Forum Discussion
josh_bodner
Microsoft
Jun 01, 2021Dev channel update to 92.0.902.2 is live
Hello Insiders! Today we’re releasing build 92.0.902.2 to the Dev channel. It’s been a while since our last release, so there’s lots to talk about in this build! This is also the last build for ve...
DavidGB
Jun 01, 2021Steel Contributor
Oh ... dear.
I was very pleasantly surprised last week when Stable went to 91, but unlike Canary and Dev when they went to 91, Stable did not lose the very usable UI for using (not just managing) many more extensions than fit in the toolbar and did not get the Extensions button. I was all ready to uninstall all Edges off phone and laptop as I just can't be having a browser with such a poor UI for many extensions that takes so much more time and mental and physical effort to find and left and right click on extension buttons when there are many more extensions than fit in the toolbar (for me max 10 visible in toolbar to still have a usable length of address box).
I hoped this meant you had accepted that the Extensions button (alone - with changes and working alongside a toolbar overflow menu would be OK) was NOT a solution, and weren't going to ditch the very usable old many-extensions-buttons-UI from Stable until you did have an acceptable solution, but it just wasn't ready for Canary and Dev yet. But now you're going on about completing the Extensions button roll-out. Which makes it sound like you are not accepting this as an issue that you'll address and going to kill Edge for me soon.
Again, if I have, say, 20 more extensions than fit on the toolbar, some of which I often need to left and/or right click on, and many of which I will sometimes need to click on, the Extensions button, with one line per extension, so there's a honking great list I have to actually scroll through, including the extra 10 that are already visible in the toolbar cluttering the list to make the ones NOT on the toolbar harder to find, and only ordered alphabetically, not e.g. according to my wishes with the most used at the top, and some extensions with odd names so I don't even remember where they are in an alphabetical list without effort - it takes MUCH more physical trackpad moving and scrolling, much more mental effort to find and much more TIME to use, and is just not acceptable to me as a severe loss of usability in the UI. This is a MASSIVE downgrade in UX for people who use lots of extensions. As against the old UI where at the top of the More... menu, right by where one clicked on it, one had normal sized toolbar buttons, 6 to a line, reacting just like in the toolbar and able to be re-ordered like inn the toolbar, not a completely different UI to in the toolbar, NOT with the buttons already in the toolbar cluttering it up, all buttons immediately visible after clicking on More ... and within a small movement on the trackpad - THAT was good UX.
If you want to e.g. recreate that dropping down from a new toolbar overflow button rather than in the More... menu, and keep the Extensions button for extension management but alter it so they can co-exist (so most especially turning off the Extensions button does NOT change the toolbar-visibility state of any buttons), that would be fine. But as it stands, if an update hits that means there's no version of Edge with a good use-many-extensions UI, that is when I'm still poised to uninstall all Edge versions from desktop and phone (I need browsers on both desktop and phone that cooperate, so if you kill desktop Edge for me that automatically kills Android Edge too).
I was very nervous over the last few days wailing for desktop Firefox 89 to drop today after reading the promo stiff about the new 'Proton' design simplifying the UI and removing unnecessary clutter in case Mozilla, like Google with Chrome and then you with Edge, decided that it was OK to kill the features for the minority of users who have more complex needs to simplify it for the mass of average users - most of whom I'm sure use no extensions or just one or two. I shouldn't have been worried: all features for easily accessing lots of extensions intact in Firefox 89. In fact while Mozilla have sometimes added things I have no use for, and occasionally surprised me with new features I'd never thought of but are cool, they've never actually crippled or killed parts of the UI I depend on.
So, if you are determined to kill Edge for me and drop yourselves out of consideration as a browser to move to from Firefox, I'm still cool with Firefox and I'll just uninstall the Edges. Drop the More... extension overflow area from Stable when there's no good alternative in Canary and Dev, and I'll just be off.
ethanmenzel
Jun 01, 2021Steel Contributor
I agree with you. Do you use Google Chrome? If so what do yku think about their extension button? I understad what you are saying but need to get a visualization of how it should work to bbetter understand how I should also go about addressing it with Edge in the feedback button.