Forum Discussion
Touch experience is quite choppy compared to the old Edge
When comparing both browsers side by side it is very clear that Chromium Edge is not really usuable on a touch device.
Just wanted to add that I care about the touch experience in Edge so deeply that I am willing to block major Windows updates if they are going to replace old Edge before new Edge catches up with touch scrolling and handling including rubber band and smooth scrolling and zooming. I literally don't care about any other feature new Edge is going to introduce before touch is fixed.
Hi Stilgar, I was just playing with the touch scrolling with the latest Microsoft Edge Dev channel on my Surface Pro 3. I see the rubber band is working, pinch to zoom is working, and scrolling is fairly smooth. I tested side by side with the current version of Microsoft Edge. The current version seems to scroll faster, but not by so much that I felt it was unusable. Other than that difference, I didn't notice much difference at this point. What channel are you using? Are you seeing a vast difference in touch behavior between the current version of Microsoft Edge and the latest Insider builds? Thanks - Elliot
Elliot_KirkI have not tried the beta Edge because I didn't read a blogpost announcing the touch improvements only the intention to have some. Is your experience different from other Chromium browsers? Also did you need to enable any flags?
The back button in tablet mode (bottom left next to windows button) needs to act like a browser back button in order for browser apps to work properly.
Love the ability to make browser apps BTW, and that the swipe keyboard now works with said browser apps, something which doesn't work with Chrome.
Yeah, the . . . menu at the top right doesn't work with touch at all. Hopefully this will all get fixed soon.
- hhmm, your right did not work for me too.. The Favorites bar > menu did, but not ... menu
Dennis5mile
- Elliot Kirk
Microsoft
kitron Thank you for the feedback. Touch is very important to Microsoft, and is one of the areas where we are working to not only improve Edge, but all Chromium based browsers. You can learn a little more about our Open Source aspirations at our blog: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2019/04/08/microsoft-edge-preview-channel-details/
Elliot
Elliot Kirk Just installed Chromium Edge Dev on my old SP3, running Insider Slow Track, which I largely use in portrait tablet mode. It is pretty much impossible to touch the address bar and get the address highlighted - it either opens or closes tabs above the bar or opens the bookmark below the bar where I'm touching. Not really usable for me atm.
Cheers,
Tony.
- I got the Chromium Edge installed on the Surface Book 2 to experiment with hybrid usage, and I can state three things:
One - The tab bar has grown a bit in size and that feels nice, compared to the more narrow approach from the original Edge (if we don't consider Tab Previews)
Two - The settings and context menus are smaller in comparison. Just being able to rescale the area of each button by 125 to 150% vertically would help a lot.
Three - The addition of icons for each button is very nice. I does help immediately understand what each menu item is for on a glance, and can help those who may run the browser for the first time with a language they might not understand.
I don't know to which extent this version of Edge will be redesigned to better integrate the Fluent Design System, which it mainly does not a.t.m. and if FDS will be implemented on non-Windows versions of Edge.
kitron Yeah, currently the touch experience is a total mess on Blink rendering engine. I really hope that MS can introduce the uniquely smooth multi-touch, scrolling and panning in this instance of its browser. EdgeHtml is still the best web engine for touch input on Windows.
Yes, touch isn't quite there. But I found that going into edge://flags "Endable Experimental Scrolling" helps... just a bit. It isn't close to the old Edge, but I understand it's a work in progress.
I use a Surface Pro 3, primarily in tablet mode. Having proper touch, swipes, is VERY important. I do hope that if/when they port this over to Android they carry over all the touch/swipe features.
One gesture that is completely missing is "Double Tap to Zoom". I constantly use this gesture on the old Edge.
