Summary: For things that aren't bugs
IE7 Beta 2 Pages
Tabbed browsing
Why doesn't CTRL-PAGEDOWN and CTRL-PAGEUP move between tabs. My wrists are hurting trying to use CTRL-SHIFT-TAB. Why doesn't IE7 use the same thing as Firefox, Excell and most other Tabbed programs?
When I launch IE7 manually when a browser window s already open (e.g. by doing Windows+I on the keyboard), I get a new browser window. The result is a mixture of multiple windows and tabs. I would like an option that explicitly says "never more than one IE window on my screen".
So many errors
I visit dozens of sites a day and frequently receive script, .net, code and other errors. They don't prevent access and I'm not bothering with debugging as they're not my sites. Are these problems because so many sites are rife with coding errors that the more precise IE7 is catching? Or is IE7 too sensitive to errors? Or are work arounds for earlier versions rearing their heads as problems in IE7?
XHTML Content-Type
* Why is Internet Explorer 7 still blissfully unaware of the correct XHTML content type, application/xhtml
xml? IE7 does a fine job processing XHTML documents when sent as (incorrect) content-type text/html, an acceptable solution would be for IE7 to treat application/xhtmlxml the same as text/html. Current behavior: A download dialog. How wrong is that!
Download Manager
* I have used Mozilla Firefox for a while, and I feel a download manager would be an extremely useful addition to Internet Explorer 7. The current dialog-based offering is very weak and difficult to use if managing multiple downloads. All that is needed is the ability to pause downloads to come back to them, find a default download location and see multiple downloads at a glance. It is one of the main reasons I have switched from IE to Mozilla.
Tabbed browsing
* One of my co-workers and I feel it would be useful to be able to put the tabs at the bottom of the screen, since we used to have to go down to the task bar to switch between IE instances, we catch ourselves half way to the bottom of the screen before remembering tabbed browsing sometimes, by allowing us to choose to put the tabs on the bottom, it would allow for easier transitioning.
* To add to the previous paragraph, I would like to see an option to put the tabs on the left or right side. When I used Opera on my Tablet PC, this would allow me the fastest switching between tabs using the pen, and I'm since used to this layout. Also, a command/keyboard shortcut to open a link in a new tab in the background would be nice.
* Need to have an option to open all new pages in a tab on the currently open IE window. This way each time I click a link from out side of IE it will not open a new window.
* Options should provide a setting so links away from a site default to opening in a new tab.
Pop-up Blocker
* Occasionally, I'll get a pop-up even with the blocker turned on; the information bar will also appear and say the pop-up has been blocked, which isn't the case. However, as a benefit of forcing the address bar all new windows, it's possible to now see what script techniques websites are using to get by the pop-up blocker. The few I've seen get past the blocker appear to do so by creating a new window on window.onerror event. I figured this information might be helpful in improving the blocker. :-)
"IE4 had a great UI that let users easily change font sizes; let's get this design back in the next generation of browsers. (...) I'm hereby launching a campaign to get Microsoft to make user preferences override any fixed font size specification in Web designs.(...)
Early IE versions supported this need, offering users two standard toolbar buttons: one that made text bigger, and the other that made it smaller. That's the way things should be.
Mr. Gates, please give us back the good design you shipped in IE4 for the Mac."
"
Simplifying Browser Font Control Unfortunately, recent versions of IE have eliminated IE4's good design, replacing it with an approach that has two serious usability problems:
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The text size button is no longer visible by default. Only the minuscule percentage of users who customize their toolbars will get this highly useful button. Most users see instead the default toolbar, which is polluted with buttons that have much less utility. Because the feature is hidden, few users realize that their browser can change text size.
*
Separate buttons no longer exist for text-bigger and text-smaller. If users can find it at all, they'll get a single button to control both directions of text change. (...)
Improving Future BrowsersReverting to IE4's design for the Mac would be a great step forward for font size usability."
Every quotes coming from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, August 19, 2002:
Let Users Control Font Size Please note that text resizing is clearly and distinctly different from resizing all the elements of a webpage (also referred as page zooming). Page zooming increases the document box, generating scrollbars; text resizing should not increase document box. --DU/GT
RSS
* So how on earth do I know if a feed was updated?
* If you have the feed panel open, updated feeds are displayed in bold font. However notifications for new messages might help - Zaki
* How often are updates checked for? You can right-click on a feed, select properties, and set the refresh frequency there. However this does not scale, as you can set that for one individual feed only, and not for all feeds at once, or better for all feeds inside a folder.
* No aggregated view of folders: If clicking on a folder, it should display the aggregated view of all feeds within the folder. That way you could have the latest news always on the top. At the moment, the RSS functionality looks nice, but it is quite useless to have an RSS aggregator that does not aggregate.
* What would be very friendly (and so won't happen) is to enable the use of other feed readers. A few readers now hook into the feed:// protocol. I'd far rather see the RSS button in IE respect this, and rather than add auto discovered feeds into it's own feed reader it would pass the URL to whatever reader was registered as handling feed://. As an alternative add a feed reader option onto the programs tab.
