I don’t want to override what users see. 
I just want to fixed the sidebar on the left. This way I can keep my 3 columns layout. and also much easier to build a theme with sidebar. So this works same like Focused Sidebar theme worked. The sidebar was fixed on desktop and smaller screens it hidden automatically and put to the hamburger menu.
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Is it just me, or is the right slide out menu a bit “glitchy” on Android now? (at least in Chrome) It’s not happening with the burger menu, just the “avatar” menu? (with these new features “off”).
I don’t see the issue on iOS Safari.
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As I only need the bell (all notifications) and the profile button, I second that.
In mobile horizontal, the profile button is not reachable:
It’s true that Discourse is better used vertical, but sometimes we can need the horizontal view for some readings.
And in this case, we have to tilt our phone vertical just to reach preferences.
It’s not a very strong inconvenience.
Just sharing my thoughts.
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How do users turn this off on sites where admins turn it on? .
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Still trying to get the hang of it, but love this new layout… love it, really! 
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I find the new layout very nice and useful. Having an instant overlook of unread messages is very good.
But it was not obvious to me that the left hamburger would do anything related to the left sidebar. I was actually looking inside the sidebar to find a 
button to collapse the bar. Maybe something like a downward triangle from the title bar that rotates when opening/closing, and/or a color code that keeps both the icon and the sidebar background bound together would somehow help associating the actuator and the visible result.
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@glimfeather
If you’re talking about the sidebar, users just click the hamburger menu:
If you mean the changes to the notification menu, I don’t think that can be modified without a theme component.
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Seems like Im the only one not liking this…
The clean design seems ugly with this sidebar activated. But as long I can disable it…
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It’s a bit “noisier”, I can understand that. One thing that could make it less severe is to be able to choose to have the sidebar on the right side instead (and that way the “menu icon” could also continue on the right side).
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Interface revamps always take time to adjust because of habits.
I, to this day, am not a fan of the sidebar (I feel that it adds a layer of complexity), but I know that my current opinion isn’t mature enough to be considered a definitive opinion by myself.
I add that I have different habits on different forums or forum software.
For example, I never use “unread” on Discourse, because I didn’t bother thinking about it. It never crossed my mind.
But now that I think about that (like, at this very moment), I also use daily a vBulletin forum I always open via the “new posts” URL. Go figure! 
I’m sure that I’m not the only one who sticks to habits kind of randomly, and that impacts our feelings on changes that we could find beneficial if we dared to adapt a bit.
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I recommend trying it out for size a tiny bit. Add 3 categories and 3 tags you care about to your sidebar.
You are already active on quite a few:
So you could try adding UX, community, feature bug… computer says you care about them 
Then you have quick links and can work through the categories in a far more organised way.
Additionally… I know how scary it is to “declare bankruptcy” but dismissing unread works per category and tag. Try out the new workflows.
Dip in to the categories you care about, once you are done caring dismiss unread… it makes the whole way of consuming meta significantly more streamlined.
I tend to even track categories cause I get a aggregate bucket under “tracked” but that may be a mile too far for you.
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Well, I would like to hide categories from sidebar totally. I’m using just few categories and users know how to mute too. And they know how to follow tags because our environment uses tags so heavily.
They use already new/unread/etc links top of latest-page so sidebar doesn’t give any value that way. But they love easier access to chat channels, though.
The biggest ”threat” I see is too bloated sidebar.
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I can understand why the sidebar has made in the first place, but this bothers me a bit:
A lot overlapping data. If I close the sidebar my view is more… calm. But then it raises the most important question: for what I actually need the sidebar? There is some elements from behind my avatar, but… those were easier to reach earlier.
I would like to see some day that the sidebar is totally customize by every user, and an admin just makes defaults, more or less as an example.
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Yes, but there is a history here and it’s been hard to get the composer to open full screen consistently across all mobile devices. It does open full screen on my iphone. @awesomerobot may have some insight.
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At the moment I think we force the composer fullscreen on mobile due to some specific issues with Safari?
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I tried that but it came back.
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I’m sure you folks have worked pretty hard on this and I hate to be a critic, but I don’t care for it. It removes the clean UI and really confuses the platform by adding things that don’t seem necessary. It seems like a step back in time where websites always had sidebars which have primarily gone away due to mobile.
I do understand the hamburger menu will remove the sidebar. I didn’t realize that at first until someone mentioned that on here. I would like to see the hamburger menu move back to its original position as well.
Also, the user menu with all the icons looks overwhelming as well. For new users, it truly will be. They will need to click on each one and remember what each one does. Perhaps, information overload. Just one man’s perspective. Thanks for your hard work on the forum folks.
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