Forum Discussion
MicrosoftIntroducing improvements to the Collections experience
Over the last few months, we’ve introduced you to updated experiences for favorites and history that are designed to help you stay in your flow and finish tasks faster. Today, we’re excited to share that we’re bringing many of the same improvements to Collections and downloads in the Canary and Dev channels.
The updated Collections menu opens on top of the web, allowing you to view, edit, or add to a collection without the webpage shifting and resizing. It’s also easier to dismiss, saving you clicks and helping you get back to what you were doing faster.
Want to keep Collections open so you can continue working in it? Simply click the pin button () to open Collections in the classic sidebar experience. Once Collections is pinned, it’ll stay that way until you close it. From here, you can even drag-and-drop content from the web into your collection, including links, images, text, and more.
In the spirit of getting things done faster, we're also introducing a way to add an item to a collection in just two clicks! Hovering over any collection now shows an add button () on top of the preview image. Simply click it to instantly add the current page to the collection and close the Collections menu. It’s never been easier to quickly capture that important webpage.
Of course, Collections still supports all of the features you know and love, including integration with Microsoft Office and Pinterest, as well as the recently announced price comparison feature to help you save money.
What do you think of the improvements to Collections? Please let us know in the comments below, as well as via the in-app feedback tool. And check out our deep dive on the new downloads experience as well!
— William Devereux, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Edge
31 Replies
Another great improvement to help organizing the numerous lists of collections (which should become more and more common for many users since MICROSOFT seems to promote the EDGE collections feature) would be the possibility to organize them into (multi-levels) folders (like for favorites) or at least into (single-level) groups (like for TODO lists).
Arnaud2908 wrote:Another great improvement to help organizing the numerous lists of collections (which should become more and more common for many users since MICROSOFT seems to promote the EDGE collections feature) would be the possibility to organize them into (multi-levels) folders (like for favorites) or at least into (single-level) groups (like for TODO lists).
Yes, i second that, exporting to To-Do should be an option for collections,
the way collections are right now is suitable for a To-Do export, there is a collection name which can correspond to the To-Do list name, and then collection items that correspond to To-Do list items/tasks.
Thank you for this improvement !
In my opinion, we would also need the ability to resize the panel (it should as well be possible to resize the others panels, like the the favorites and the history ones).
Arnaud2908 wrote:Thank you for this improvement !
In my opinion, we would also need the ability to resize the panel (it should as well be possible to resize the others panels, like the the favorites and the history ones).
Totally agree,
all panels and sidebars should be resizable.
Favorites/History/Collections/Downloads/Vertical tabs/Edge sidebar.
they will provide many benefits.
if you haven't already, please send this suggestion using the feedback button on Edge so that it will be properly registered.
William Devereux New add button feature to collections is good. What would be a great addition to collections (AND FAVORITES) is to allow a user to view in a single window, up to perhaps four different items so that comparisons between each is made SIMPLE and efficient. Currently, one can only view one item at a time in a single window which makes comparisons difficult. Many extra "clicks" of the mouse could be eliminated.
Example: I want to view more than one weather page at a time. But I would like to view up to four weather pages within a single browser window. Many websites for security reasons will not allow more than one webpage at a time to be displayed in a single window (i.e. frames are not allowed). I would think you could get around this problem in some manner, yet not upset any security employed.
Note: I submitted a suggestion more than once to allow more than one favorite be displayed in a single window. Instead of a "split screen" (two parts in one window), one could create from two to four "quarter" screens within a single window. Sure. What's in each would be smaller, but comparisons would be much easier.
Thanks for any consideration and response.
Sincerely,
Henry Steigerwaldt, Hermitage, TN
Email: mailto:hsteiger@comcast.net
Perhaps could use some help with terminology when reporting about collections or news and weather features.
- Original collections is a 'drop down' or 'fly out' ?
- New iteration / dropdown in Edge when in Dev / Can. what term to differentiate from 'original' collections when reporting ?
- How to refer to all the variants of the Edge 'Fly up' or 'Web Widget' ? Some come up with 'news' icon, others the 'Weather' one, and still others ... . How to correctly report these and how to select what one's you want to appear.
- Some iterations of the Web Widget are 'docked' and others are more flexible and can be moved . How to refer to each ?
Would be good topic for tutorial on what the 'things that come up in Windows' are... . Think ?
William Devereux I never liked the flyout menus in chrome. It is one of the reasons I used Edge. You've made the flyout menus a little better in the new Edge. But please can you enable it to be pinned and then for the browser to REMEMBER the pin next time I click on bookmarks, collections, etc., so that if I want the sidebar experience like old Edge I can do that.
Deus05 wrote:William Devereux I never liked the flyout menus in chrome. It is one of the reasons I used Edge. You've made the flyout menus a little better in the new Edge. But please can you enable it to be pinned and then for the browser to REMEMBER the pin next time I click on bookmarks, collections, etc., so that if I want the sidebar experience like old Edge I can do that.
Hi,
please submit a feedback using the feedback button on Edge and Ask them to Remember the Pinned state of the flyouts, they really just want people to Ask it.
see
"we're actively listening to feedback from people who want the "pinned" state of the menus to be remembered, so if you (and everybody else who wants it) haven't yet, make sure you file feedback in the browser telling us that since that will help us get an accurate count of how many people want it. "
if you know anyone else that wants the same thing, please tell them to do the same.
William Devereux Did this get reverted back to the old experience? It was working and today it looks like the side panel version with no Pin to change behavior. Also, the add + does make adding easy yet it did catch me off guard when I accidentally started to add the current page by accident. Visually my eye goes to the picture on the collection to open it and now it adds. It is OK, just feels like I have to remember as is doesn't feel as natural to me.
This new popup menu is great and makes using collection easier and more satisfying.
it would also be great if we can add pdfs to our collection with its first page as preview.
Love the flyouts, they are more modern,
but please do remember the Pinned states of the flyouts. when user Pins one of these flyouts to get a sidebar, this should be remembered, so that next time we click on a flyout, we wouldn't have to press the pin button again. it gets very repetitive and makes user reluctant to use the sidebar after some time.
Appreciate the improvement in launching Collections. Feel this will find much more acceptance when people see the difference compared to original launch. Would still like to see a way to 'search' or ' organize' collections to be sorted in an order that makes it easier to add to or find an existing collection.
William Devereux
R_Starzuft
Yes, I agree that, especially as we add more and more collections, we will need an "organize collections" feature, that just like the "organize favorites" menu, will display collections in a full tab, and will be able to efficiently deal with hundreds of them (maybe in a hierarchical view, the contents being indented with respect to the collection it belongs to).
William Devereux I cannot wait until these new features are integrated into the Edge Browser Collections Feature for end users to use. I would love to become a developer although I just don't have the time to learn with average everyday life and work. LOL
