I have alot of pages that I intentionally do not keep in my sidebar. Instead I have a list of links to them I created on my Backpack Homepage. That way I have all my various sections organized exactly as I want. And my sidebar is not out of control.

So I just started noticing a yellow balloon on my pages informing me whenever a page is not in my sidebar. It even offers to “Add this Page to My Sidebar.” Regrettably I am unable to dismiss it.

To me it seems a little “in your face” for the usual subtle and cool sensibilities of Backpack. In fact, I venture to say that it is exactly what 37Signals is against… those pesky Microsoft features that get in your way and try to be overly helpful when you really just want to get your work done… ya know?

A reply to my support request indicates that hiding the balloon it is not optional at this time. But it would be more in keeping with the Backpack zen if it could be dismissed, like their yellow box announcements, which you can keep there or hide.

Here freaking here. I’m not on the forums all that often but had the feeling someone would have beat me to the punch here.

This feels like a knee jerk reaction to apparently a significant amount of feedback over organizing pages in your recent survey. On a positive note, in true Getting Real fashion you will likely have this ‘feature’ tweaked in the near term as well.

Totally agree with Todd. It is very irritating and is an unnecessary attention-grabber.

I added this to my Stylish add-on in Firefox and poof! The ugly yellow button disappears.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if the default for new pages was to not be included on the sidebar, unlike now, where each new page is automatically added.

This would make it very quick and easy to add a page to your sidebar, if and when you choose to do so.

re: oscar
You can already add pages to the sidebar by clicking the ‘Keep in my sidebar’ link at the bottom of the page. Although this is perhaps too subtle for many users. A simple way to dismiss the notice would be helpful, or to find some middle ground between the two options.

agreed. It’s microsofty

Just noticed today the yellow balloon is gone… that “microsofty” remark likely did the job :-)

Why does the yellow button still show up on some pages?