Discussion - Set Aside Tabs and Warn on Close

Microsoft

Hi Insiders, we have received a lot of feedback about how you would like to close your tabs with the option of easily finding and reopening them later as you move between different workflows. Specifically, many of you are asking for the Tab Set Aside feature from the previous version of Microsoft Edge to be brought back. Some of you are also asking for a prompt to help avoid losing all your tabs such that you can’t find them again if you accidentally close the browser.


• Ask users if they want to close all tabs when they close a browser window
• Bring the tab set aside feature from the current version of Microsoft Edge

 

Each of these requests seem related to the fact that many of you have a lot of tabs open at once across many tasks and workflows. This leads to a situation where it can often be difficult to manage all of your tabs at the same time, and each additional tab makes it difficult to deal with all of the rest (e.g. tabs get smaller, harder to read each titles, many similar tab icons begin to blur together, etc.). But it can also be scary to close tabs and declutter your workspace, for fear of not being able to find things again later if you need to. We have definitely experienced this problem ourselves, observed it in our research and conversations with users, and agree it is an area where we want to invest in tools to help you be more productive across various tasks. We are actively investigating the best way to address this problem and would love your help and input as we proceed to make sure we get the experience just right.

 

We have looked through your feedback, and there are definitely some very valid reasons for why there was value in the Set Aside feature such as: Helping you pick up on a task later without leaving the tabs open when you aren’t using them, organizing your tabs into groups related to a similar task, and a short term home for more transient tasks that didn’t warrant saving in a permanent location such as Favorites.

 

We also reviewed feedback on the Set Aside feature itself from people actually using it in the previous version of Microsoft Edge, and there were some very valid critiques on how it worked and how it could be improved. For example, the Set Aside buttons being in a location where they were often accidentally clicked causing some to think their tabs had disappeared, requests to be able to set aside a subset of the currently open tabs rather than “all or nothing”, or requests to rename and personalize tab groups further to more easily find them again later.

 

The request for a prompt before closing the browser also feels related, because if people could always confidently find and reopen any of their previous tabs, then there would be less fear or concern about losing tabs if they are accidently closed. This would allow people to feel free to declutter and reduce the number of open tabs with no fear about finding them later if needed, and more easily focus on the subset of tabs they are working on now.

 

As we begin this journey of investigating how best to address these requests, we are asking for your help. Please continue to tell us more about your experience with Set Aside and closing tabs in Microsoft Edge, why these features are important to you in which types of tasks, what did and didn’t work for you about previous implementations, and how you would improve on these scenarios going forward.

334 Replies

@Elliot Kirk This might be coming from the need to manage workspaces and conserve resources. Might be good to be able to have something that helps organize, alt-tab between, and hibernate these workspaces. I know I run into issues being able to maintain these "workspaces". Also, with so many of my tools being web apps, it makes it really annoying to have to click into each tab instead of the browser tab bar being treated more like a task bar.

@Elliot Kirk Set Tabs Aside was really one of the best features of the Legacy Edge, & it's great to see it being implemented in the new Edge.

  • The feature should be implemented in whole like it used to be in the Legacy Edge, & there is no problem in the button placing in the top left corner. It just feels natural to have that button to Set the Tabs aside. The button to have the tabs set aside can however be place on the toolbar if needed.
  • I would like to see the option to just right click on a tab & Set it aside from the Tab Context Menu. There may be some situations where not all of the open tabs are to be set aside & this would be very helpful in that case.
  • There can also be an option to make pre-defined Sets just like we can make a Collection, just to be add that tab instantly like "Add this tab to a Set">"Set X", which can feel more natural.
  • Different color labelling for different sets can be considered, however I can't say if it can be helpful for all the users.

As for the option to Warn on Close, I am totally in favour for the feature, it should make the workflow easier, & make us more free in closing tabs accidentally & closing the entire browser window.

 

Looking to see these features being implemented soon!

Thanks!

@Elliot Kirk If you are providing a prompt at closing to protect me from accidentally closing all of my tabs, it would be most efficient to have an option to set them aside and close as well. Half the time I close the browser, I meant to set aside my tabs first and am cancelling just to do that before actually closing the window. 

 

So the flow would be "Click X to close browser" > "Are you sure you want to close all of these tabs?" > "Set Aside/Close Them/Cancel"

@Elliot Kirk 

The Set Aside Tabs feature is by far my favorite feature in Classic Edge. Actually, it is the main reason I gravitate to Edge. The feature provides the ability to organize multiple workflow easily while preventing my poor RAM from thrashing.

I know that you have concerns about the placement of the buttons. I personally like the placement as it provides a low-friction way to manage my workflows. Perhaps, a switch in Settings would make everyone happy.

However, the most important things is to bring back the functionality, even if combined with Collections.

