Apr 22 2019 07:34 AM
Microsoft Edge’s new tab experience is designed to be a clean, delightful experience that helps you find what you need on the web and get you where you want to go next. Microsoft Edge starts with a new tab, and you can create more new tabs by clicking the “+” (next to existing tabs).
We’d love to hear what you like about our new tab experience, what doesn’t work for you, and anything more you’d like to see in this experience.
The default new tab layout uses a daily background wallpaper sourced from Bing’s image of the day collection. This experience also offers the standard in-page search box as well as quick link tiles .
Celebrating the image as the hero of this experience, we’ve created space across the middle for the picture to shine through.
In this layout, News is at your fingertips, just a scroll away To bring it up, you can either click the category headers along the bottom or scroll the page.
In the upper right is a quick way for you to choose various layouts for the page.
To see more layout choices, explore the settings flyout in the upper right corner of the page.
Focused layout has the fewest visual elements, giving you just the basics: a search box & quick link tiles.
This is our default layout, introduced above. Here’s a run through the core elements on the page:
Informational. Stay informed with news.
Informational layout balances news with search & recent sites. In this layout, the rich repository of news powered by Microsoft News is present to help you stay current on the topics you care about.
Other layout customizations
You can explore additional new tab page layout configurations by turning individual toggles on and off.
We would love to hear from you. What’s your favorite new tab layout? What additional new tab customization options do you want to have? Anything else you’d like to see changed on new tabs?
Thank you for trying out the new Microsoft Edge and leave your comments below!
Apr 22 2019 09:38 AM
@Elliot Kirk I am a huge fan of the Inspirational setup. It strikes a great balance between looking good and being useful.
Apr 22 2019 09:40 AM
@Elliot Kirk I basically like the new tab page. Since you asked, I'd like an option that disables the news feed even on scroll. Also, I'd like to be able to rearrange the order of quick link tiles by dragging.
Apr 22 2019 10:08 AM
@Elliot Kirk Is there any way to add custom background instead of using picture from the bing?
Apr 22 2019 11:02 AM
@Elliot Kirk We should be able to totally get rid of news from the new tab. Hiding News behind a scroll is not good enough for me.
Apr 22 2019 11:12 AM
Personally I like insperational. I like not having the news stuffed in my face (so to speak) and instead having a pleasant photo to look at. I like having the choice of whether or not to look at the news by scrolling down. @Elliot Kirk
Dennis5mile
Apr 22 2019 03:16 PM
@Elliot Kirk I have custom setting - with just image of the day turned on - I love the Bing wallpapers. The only thing is that the search bar across the image spoils it, so it would be good to have another customisation toggle to turn it on or off. As a matter of fact, I almost never use it - I always search from the address bar.
I'm fine with the arrangement for the news feed - it's handy to be able to either click on the headings at the bottom, or just scroll down, and just a CTRL+Home to get rid of it and return to the top is quick and simple.
Cheers!
Apr 22 2019 07:18 PM
I really like the inspirational view a lot. While I would've preferred to use my own wallpaper its still good the way it is. I would also like to be able to change the search bar to a custom search provider.
What I'm really missing is the option to grab and rearrange my favorite tiles. Also I miss the option to use a custom picture for the favorite tiles. I would also be really nice to have as many rows with my favorites as I like.
Apr 22 2019 09:51 PM
@KoshyG I managed to hide the news by enabling "Enable using the Microsoft Edge local NTP" in edge://flags.
Apr 23 2019 08:11 AM
@Pete_FFC Yeah, option of toggle off the search bar. Interestingly, when you open a new tab, the URL bar is in focus (if you just start typing), and it can do searches anyway. The search bar in the tab page is actually redundant, even though most people expect a search bar to be there.
Apr 23 2019 09:24 AM - edited Apr 24 2019 08:06 AM
@Elliot Kirk I encourage the team to consider additional checkbox options under "Custom", such that the search box and news can be turned off too, resulting in blank NTP if desired with no extension necessary. It seems like this would be easy win vs. the seemingly popular opinion that NTP search/news elements can't be turned off in browsers because the vendor wants to advertise the search/news service. It also allows people to turn off what they consider to be distracting.
If the team doesn't agree, then it might be wise to ensure there's at least one NTP customization extension in the Edge extension store during beta to measure popularity and ensure tester coverage on that type of extension. (There are a number of extensions on Chrome Web Store that blank the NTP, these do appear to work in Edge Dev but we have to pop out to the Chrome Web Store to get them.)
Apr 23 2019 01:06 PM
@rjansen85, thanks for the feedback and glad to hear you're enjoying the inspirational layout!
Apr 23 2019 01:08 PM
Apr 23 2019 01:12 PM
Apr 23 2019 03:27 PM - edited Apr 23 2019 03:33 PM
@Elliot Kirk I'm liking the new tab page so far, but do have some of the same suggestions above:
1). Ability to turn off the search bar (why is it needed when the omnibox functions as the search box?).
2). Ability to turn off the news feed entirely for those times extra focus is required.
and to add, unless I missed it:
3). Ability to change location of the news feed for those who live/travel abroad. I'd like to be able to click the settings gear icon and change it which is an option that was available on the old Edge new tab page.
Those seem to be the basics that are missing for me at the moment.
As a bonus: 4). The ability to set quick launch pages in place of "top sites." The UI is nice, but top sites is distracting whereas a minimal favorites-esque set up there would be more useful.
Apr 23 2019 04:48 PM - edited Apr 23 2019 04:50 PM
A couple of observations:
Apr 23 2019 08:06 PM
Apr 23 2019 08:40 PM