You're a search master.
Future hope: Keep an eye on GitHub settings, they might add a way to ditch the panel someday. Fingers crossed

[studokim]

They already have made that setting:

[michael-freidgeim-webjet]

The option “open symbols on click” doest’t work on my iPad Safari. I’ve changed it to unticked, but symbols panel still is shown

[RafalSkolasinski]

Thanks, this is exactly the solution I needed. Ublock rules still leave the pieces of code highlighted in yellow.

[nmtitov]

I'd be happy to disable this panel because I don't use it and it opens when I double click on lines of code

[etherwitch]

Here's the deal - squeaky wheels get the grease. I don't mind that this feature exists but when I close the side-bar it shouldn't open itself back up the next time I highlight something. I have to highlight text to read it. Having this feature insist on re-opening itself makes it so difficult work. Being able to disable this is an accessibility requirement.

Thanks to the folks who contributed the uBlock snippits, that has been so helpful.

[shukriadams]

+1 to giving us the option to disable this.

[atemate]

+1!

[RemiCardona]

it's available in the "3 dots" menu next to the "go to file" search bar. You need to scroll back up to the top of the page to see that menu button. It's so unintuitive to get to that option, but it does exist.

Imho that option should be in or close to the "<>" button that opens the symbol viewer.

[shukriadams]

Thanks - that actually worked! Also, for anyone else reading this, reload the page for changes to take effect. And yes, why didn't Github put the option to disable the symbol viewer, inside the symbol viewer?

[9mm]

I hate this thing. Seething hatred. Why would you ever interfere with the ability to double-click copy. This is one of the most frustrating unhelpful features I've ever seen.

[duduindo]

That's true 😂