The new omnibox is hideous and hard to see

Iron Contributor

Today's Canary update changed the omnibox:

Annotation 2019-09-24 164508.jpg

The new version is really hard too see in light mode. Please reconsider this change.

28 Replies
Hi,
is it the tab titles that are hard to see or the URL in the address bar?
The physical omnibox itself. I'm not talking about the text, I'm talking about the surface, outline, and shadow.
Oh yeah it's kinda blended with the rest of the toolbar
I like it this way. Bending is better.

I hate it too. It used to be lighter which looked a lot better. This change makes Edge feel much less polished (which it ain't lol but first impressions matter).

When this was released, I noticed another bug that I can also reproduce in Chrome Canary. Before I explain the bug, note that I've already reported this. I have animations in Windows turned off. In Chrome (stable) I cannot see the ripple or fade effects on buttons which is normal behaviour. Edge used to only have a fade effect when animations were turned on. Now most Edge buttons have a fade AND ripple effect even when animations are turned off! The few buttons that are not affected by this bug are the site info button, favourite button and the extension buttons. 

@M_S 

 


@M_S wrote:
I like it this way. Bending is better.

Same here, it's not bothering me, neither on dark theme nor on light.

when I click on the omnibox the outline appears which is good but other than that i don't need to have outline up there when my focus is on the main web page content in the website.

My problem is contrast. I literally have to squint to tell the omnibox apart from the browser chrome, because they're the same color and it only has a light shadow.

I've also noticed a new problem - the omnibox reverts to full white (matching old behavior) or full black (which looks very wrong) when text is edited, depending on the theme.
Wait what's browser chrome? you're talking about Google chrome?

about second paragraph, can you take some screenshots or a quick video/gif? I'm not sure what you're referring to. I've used both light and dark theme but I mostly prefer dark, good for eyes and also in recent poles people have preferred dark them over light theme when working with computer programs so chances are if light theme hurting your eyes you need to use dark them too.
but I'm 99.99% sure that this is a bug. It is the same colour as Chrome's omnibox (I actually used a colour eyedropper to verify this). Google's Material Theme has a different grey palette to Microsoft's Fluent Design anyway.

off topic: Google's Material Design grey palette was a lot better than their new Material Theme palette!

19lmyers is referring to the actual chrome of Edge.
It is a bug that omnibox blends in with the rest of the UI to stop causing distraction for the user when viewing main page contents in websites?
That's what I suspected. Notably, the blue accent in dark theme also follows Chrome's dark theme palette, so I suspected this was a bug related to defaults not being overridden.

And I agree that Chrome's old color palette was much better, I like how Edge Insider is closer to it than to new Chrome
What? That's literally the opposite of what is going on here. If that was to be the case there should be no shadow around the omnibox at all.

The current shadow is in an uncanny valley of being visible but very difficult to focus on. It's clearly a bug.

And I don't think this ridiculous pursuit of "zero contrast browser chrome" is a good idea. Sometimes you need to clearly show the separation of parts of the UI, such as the click/touch target of the omnibox. Also, without it, people won't identify it as a web browser.

@19lmyers 

I don't think so.

do these look the same to you?

 

Google Chrome Canary 

 

Annotation 2019-09-29 204736.png

 

 

Edge insider Canary

 

Annotation 2019-09-29 204807.png

 

You obviously haven't checked light theme, which is affected more by this bug than dark theme.

But you can see in that screenshot that the omnibox is still using the wrong black, which is too dark and not following Edge Insider's color palette.

And if you're looking to use new Chrome as an example of good design, I won't have that.

@19lmyers 

 


@19lmyers wrote:
What? That's literally the opposite of what is going on here. If that was to be the case there should be no shadow around the omnibox at all.

The current shadow is in an uncanny valley of being visible but very difficult to focus on. It's clearly a bug.

And I don't think this ridiculous pursuit of "zero contrast browser chrome" is a good idea. Sometimes you need to clearly show the separation of parts of the UI, such as the click/touch target of the omnibox. Also, without it, people won't identify it as a web browser.

That's not the opposite, we're discussing the omnibox here.

there is little no no shadow at all.

 

Mate I see no bug here. if you do, post a picture and mark the area that you think is a bug so we and the developers who might visit this topic will see it.

 

Annotation 2019-09-29 205150.png

 

Capture.PNG

 

 

@19lmyers 

 

matter of fact, I have checked both themes thoroughly, but you still haven't posted any screenshot to show what you're referring to.

 

that is Not a bug. that is intentional.

they made it just like the classic Edge. try it yourself, open up the built-in Microsoft Edge and see for yourself.

 

Nope, i'm not, you were referring to Chrome in your posts so I used it to show you.

@HotCakeX "they made it just like the Classic Edge"

 

Annotation 2019-09-29 111318.jpg

The picture demonstrates that your claim that "they made it just like the classic Edge" is false. Why is that so complicated to understand?