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HotCakeX's avatar
Mar 16, 2020

New Feature in Edge Canary: new dark design for Tab strip

This has been reverted back to the previous design in 

Microsoft Edge Version 83.0.467.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit)

 


 

 

 

The dark theme which can be set here: edge://settings/appearance

 

in Edge Version 82.0.456.0 (Official build) canary (64-bit)

makes the Tab strip black, now the text will look always clear regardless of Windows 10 accent color.

 

previously, only the active Tab would be dark and others would have the accent color

 

 

  • boblinthewild's avatar
    boblinthewild
    Brass Contributor

    HotCakeX Please change this back. I have some tabs always open and their contents are also black, so the entire tab just looks black with no distinguishing content. When non-active tabs were the same color as the Windows accent color, I could at least adjust the accent color to make everything look nice. Unless there is a way to set the tab color to be something other than the Edge theme color, this is not a good change.

    • tistou's avatar
      tistou
      Bronze Contributor

      HotCakeX 

       

      Thanks 😉

      I'll re test Canary or I'm waiting for the next version of Dev


      Nothing new with Canary (features planned for March) ?

    • HotCakeX's avatar
      HotCakeX
      MVP

      In both light and dark theme, it's easy to tell which tab is active and which ones are selected, they become lighter. the dark tabs are inactive/unselected.

  • HotCakeX 

     

    And for the Light theme

     

    New:

     

     

     

     

     

    Old:

     

     

    Notice how Windows accent colors can affect the Tab title texts adversely. now with this new change, user can be free to set any color they want as Windows 10 accent color (like I did in the screenshot above with Pink color) and the text will always stay readable.

     

    this was a change that requested by others in the community. Thanks for listening

    • DavidGB's avatar
      DavidGB
      Steel Contributor

      HotCakeX 

       

      This new version doesn't only change the background tabs to near black. It's also made the dropdown and context menus a notably lighter grey.

       

      I have the accent colour in Windows set to 'Overcast'. Again, how Edge was with that WAS perfect for me. This new version is horrible - I dislike it exactly the same way I disliked the Mozilla Dark theme in Firefox. If this new version stays with no option for the old, what was a plus for Edge in my ongoing decision as to whether to stay with Firefox (desktop and mobile) or change to Edge (desktop and mobile) has now become a minus, given the fact that yesterday I finished re-creating the now-former Edge Dark theme (as it was with the overcast accent) on Firefox.

       

      I did go to that site where you can create themes for Google Chrome and have it then generate the theme install file, and tried to recreate the old version, specifying my system 'overcast' accent as the colour for the tab bar and background tab. Which worked adding the generated Chrome theme to Edge. Unfortunately, everything NOT specified in the Chrome theme reverts to default, so the URLbar, menus etc etc, lose the dark theme effect and they are elements not able to be specified in the theme generator. Which was also the case with Firefox using the colors.Firefox theme generator, which is why in Firefox I've been using userChrome.css to effectively modify just the parts I want on top of the dark theme for every element I haven't specified a change for.

       

      And just because some people have asked for this doesn't mean everyone wants it.

       

      I started looking at whether to carry on with Firefox (desktop and mobile) or move to Edge (desktop and mobile - needs to be the same on both platforms for syncing) due to the upcoming major change in the Firefox mobile browser. An added element is that I have very recently become unexpectedly very sensitive to the glare from light coloured backgrounds (in all programs, not just my web browser), and current (old) and 'old' Firefox mobile is very clunky with Dark Reader. So I'm weighing the two 'browser ecosystems', Firefox and Edge, carefully and in detail, and with certain MUST HAVEs.

       

      I'm also disabled, in constant pain and very foggy headed as a side-effect from constant prescription medications. Trying to learn new things is difficult. Focusing to think even vaguely coherently, typing, experimenting - it's all very slow for me and costs a great deal of rapidly mounting extra pain (typing this, the pain shoots up to intolerable after about a short sentence worth and I have to break before typing any more - the whole post will take many hours). Most of the time I'm just lying in a pain-filled fog, incapable of doing anything much, and my ability to do anything is both limited and involves a lot of extra pain. I'm saying this to make clear that the fact that I've actually spent two days learning to and eventually succeeding at changing Firefox's dark mode to look like Edge's dark mode did (with W10 overcast accent), with all the extra pain from the extended focusing, searching, reading, typing and trying to find out what mistake I'd made, means that this is not just some minor matter of taste preference to me.  It is very, very IMPORTANT to me. I can't carry on using Firefox's default theme, or its dark theme as it is unmodified, but require elements from its dark theme that aren't able to be specified in add-on themes. Similarly I can't use Edge with its default theme, and I can't use it now with this new dark theme. If I can't carry on with the dark theme as it was in Edge, then the comparison ends and Firefox themed as Edge was with the Overcast accent wins. Simple as that.

       

      Again, I like choice. I don't expect everyone (or anyone) to have the same tastes or needs as me. I don't want people to be forced to have everything 'my way'. If some, even many other people want this new dark theme, that's fine with me AS LONG AS IT IS A CHOICE AN I DON'T GET STOPPED FROM THE OPTION TO CHOOSE WHAT I WANT AND NEED.