@Jacques Van de Meerssche The collections feature is useful, but compared to the set tabs aside feature, it feels slow and cramped. Also in set tabs aside, I can scroll sideways to see the tabs that are in that collection instead of having to open it like in collections.

YES x 100. That's my idea also, i've even submitted it through Send Feedback. Combining this or even replacing it with Collection is a great idea. 

My other most loved extension is vTabs for chrome. Where you can have vertical searchable list of your tabs, with a popup or sliding out from left or right side of browser. 

@ikjadoon 

@Elliot Kirk 

@Elliot Kirk 

 

I thought i would also add my 2 cents to this discussion. As i am really trying to get into the New Edge but there are some key items that need to be implemented. 

 

• Ask users if they want to close all tabs when they close a browser window

  • The browser should give a choice to close all tabs or specific tab. That being said, it should also be customizable such that the user can turn the feature on/off.

• Bring the tab set aside feature from the current version of Microsoft Edge

  • YES! i was trying to use collections and it is no where near as streamlined experience. Was frustrated on the collections location and its layout. But reading through some of the comments, i believe the collections and set aside features could be combined.
    1. Keep Set Aside button locations in upper left hand corner
    2. Keep organization of Set Aside but add ability to name tab groupings
    3. Keep the syncing of collections
    4. Have the ability to add current page to set aside tabs
    5. Combine the sharing tab features of both

This is just the top of my head key items that I thought of, will update as i think of more.

 

@Elliot Kirk Being able to set aside tabs was very convenient for me especially  if I was working on a project and only needed these tabs open temporarily. If I wanted to take a break and browse around or just have YouTube up I would set aside my other tabs so it wouldn't become cluttered and just have a few tabs going. 

Combining the set tabs aside feature with the collections tab seems like the collections would just get cluttered if I add pages to it that I'll never used again. Collections are something I use for pages I visit often and don't need to go through my bookmarks or history to find those pages(which makes me feel like Favorites are irrelevant now). If there's a solution to make the set aside feature not clutter the Collections then yeah, merging the two would be cool but I feel it might lose some of it's speed if merged, but it might benefit from being merged with collections because you would be able to name your session.

 

I'm not sure. Keeping it separate seems to be more convenient because it's more focused on what it's suppose to do. Set tabs aside for later and then remove them once restored.  Quick and simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with these two points:

• Ask users if they want to close all tabs when they close a browser window
• Bring the tab set aside feature from the current version of Microsoft Edge

The second point is a feature that has helped me a lot, please bring it to the new Edge. It made it very easy to return to the pages I was using and continue with the work I was doing. That feature was one of the reasons why I use Edge, it is in revision too long and they have not set a release date for the feature. Please add that feature as soon as possible, I would appreciate it very much.

@Elliot Kirk Setting tabs aside for later:

The feature helps most significantly when workflows can be temporarily postponed for later use. One amazing feature to integrate within Set-Tabs-Aside would be the office suite of apps.

 

Perhaps an open word document or powerpoint file can communicate its state with Edge, and can be "set aside" in much the same way as a tab would be set aside. Then, once the tabs are restored, Edge can send a signal to Office to reopen the same document in the same place. 

In addition, integrating the clipboard into Set-Tabs-Aside might also help resume workflows easily.

@Elliot Kirk 

Set tabs aside is my favorite feature in the old Edge. I use it to set aside tabs related to tasks or research I need to get back to later, which makes it easier to manage tabs I working with at the moment and frees up the computer's resources.

 

I like where the button is in the old Edge, and I think that's the only sensible place to put it. You could add an option to remove it for people who are bothered by it.

 

The improvements I would like to see are:

  • ability to name groups of tabs set aside
  • sync of tabs set aside across devices 

 

I would also like the option to reopen a closed window when working with multiple windows. If you have that, and the browser is set to continue where you left off on startup, then there is no need for the prompt asking if you want to close all tabs when you close a window. But I think you should still add it as an option for people who want it.

The previous implementation of set aside tabs was perfect, though it would be nice to have the option to name groups of set aside tabs. The placement of the buttons was fine too. Generally it was used so that you didn't have to keep all your windows open, but quickly go back to different things. Whereas favorites are a bit too permanent and cumbersome.

 

Personally, I don't use warn on close, but I know others do.

 

@Elliot Kirk 

That sounds a little bit like the Tabbed Windows that Microsoft tried out in the operating system many months ago. That was a feature that had potential, but not necessarily used a bunch.
I just had an idea for how you could appease users who accidentally click on set tabs aside: when the button is clicked for the first time, you could have a pop-up explaining that the tabs have been set aside and why some people find this useful, and giving the user the option to bring the tabs back and remove the set tabs aside button.
@MarinM @Elliot Kirk I actually had the same thought. I'd even suggest having a button to dismiss, and then a check box for Don't Show This Notice Again.

