Forum Discussion
Acrylic title bar
Hi SOI_7, thank you. We have heard that many people want us to extend our Fluent design, including Acrylic, to the preview channels of our browser. We are still working on our user experience, and are trying to be very careful with the performance impact of these changes.
I understand the concern for performance impact. Keep in mind that many of us are still using this on full-fledged desktop computers. One possibility is to make "transparency effects" in Edge an option under Appearance in Settings, with the default off. This way, the power users who really want this can go turn it on.
On the other hand, acrylic in the Edge title bar could be toggled by the larger Windows 10 transparency option. Why would these effects be a concern for Edge only, if not for all other places and apps where it occurs? Windows 8's Metro design language eliminated all transparency for concerns about lowering battery life in portable devices. But if Fluent Design reintroduces transparency (and acrylic is probably the most attractive implementation of transparency I've ever seen, even on par or better than what we see in today's MacOS), this must have reflected a decision by Windows engineers that such performance concerns are not worth giving up on transparency effects altogether. If Microsoft's own apps don't implement acrylic, why would anyone else, and why did Microsoft invent Fluent Design in the first place?