       

      I'm starting to build up a bad history of this with Microsoft. Early last year I started using Microsoft Launcher, which I really liked although it needed some performance improvements. Then, out of nowhere, they changed two things in the UI which had been things I particularly liked; and changed them to things I hated. In both cases the changes could easily have been new options, but no - just 'take this and screw you'. So I went off and bought Nova Launcher, where they ADD options rather than just changing things away from what at least some of their users like.

      • Deleted's avatar
        Deleted

        DavidGB HotCakeX tistou 

        Thank you all for the thoughtful responses. I brought your feedback straight to our product team, and they wanted you to know this:

         

        "Thanks for bringing this to our attention! It looks like this might be related to a new bug, so the team will be looking into it right away. Please let us know if you see anything similar, and we appreciate you sharing this."
         
        Fawkes (they/them)
        Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge
  • DavidGB's avatar
    DavidGB
    Steel Contributor

    HotCakeX 

     

    Just updated to 82.0.456.0, blinked at the tab bar and came here to post and complain.

     

    I LIKED the previous Dark Theme. I've just spent two days in Firefox's userChrome.css and doing a lot of googling for css snippets to copy, paste and alter (as I don't know css and the syntax, though element names and colours are obvious enough when I see them) to re-create the now-previous Edge Dark theme in Firefox, tab bar, toolbar, urlbar, bookmark bar (and yellow folders thereon), bookmark dropdown menus and submenus, context menus, dark NTP and about: pages, the lot. Half an hour ago I finally managed to fix the one element that took me the last day to find the solution to the problem (the selected tab's grey wasn't quite matching the toolbar's) so I now have the Edge Dark theme on Firefox ... and now the Edge Dark theme has changed in a way that is changing to the way I've been changing Firefox's Dark theme from.

     

    I'm a big fan of choice, so if other people have some reason they would like this new dark theme, I've no problem with it being a choice .... even the default choice.

     

    BUT give ME the choice of the old version. I HATE this. the black background to the background tabs makes the text glare too much on them for me, which was my biggest complaint about the Firefox Dark theme.

     

    Even if it's a flag, Edge Devs, let me turn the background tabs' background colour back how it was.

    • HotCakeX's avatar
      HotCakeX
      MVP

      DavidGB 

      Spoiler

      DavidGB wrote:

      HotCakeX 

       

      Just updated to 82.0.456.0, blinked at the tab bar and came here to post and complain.

       

      I LIKED the previous Dark Theme. I've just spent two days in Firefox's userChrome.css and doing a lot of googling for css snippets to copy, paste and alter (as I don't know css and the syntax, though element names and colours are obvious enough when I see them) to re-create the now-previous Edge Dark theme in Firefox, tab bar, toolbar, urlbar, bookmark bar (and yellow folders thereon), bookmark dropdown menus and submenus, context menus, dark NTP and about: pages, the lot. Half an hour ago I finally managed to fix the one element that took me the last day to find the solution to the problem (the selected tab's grey wasn't quite matching the toolbar's) so I now have the Edge Dark theme on Firefox ... and now the Edge Dark theme has changed in a way that is changing to the way I've been changing Firefox's Dark theme from.

       

      I'm a big fan of choice, so if other people have some reason they would like this new dark theme, I've no problem with it being a choice .... even the default choice.

       

      BUT give ME the choice of the old version. I HATE this. the black background to the background tabs makes the text glare too much on them for me, which was my biggest complaint about the Firefox Dark theme.

       

      Even if it's a flag, Edge Devs, let me turn the background tabs' background colour back how it was.


      I had the exact opposite experience. on Firefox I use Matt black theme to get exactly how Edge is looking right now because the colors behind tab tiles are distracting and make it hard to read

    • tistou's avatar
      tistou
      Bronze Contributor

      For the clear theme, I also prefer the old "design" (.453 version)
      The new one is way too ugly (faded gray on the background tabs, the + button which is now black)

      The police were not blurry on my PCs with the old version

       

      Hoping that MS will add an option (flags) to choose between the old and the new design

      I wonder why they remove "features" when just adding the news and choosing between features would please everyone

  • tistou's avatar
    tistou
    Bronze Contributor

    With the default theme (clear) the design has also changed and it's less beautiful (tab color, The + button to open a new tab has changed from white to black, etc...)


    I check on my other PC (before updating) the design differences

    • tistou 


      tistou wrote:

      With the default theme (clear) the design has also changed and it's less beautiful (tab color, The + button to open a new tab has changed from white to black, etc...)


      I check on my other PC (before updating) the design differences


       

      Yes the + plus button for opening a new tab is black in light theme, that's a bug and i also think it should be reverted back to white.

       

       

      • tistou's avatar
        tistou
        Bronze Contributor
        If it's a bug, it's already that to win 🙂
        Just the faded gray color to modify

        Thanks

        Little question Off Topic, is it not for now that the stable version of Edge will go to 82.0?
        Or MS will gradually integrate the features present in Canary, in the stable version (even if the version remains in 80 or 81.0

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