@Elliot Kirk  I'm happy there are discussions on 'Ask users if they want to close all tabs when they close a browser window'. I've been upvoting this suggestion whenever I can. I tend to work with lots of tabs at one time, and I move around between numerous programs. Add my touch screen laptop to the equation, and you can imagine how I can accidentally close my browser window with tabs still open...happens often.  

Yes, Set Aside was my favorite feature of old Edges as well and I share the same sentiments as others on this thread concerning button placement, renaming Set Aside groups and, possibly, combining collections without loosing the benefits/ease of the Set Aside features from old Edge. I would suggest 2 more things.

1. The ability to permanently store Set Aside tabs as favorites tabbed groups or, vice verse, open favorite groups as a group within Set Aside tabs. If we combine it with collections then we would have those features available (Sharing ...etc).

2. Consider adding Set Aside tabs to windows timeline.

Note: There was a performance issue with the old Edge Set Aside tab that I want to ensure is fixed in the new feature. The issue was, if you previously set aside "lots:" of tab groups, the browser begin to exhibit performance degradation when you click to open the Set Aside frame. It would take a long time to open and the CPU would jump to 100% percent. it appear that the underlying storage framework that keep track of all the groups wasn't optimized for extensive use of the feature.

@Elliot Kirk

 

The set aside tabs features is a must. I used to use it very extensively and would be very helpful when doing long research and browsing webpages that may or may not be useful in the future.

 

The fact that this feature is not in the new generation of Edge is sad, it needs to be implemented. And when you do, ensure that it does allow you to name different set aside groups and syncs across all of the New Edge browser that you are logged in.

 

Also, scrollable tabs are a must, you used to have this on the old edge, but you don't have it in the Chromium based version. This feature was also very sleek and allowed me to have many tabs and I could easily scroll through them with touch or precision touchpad. It even had a drop down arrow to expand the view of the tabs and let you see thumbnail preview of each tab, that was very neat and is very much missed in this version of Edge. Its a must as the Chrome implementation of many tabs is just sad and very cumbersome.

 

Many thanks.

@Jacques Van de Meerssche Yeah, that would work!

 

My usual scenario is I have a biz task or I learn some topic, so I have multiple tabs open for this topic. And usually, you get distracted or you just have to go and do some other stuff... or you just need to go back to work :) so you have to close all those tabs and open those related to work :)

 

Seriously though, this is a VERY needed feature as people may have multiple "scopes" (or slices) of browsing and they have different contexts! So help us switching the context easily please!

@Elliot Kirk Set Aside Tabs was my most loved and most used feature in old Edge. I'm a software developer. I'm working on a JIRA ticket so I have that open plus maybe my Kanban board and gradually I open a bunch more tabs while I'm working on that ticket. Then I need to break from that and maybe do email for a while, or work on some higher priority issue. Click the Set Tabs Aside button, start work on the new task, opening tabs as needed. Either I complete that task and close tabs I'm done with, or I need to context switch again and Set Tabs Aside, go to the vertical menu showing timestamps, thumbnails horizontally, click Restore Tabs for the task I want to work on and I'm straight back to it.

 

Things I really liked:

  • No requirement to name the tab group
  • All open tabs are set aside with a single click
  • Easy to read the vertical sidebar of previously set aside tabs -- easy to skim quickly by date, easy to scroll left/right if needed to see more of a set
  • Easy to restore an entire context with a single click and -- this is critically important -- have it disappear from the saved list of contexts!
  • Easy to edit previously set aside tabs to remove items I no longer need/care about

The position of the menu and the set aside button made sense, off to the top left, away from the "permanent" controls like favorites and history. As noted above, the transient nature of the tab groups was a critical part of the usefulness: no naming, no need to go back and remove a context after restoring it (and completing the task).

 

Was there any aspect of set tabs aside I didn't like? Nope. It did exactly what I wanted.

 

What about Collections? To me, it's a completely useless feature. It implements a workflow I just don't need and it implements it in a way that doesn't match how I use the web at all. I've tried to use it a couple of times since it appeared but it's cumbersome and ugly and I just plain old dislike the entire user experience and user interface for it. Maybe "consumers" like it (my wife's a "consumer" and she doesn't like it either) but this technical user doesn't like it at all.

 

Could you use Collections as a way to implement Set Tabs Aside without driving me insane? Maybe. The prerequisites would be:

  • There must be a single click in the UI -- without digging into menus -- that saves all the currently open tabs to an auto-named-by-date collection and closes those tabs!
  • In the Collections menu, such groups would need to easily readable (thumbnails, partial URLs, scrollable so all tabs can be seen -- none of which seems to happen with collections right now).
  • In the Collections menu, there would need to be a single click button to open/restore those tabs (no, not a right-click & then a second click) -- and the collection would need to be deleted once the tabs are restored.

Right now, Collections fails on every bullet point, and in multiple ways for each of those.