Edge says "Press F11 to exit fullscreen" when I don't have a keyboard attached. I read in fullscreen a lot without a keyboard. Please make the little popup tell us how to actually exit fullscreen when a keyboard isn't attached - I always just sort of flail around doing random things until the little X appears. Also, in old Edge swiping down while in full screen showed the app chrome (address bar, tabs, etc) without exiting full screen. That was an awesome feature. Please bring that back. I am constantly entering and exit full screen to switch tabs and stuff.

Hi adamrdrew, I find that if I tap and hold near the top of the screen, the 'X' button pops up and I can exit full-screen mode. I agree that this is hard to discover, though (and may not be the intended way, just the way I get it to show). I will talk with the developers and see if there is a way to discern if a keyboard is attached, or if the device supports touch, and change the string. Thanks - Elliot

Elliot Kirk Thanks for this! It does at least make Edge Chromium Full screen usable in tablet mode, but only just. As far as I can see it is still not possible to expose the task bar by swiping up from the bottom, and of course the full functionality of swiping down from the top to switch tabs or exit full screen is sorely missed. I use Edge for reading on multiple surface devices including a Surface Go. On that device full screen is indispensable due to the small screen size so I'm still using the original version of Edge unless I encounter a compatibility issue. But at least I no longer have to use Chrome. 🙂 Please prioritize feature parity with the old Edge. I'm kind of shocked to read that Edge Chromium is going GA soon without some critical feature of the original Edge.

I totlly agree with youstevecu. Classic Edge features and the awesome support for touch and how smooth touch controlling was made it so unique.

Faris-Jayyousi, stevecu, Elliot Kirk So do I. Releasing the new browser without having at least 95% of Edge classics feature and GUI is a major misstake on the scale of Vista and Windows (M)issed (E)dition.1. Users will test it and see that it simply doesn't work for them. That establishes the "fact" that the browser is even worse than Edge and IE 2. Enterprises will not deploy it until it actually works. Since you are killing of IE and Edge it means they will have to roll out something that works, AKA Chrome. 3. IF the GUI isn't featurecomplete at release all gudielines, videos, helpdesk instructions and so on will have to be redone for every release you actuallly do fix something that should have been there from the first day. Thats wery expensive and the gain for the enterprises is exactly Zero compared to remain on edge classic or Chrome4. We as powerusers gets feed up by a company that promises to listen and then Completly refuses to do that. We will then simply tell everyone that asks that No - so far it's not worth spending your time on the new edge To summarize, there are about no gain for any group to upgrade. There are downsides of missing features (that has been requested for six months now), costs and change management For MS there is a major risk that it will be "known" as another Failed browser that doesn't work and an even lover marketshare,In my Eyes MS needs at least 6 more months and a focus on porting 100% of Edge HTML Gui and Features. When that is done and proven stable - it can be released and work on a feature enhanced version can start

HotCakeX Thanks. I responded in greater depth on the discussion but this is unfortunately not complete and doesn't fulfill my request. The core of my request was better support on touchscreen devices. This isn't that. This seems like a good step, but it is only good on mouse and keyboard. When I detach my keyboard it is actually even more confusing! I now have to click a menu item that says "Press F11 to exit" though there is no F11. If I can be of any help please let me know. Getting little stuff like this right is really important to me. I don't need an iPad using relative pointing out that the browser on my Surface can't even do fullscreen right. ❤️ Thanks for your hard work.

Better fullscreen support on touch screen devices (including Surface!)

25 Replies

stevecu
Brass Contributor
Apr 08, 2020
adamrdrew

Here's the best workaround I've been able to come up with.

You should be able to activate the touchpad and leave it active. To get it 90% out of the way, you can drag it of the screen in the lower right corner leaving just enough of it visible to drag it back onto the screen when you need a mouse.

This should work well in conjunction with the unsafe:unsafe:edge://flags/#edge-enable-shy-ui flag as well.

I guess this is the best solution we're going to get from Microsoft. They should at least document it, since it seems they have no interest in fixing the underlying problem they've created.

Here's a demo https://youtu.be/oTiMV6VVpmM

I'm using Canary in this video, and for some of the actions I used a real mouse (hence the pointer), but only to facilitate the screen recording.
stevecu
Brass Contributor
Dec 15, 2019
adamrdrew It's very gratifying to see how much progress has been made on this issue.

