Forum Discussion
Tab Preview - Discussion
Hi Insiders, thanks so much for your feedback on the tab experience in the new Microsoft Edge. From reading your comments, it is clear that many of you would like an easy way to view more information about your tabs to quickly identify which one you are looking for. This problem can be particularly painful when you have many tabs open at once, perhaps appearing similar to each other with repeated site titles or icons, and you'd like to avoid having to switch to each of them to find the right one. Many of you specifically cite "tab preview" from the legacy version of Microsoft Edge as a helpful tool in this situation.
Top Feedback Item: Bring the tab preview feature from the current version of Microsoft Edge
As we investigate this feedback further, we'd like to ask for your help to make sure we are solving the right problem and get the experience just right. For example, in the Microsoft Edge Legacy , there were actually a couple of methods to preview the contents of a tab. One way was to hover over a tab, and a little thumbnail and description of that specific tab would appear with more information. Another method was to select an arrow to the right of the new tab button to open a persistent preview of all the open tabs simultaneously.
Could you tell us more about your experience in this area, and what you would like to see going forward? For example, which of the legacy version of Microsoft Edge tab preview features did you specifically use, and how did you use it? What problems did this feature help you solve and how? What types of information is particularly useful in a preview of a tab and why?
Thanks for your help, we look forward to working with you to improve the new Microsoft Edge in this area.
132 Replies
Elliot Kirk Hello,
I think the tab hover cards feature in the new edge is better compared to the tab preview pane in legacy.
Reasons :
1. Aesthetically pleasing : This pops up on separate tabs and looks very nice
2. Takes up less space : It only shows the preview of each specific tab when we hover on it, as compared to a whole big pane opening up and showing all tabs, which I think takes lot of space and doesn't look so good either.
So yeah, tab hover cards has successfully taken the place of tab preview, and I don't think it's really needed, it would only be a utility at best.
Yet again, an option could be given to enable or disable tab preview pane, in the settings.
Hope this throws some insight into the issue.
Thank you
The tab preview was one feature that I use(d) a lot, especially when using PC doing research and general comparison type work. As a mechanical designer, it is nice to have a number of open tabs on Edge for research, comparisons, and listening to various tech videos whilst doing work. But, what I truly miss was the ability to preview the open tabs in the TASK BAR similar to WIN7 taskbar preview. I liked how I could just hover over the icon for a second or two and it would then show all my open windows - up to a certain number of tabs (which I think was maybe determined by screen size?). I ESPECIALLY LIKED the ability to use the scroll button click (MMB) to close them through this tab preview. I was able to close certain windows no longer used without actually having to open the Explorer window - it saved a lot to time for me and was really handy!
I included the format of view from a quick screen cap found online.
- I've been using the Chromium flag to enable tab hover card images, but I'm still missing the arrow at the right most of the tabs to preview ALL tabs at once. Please implement this feature too!
I also have suggested the same feature in this forum and on Reddit. If you would send feedback about it through the in-app feedback tool (Alt+Shift+I) in Microsoft Edge, then the suggestion would get a +1 and help it to be a part of Microsoft Edge in the future 🙂
Elliot Kirk It seems to me that the standard of excellence is that when one is replacing a product with an "equivalent" product, the replacement MUST have, at a minimum, ALL the features of the product that it's replacing. Otherwise, it's a DOWNGRADE. Frankly, I can't imagine why this discussion has gone on for so long. It has to be running for a year, by now. The obvious thing is to give Edge Chromium the same features that legacy Edge had. (I might be wrong, and if I am someone will not hesitate to school me 😉 , but I don't even think I've seen this item on the list of features.)
Thanks for listening to my small rant! 🙂
Dan
Elliot Kirk I used the arrow down tab preview feature all the time in the legacy version of Edge. It would be greatly beneficial to bring that back. The hover over tabs function isn't as effective at identifying which tab is which.
- Totally agree. this current tab preview implementation isn't as good as Edge legacy's
- HotCakeX
True, I would like to see the all tabs button back and also I think that the tab preview should be of the width of the tab and not bigger than that which makes it look slight disoriented.
Elliot Kirk I think there is scope for further innovation. In any of the two ways mentioned above of implementing tab preview.. there should be an option that whenever we hover over a Tab (or Tab Preview), we should get peek of tab on entire screen much like "Desktop Peeking" feature at work in Windows presently, so not just a small thumbnail on screen.
Please include an option to turn it off. I always hated that feature.
First rule of software development: Never remove features already in a product and then FORCE an update down on a clients machine.
My machine, through Windows Update, got this so-called new version of Edge. I need it removed and I need to roll back to the prior version in order to get my tab previews back. How does one accomplish this????I don't have an idea if this method works if Microsoft Edge has been updated through the Windows Update.
Follow these steps to uninstall the Microsoft Edge Chromium and go back to the Legacy Edge:
- Go to the settings app(Start+I)
- Go to the apps section from the welcome screen
- Go to the uninstall section
- Search for Microsoft Edge in the search bar
- Uninstall Microsoft Edge
- The old Edge should come back again
I hope that Microsoft adds this feature as soon as possible and you come back again to the new Microsoft Edge.
You didn't read my reply carefully enough. No uninstall. Period.
I mainly used hover previews, but both versions were useful and should make a return. The lack of previews combined with the lack of tab scrolling has made my preferred style of browsing, with many tabs open for an extended period of time, very difficult to navigate. It's an unexpected step back from legacy Edge.
I want to suggest on top of this feature that the tab preview should also show the tab description which is the full website description on the tab which is seen today by hovering over the tab for some seconds and should also show the website name below the tab preview.
Today, we can see the full website description on tab name by hovering over a tab for some seconds.
Suggested Feature: 1. Shows the full website description on tab given by the developer. 2. Shows the website name.
