Bugs with favorites, coupons, and immersive reader

[MingjieZhao]

Seems like the Edge team is now taking a hybrid approach, i.e. using web-based elements along with native controls, when adding new features/updating the UI. I'm however experiencing some problems because of it. 

1. viewports in UI elements should not respect the zoom ratio setting
   I prefer to use a 125% zoom ratio for my browser, and it's probably not a good idea also to zoom out the webviews in UI elements:
   
2. pinch-to-zoom should not be allowed for UI elements (and the immersive reader)
   It's hilarious that I can pinch to zoom on the new favorites and coupons UIs. Seems like the Edge team forget to disable it.  Also since the immersive reader already registered pinch-to-zoom events to control the zoom level, it's probably better to disable pinch-to-zoom for the viewport.
   
   
3. serious checkerboarding issue with the new favorites and histories
   The root issue seems to be 1062662 - Consider scheduling changes for compositor-thread scrollbars to reduce checkerboarding (ch... but honestly, I'm using a very performant device and hardly experience any checkerboarding during normal browsing. The rendering of the new favorite list is way too slow and it's the worst checkerboarding issue I've seen so far. The same problem is also with the history page. I feel like MSFT could have done better than this before pushing it to the stable channel.
    
4. other small issues due to the web-based approach. For example, there are some chances of getting a blank/white view before the favorite list gets rendered. It also takes longer to load the favorites. I'm personally fine with the placeholder loading animation, but considering my device is very fast, other people may find it annoying. 

I personally am a fan of native controls, but I understand the web-based approach may enable faster development, and admittedly the chromium's C++ UI codebase is a mess. However, I do hope one day the team will rewrite the UI completely with modern frameworks like WinUI 3.

Side question: is it normal that I still can't find the sidebar search feature and neural text-to-speech voices in the stable channel?

[#2]

@MingjieZhao 

Hello,

"Side question: is it normal that I still can't find the sidebar search feature and neural text-to-speech voices in the stable channel?"

yes, it is normal that you can't find sidebar search feature in the stable channel, there is no mention of that in the Edge stable channel change log

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-relnote-stable-channel

natural TTS or Read Aloud feature with online voices should be available, it's been in Edge stable for months. is your Edge being controlled via group policy?

about the new favorite button experience, it's also not mentioned in the official change log. I think it is a mistake because it's controlled feature rollout and those things shouldn't happen in the stable channel, because it won't be stable anymore.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/why-is-edge-87-stable-channel-running-experiments...

for other problems, please also send each of them separately using the feedback button on Edge

or (Alt + Shift + i ) shortcut. navigate to attachments => recreate my problem => start recording

sending feature requests or bug/problem reports through this method is the best way and preferred way of Edge team because they can track and register them internally.

plus, sending feedback this way sends additional diagnostic data that can help fix the issue.

[#3]

Yeah, you're right, unfortunately they are using web-based controls. There was a way to open DevTools for their WebViews and I managed set containers max-width to 100%, which fixed the issue until I refresh them.

I reported this bug and they've fixed it a month ago (only with Favorites & History popups) (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/favorites-bar-zoom-bug/m-p/1809302) and can't reproduce it on Canary 88.0.705.0 (but the shopping is still bugged).

@Deleted, there is the same bug with Collections, which is present since the fall of 2019, it's completely impossible to be used, I attached a video

[#4]

@msekmfb1

For some reason I can't attach it to the previous post

 

[#5]

@HotCakeX Thanks for answering. For neural voices, I am using a school account on Windows 10 for Education, so maybe in some way, it's controlled by group policies. Do you know what's the policy that matters? Or is there some way to enable it?

[#6]

@MingjieZhao 

you should be able to see the policies being applied to your Edge browser in here: edge://policy/

[#7]

@HotCakeX is absolutely correct with this:

---

for other problems, please also send each of them separately using the feedback button on Edge

or (Alt + Shift + i ) shortcut. navigate to attachments => recreate my problem => start recording

sending feature requests or bug/problem reports through this method is the best way and preferred way of Edge team because they can track and register them internally.

plus, sending feedback this way sends additional diagnostic data that can help fix the issue.

---

So, @MingjieZhao and @msekmfb1  thank you for reporting all of these issues. If you haven't yet, can you please submit them through the browser. And if you already have, please let comment below with what is persisting, and we can look into it.

Fawkes (they/them)
Program Manager & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#8]

I have been submitting it via Feedback button since the end of 2019, but I think it gets lost in the list of feedback. I still have issues with Collections: Re: Bugs with favorites, coupons, and immersive reader - Microsoft Tech Community

Video:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/discussions/bugs-with-favorites-coupons-and-immersive-reader/...

[#9]

Hi @MingjieZhao, Thanks a lot for the feedback. We have recently improved the pinch-to-zoom behavior in immersive reader and we believe it will address your feedback around immersive reader. The updated behavior is available in Canary and Dev channels (v89.0.722.0 and above). Please give it a try and share your thoughts.

Happy surfing and a Happy New Year!

Harsh Jain (he/ him/ his)

Software Engineer - Microsoft Edge

[#10]

Fixed in Canary v90.0.782.0
Thank you!