Forum Discussion
Collections UI
philrice wrote:because favorites and collections are different, sometimes it is subtle but it makes a difference in how you use them. For example some of my reasons would be:
- You can add notes to collections , you cannot to favorites
- You can add 'snippets' of text selected from within a webpage, or an image to a collection which you cannot do with favorites
- You can easily send to excel or word the collection bringing it together in a nice format , which is good for research or sharing with others
- Collections (imho) are easier and quicker to navigate than favorites. I personally like to have the collection sidebar open most of the time on some of my desktops as it is a good quick way to navigate to certain Admin tools and pages
- with collections it is easy to 'open all' items in a collection (much like onetab works), in favorites it is not.
Now of course your point is why not use favorites instead when I want to not have thumbnails displayed, so the link to images feature for example sounds like a moot point, but it isnt really as for example I could have a collection with 7 or 8 items which includes some images, some snippets, some notes and a couple of direct web page links. The web page links then display thumbnails that give no useful indication of what they are or have any usefulness. For example try adding azure portal and Endpoint manager in the same collection you get the same useless thumbnail for both that just takes up lots of space :
In this case the ability to remove the thumbnail from individual items would be useful.
There is no snippet.
how Collections work is that they add a link to whatever piece of content you add to a Collection. if you add an image or video, their URL is added to the Collection.
that's why favorites can do the same.
as an example, you can't add an Instagram picture to a Collection, you instead add the link/URL of that picture to the Collection.
Not exactly, and partly why I said 'sometimes it is subtle'
With snippets , yes it does just add a link but with a couple of slightly different behaviors.
Firstly in the way the link itself behaves more like a link to an anchor, taking you directly to that part of the page you are referring to. Now technically you could setup a favorite to do the same but far less user friendly or convenient. Often this feature might make little difference and a normal link might function just the same but if a page, say a medical paper published in a journal, is very lengthy then the ability to have the item link to an anchor point within that page can be useful.
Secondly, is in the way it displays the item in a collection. If you highlight a paragraph of text and add that as an item then that actual text is displayed in the collection. Following the item link takes you to the page yes - much like a favorite would but with the anchor type behavior I explain above - but the displaying of the text in the collection in that way can be very useful and quite a powerful tool for some. Im sure many will find it useful to have a key phrase displayed but with the ability to then go to the source of the whole article / page.
- Spoiler
philrice wrote:What I mean is that the snippet of text is displayed in the collection sidebar like this :
which might be everything you need to save from a page, but you also have the ability to go to that page via the link. You wouldnt see that text in a favorite saved of the same page.
Re the anchor links comment I made , I just tried testing and you are completely right and it does not jump to an anchor point in the page. Strange as I swear I was experiencing that behavior yesterday but I cannot recreate it now. I remember thinking it was a useful feature. If I can I will put examples here of course but it certainly doesn't behave in that way by default.
Website developers add those anchor links to their website and not everyone do that. Microsoft Docs website is one of them that does it.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/
What I mean is that the snippet of text is displayed in the collection sidebar like this :
which might be everything you need to save from a page, but you also have the ability to go to that page via the link. You wouldnt see that text in a favorite saved of the same page.
Re the anchor links comment I made , I just tried testing and you are completely right and it does not jump to an anchor point in the page. Strange as I swear I was experiencing that behavior yesterday but I cannot recreate it now. I remember thinking it was a useful feature. If I can I will put examples here of course but it certainly doesn't behave in that way by default.
- Spoiler
philrice wrote:Not exactly, and partly why I said 'sometimes it is subtle'
With snippets , yes it does just add a link but with a couple of slightly different behaviors.
Firstly in the way the link itself behaves more like a link to an anchor, taking you directly to that part of the page you are referring to. Now technically you could setup a favorite to do the same but far less user friendly or convenient. Often this feature might make little difference and a normal link might function just the same but if a page, say a medical paper published in a journal, is very lengthy then the ability to have the item link to an anchor point within that page can be useful.
Secondly, is in the way it displays the item in a collection. If you highlight a paragraph of text and add that as an item then that actual text is displayed in the collection. Following the item link takes you to the page yes - much like a favorite would but with the anchor type behavior I explain above - but the displaying of the text in the collection in that way can be very useful and quite a powerful tool for some. Im sure many will find it useful to have a key phrase displayed but with the ability to then go to the source of the whole article / page.
I'm not talking about the way it displays. I'm saying that there is no snippet, Collections only save links to web contents. that's all. and it is exactly what favorites do.
anchor links are links and favorites and Collections both use links. this is something I've been using since the feature first was introduced.
I'm trying it even right now. went to a Wikipedia page, highlighted a paragraph from the middle of the page and added to Collection, after closing the page and clicking on that Collection item, it loaded the page from the top, didn't take me anywhere.