Thanks for starting this thread.
- stevecu
  Brass Contributor
  Feb 01, 2020
  Progress? What progress? I only hope "Real Edge" continues to get updates.
  
  I've been looking at replacing my aging Surface Book with a Surface Pro X. After seeing virtually no progress making "Edge Chromium" Surface friendly I'm seriously considering whether an iPad Pro might be a smarter choice.
  
  I don't mean to rant, but I do feel somewhat abandoned.
  - HotCakeX
    MVP
    Feb 01, 2020
    stevecu
    stevecu wrote:
    Progress? What progress? I only hope "Real Edge" continues to get updates.
    
    I've been looking at replacing my aging Surface Book with a Surface Pro X. After seeing virtually no progress making "Edge Chromium" Surface friendly I'm seriously considering whether an iPad Pro might be a smarter choice.
    
    I don't mean to rant, but I do feel somewhat abandoned.
    
    Looks like there are some confusions here, Ipad and Surface are devices, Edge and Safari are browsers.
    
    The new Edge is "new", meaning it still needs more time to be complete, one of the areas that need work is the touch experience.
    the classic/legacy Edge is still here, it's not removed, but it will not receive any more updates either.
    my suggestion is to uninstall Edge stable (version 79), restart your device and then legacy Edge will come again. then install Edge canary (version 81) and use it side by side with Edge legacy until the new Edge is ready and has all the features you need. the reason I said to use canary is that it has the most recent features and it also has the quickest update cycle.
    There are lots of browsers for Windows, if one doesn't work, you always have other options.
HotCakeX
MVP
Nov 15, 2019
Hi,
It is now added to Edge insider Canary, more info:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Discussions/Finally-here-the-Real-Full-Screen-Experience-in-Edge-insider/m-p/1011888
- adamrdrew
  Brass Contributor
  Nov 15, 2019
  HotCakeX Thanks. I responded in greater depth on the discussion but this is unfortunately not complete and doesn't fulfill my request. The core of my request was better support on touchscreen devices. This isn't that. This seems like a good step, but it is only good on mouse and keyboard. When I detach my keyboard it is actually even more confusing! I now have to click a menu item that says "Press F11 to exit" though there is no F11.
  
  If I can be of any help please let me know. Getting little stuff like this right is really important to me. I don't need an iPad using relative pointing out that the browser on my Surface can't even do fullscreen right.
  
  ❤️ Thanks for your hard work.
  - HotCakeX
    MVP
    Nov 15, 2019
    You're welcome, oh absolutely, i just wanted to give you a heads up that the feature is implemented as a flag which is experimental, i think once it supports touch screens it will come out of the flag and become the default behavior 🙂
Elliot Kirk
Silver Contributor
Sep 02, 2019
Hi adamrdrew, I find that if I tap and hold near the top of the screen, the 'X' button pops up and I can exit full-screen mode. I agree that this is hard to discover, though (and may not be the intended way, just the way I get it to show). I will talk with the developers and see if there is a way to discern if a keyboard is attached, or if the device supports touch, and change the string. Thanks - Elliot
- stevecu
  Brass Contributor
  Nov 07, 2019
  Elliot Kirk
  
  Thanks for this! It does at least make Edge Chromium Full screen usable in tablet mode, but only just.
  
  As far as I can see it is still not possible to expose the task bar by swiping up from the bottom, and of course the full functionality of swiping down from the top to switch tabs or exit full screen is sorely missed.
  
  I use Edge for reading on multiple surface devices including a Surface Go. On that device full screen is indispensable due to the small screen size so I'm still using the original version of Edge unless I encounter a compatibility issue. But at least I no longer have to use Chrome. 🙂
  
  Please prioritize feature parity with the old Edge. I'm kind of shocked to read that Edge Chromium is going GA soon without some critical feature of the original Edge.
  - Faris-Jayyousi
    Iron Contributor
    Nov 07, 2019
    I totlly agree with youstevecu. Classic Edge features and the awesome support for touch and how smooth touch controlling was made it so unique.

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Better fullscreen support on touch screen devices (including Surface!)

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