Any chance of a compact mode? The titlebar / tab bar is HUUUUUGGGGEEEE !!

Iron Contributor

I'm hoping there is some consideration of a compact or smaller mode for the titlebar and tab bar as currently they are really huge and seem to waste a ton of space.  Firefox has a compact mode which is much smaller and  more efficient. Firefox actually has 3 modes: Touch, Normal and Compact.  The picture below shows Firefox in Normal mode on the left, with the new Edge on the right.  Edge's titlebar/tab bar combination is almost twice as large!!!  In Firefox compact mode is even smaller, making Edge look that much larger. 

 

If this is an accessibility issue for those who need the larger size that should not be an issue at all, just provide users the ability to change this in settings such as Firefox does.  My picture here is on a 4k 49" monitor so it seems like there is a decent amount of room.  Now imagine this on a lower resolution, along with having scaling and text increased and it would get a lot bigger quickly.  This amount of room is not good, especially with a smaller touch tablet.  I also realize we have full screen mode, but not all of us want to go full screen.

 

Please consider giving us a compact option to make the titlebar and/or tab bars smaller.

 

 

2019-08-27.png

9 Replies
The UI scales up and down based on screen resolution. I personally like this and hate the small UI of Google chrome, it's too compact. new Edge insider UI is a relief. the UI is one of the main reasons i use this browser in the first place.
there is focus mode (needs to be enabled via flags), it removes the toolbar and is intended for more focused browsing.

@HotCakeXThe UI does not scale very much, I'll post a picture of a lower resolution tablet later on that I have at home so you can see how huge this is on a lower resolution.  Those bars literally take up 1/3 of the screen, especially since elements are scaled up.  In my picture in my first post I'm only scaled up 150% because I like small text/UI, realistically my desktop should be scaled higher.   In any case Firefox scales as well, so on any scale this is still larger than what Firefox has on it's normal mode, almost twice as big!

 

Personally I think arguments that some UI's are too small or others are too large are useless when the consumer is offered a choice, such as Firefox does.  If someone thinks Firefox is too small in compact mode they simply have to go into settings and adjust it to normal mode, simple.  I'm not asking for a permanent change, but rather an option.

 

It's just a shame to waste so much valuable space.  The following is how it looks on a 4k screen at 300%, which is what Microsoft recommends for my setup.  I measured it, it's almost 25% of the screen!

 

2019-08-27 (1).png

A scaling slider for the whole browser UI sounds like a good idea. can be placed in here:
edge://settings/appearance

FYI I still like the larger UI for high resolution touch tablets like my surface pro, although I don't have much of a problem on a touch screen with Firefox's normal mode.

 

Also don't let me forget, what happens when you enable the favorites bar?  It becomes that much larger.

Firefox's UI is still more bearable than google chrome's and a tad bigger. but yeah im ok with that as long as they dont make any permanent changes and make it optional.
bigger UI and buttons is convenient for touch screens too. how does the google chrome's UI look like in a tablet? still as small as the desktop version?

i set the bookmarks bar to appear only on new tabs page. they added this fav button next to my profile picture, it does the same job.

@HotCakeX  Yes it definitely should be optional.  I'm not sure on Chrome as I don't have it installed.

 

What's funny is that I still have the old Edge installed and it's titlebar/tab bar is about the same size as Firefox's normal mode, both much smaller than Chromium Edge.  So for some reason MS actually made the  new Edge's sizing much larger, I wonder why? 

I really hope they make this new Edge UI and features similar to the old Edge as much as they can so that when you compare it with the old Edge, the only difference will be in browser engines (Edgehtml to chromium). or they could have just done an engine swap lol.
cause right now it only looks like a chrome clone cause its core features that made Edge browser unique and set it apart from other browsers are missing from it (Set aside tabs, reading list, cortana integration, webnotes, pdf markup etc)

@HotCakeX  Unfortunately what is most likely is that this will continue to be a Chrome clone and it will convince very few to switch to it.  Loyal Edge users such as myself will also be lost as they realize they might as well just go with Chrome.  Although personally I went with Firefox seeing as how Microsoft is most likely going to support Google's despicable manifest v3. 

 

All I want (and I bet loyal Edge users also want) is the old Edge but with the Chromium wrapper for max compatibility, it's not that difficult to grasp devs.  Of course privacy and adblocking on par with Firefox and free from Google's influence would be nice, but I fear that is a pipe dream.

Well seeing their roadmap and what features are coming, i'm a little more optimistic and hopeful. If i wasn't i wouldn't even be here.