Glad you have found a way that works well for you.

A bookmarks sidebar pane is definitely on the todo list, though replicating Chrome's own bookmark-bar probably won't happen.

If I added an option to Sidewise that would do focus-on-hover of the sidebar and/or dock window (basically 'XMouse by Sidewise'), do you think this would correct the problem you're having? Probably with "keep sidebar visible" turned off, or modified in some way to work better with this XMouse style behavior.

If implemented, this would still have to actually raise+focus the sidebar/dock window on mouseover, due to the lack of a "just raise it" mechanism in Chrome.

I believe this should be fixed in the new 2012.10.18.1 release. Please let me know if you're still encountering this type of issue after updating.

Now implemented in 2012.10.18.1 release. Verified this works as expected in Gmail with the "Unread icon count" labs feature enabled.

Row-wise focus-on-hover and focus-on-scroll options have been implemented in the new 2012.10.18.1 release.

I am also keeping the "focus the sidebar when mouse moves over it" idea on my todo list for the time being; I made a brief attempt to implement this a little while ago and ran into some complications that I'll need to think through carefully before proceeding.

Hopefully either of the other two new focus options will ease the pain for Mac users somewhat, for now.

This should be working much better now with 2012.10.18.1 release. Sidewise in general should do a much better job of getting rid of "zero child" window rows. Please let me know if you are still seeing this happen!

Good idea. Planning to make this into an option much as you describe. Thanks for the suggestion!

This should now be working properly in 2012.10.18.1 release.

Now implemented in 2012.10.18.1 release. The pin icon is just an icon now and is not clickable; the right click context menu can be used to "Unpin tab".

Mouse wheel tab switching is now present in 2012.10.18.1 release. Please see the related option's hint tooltip for the full details.