* Don't override and display feeds in your own format if they have a style sheet applied already
* There should be an option to manually force an update to all feeds (such as an "Update All" button) instead of manually right-clicking on each individual feed and selecting "Refresh") instead of or in addition to waiting for an automatic update.
* Filter and sorting options are not saved between sessions (a user can select to sort by date and show only unread items, but the next time the user visits that feed, the options have been reset to their defaults. It is more convenient for users if the options the user has selected are preserved between sessions).
* When you pin the Feeds/History/Favorites view, whenever a popup is shown (like in webmessenger.msn), the view is pinned in the popup window with no apparent way to close it other than the keyboard shortcut. Providing an easy way to "slide" this "panel" in and out could help in this case.
Tabbed Browsing
* When in thumbnail mode, in order to have the right click menu displayed so that you can trigger a refresh all you must initiate the right click on top of one of the thumbnail previews. Granted all of the other contents of the menu are tab specific, there should still be an easy way (and non tab specific) way of refreshing all tabs. - dahat
* How do I detach a tab into a new window - j0217995
* Will be nice if you support an option from Tabbed Browser options to make all links (TARGET=_BLANK) open in the next tab rather than in new window as that of Firefox or Avant does.
Page Rendering
* Page rendering is still not as fast as
FireFox. This is noticeable to varying degrees - but is actually rather pronounced here on Channel 9! I've got a fast PC, a Fast net connection - I want a fast browser! :)
RunAs
*I've been trying to do as much as I can as a regular user instead of running as admin. One of the things I commonly need to do is to modify the settings of network connections. To do this as a user I usually use run as to open IE as an admin then type control panel (or another path) in the address box. When I try this with IE 7, it seems to open another explorer window (under the context of my user as opposed to the admin I'm running as). Interestingly enough, if I give the full path to cmd.exe it will open that as the admin. Not sure if this is a bug or not; is that the expected/intended behavior? Since the network connections control panel doesn't support run as (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=281560) I can use something like privbar, I just liked the way I did it with IE.
Run IE 7 and 6 on the same machine
* As a web developer, a must-have is that I can switch between IE 7 and 6 with relative ease. I understand that it's not a supported scenario, though some have developed hacks for running IE 7 without installing it. Given that the uninstall back to IE 6 is easy, and that the hacks work around 80%, couldn't this be officially supported?
UI comments
* Why doesn't CTRL-A work in the address and search bars? Most of the time, the text these areas contain exceed the bounds of the container. When the user wishes to completely replace the text in these areas, there are two options available: Use the mouse, or use Shift+RightArrow. Both take way too long. Or, the user can click an inactive area in the currently loaded HTML page, then click on the textbox again; however, most people would rather execute a familar keystroke instead.
* How do you put a TAB in a text box? Ctrl-Tab moves you to the next IE tab
* Where has the image toolbar gone?
* If a tab in the background has a script error the dialog box appears over the current tab, so you cannot tell which tab threw the error. This makes debugging difficult.
* Custom zoom: could you have the custom zoon dialog pop-up closer to the zoom button? It makes sense to place the dialog close to the current mouse position.
* Stop/Refresh button: can you please make the
place of these things configurable? It's really annoying that I can't reach those buttons immediately if I use the back or forward buttons.
* Nor can I get to my home button (which points to about:blank) - so in short, I have no way to cancel a page load without first moving my mouse all the way over the screen, and clicking the smaller-than-before buttons. I would like the capability to edit this toolbar/urlbar back. It's annoying to not be able to move the buttons around, pick a big, small or text-only layout, or...
* be able to determine how wide the search box is (and the url bar to that effect).
Internet Options
* The Internet Settings dialog claims to provide a way to add or remove search providers, however clicking on it's Settings button only gives you the ability to Set Default, Remove and Restore Defaults. - dahat
Classic Menu Bar
I realize that moving the menu bar to be below the address bar rather than the tabs was in response to feedback, but I ask that you reconsider. Here are the arguments I have against the current implementation:
* It'll look weird no matter where you put it, unless of course you place it above the address bar. IE7 is a departure traditional application design.
* The contents of the menu bar can change significantly depending on the content being hosted, so it is more logical to associate the menu bar with the content.
* If you choose to turn of the menu bar, some browser plugins, such as Word, force it back on. Switching between tabs becomes choppy as the menu bar appears and disappears.
* Since it's going to look unfamiliar either way, it's best to do so in a way that's more logical and provides a nicer UX.
Again, I'm sorry if this is beating a dead horse, but having the menu bar below the address really doesn't seem to answer the root issue that caused the initial criticism: it's unfamiliar. Moving the menu bar above the address bar would solve this issue, but you'd still have the problem of the UI shifting up and down while switching between tabs. This change definitely is somewhat disorienting, but I believe it's a change for the better and people will accomodate without too much trouble. The web itself has proven that people can function without uniform UI layout across applications, so please consider. - bryanf
Baby Safety
Send URL
One of the things I've always wished was easier to do in IE is to Send a URL of the current page via email. Under the Page button you have a Send Page, but this sends the whole page. Would be nice if you also had a Send URL - royfdouglas
Drag and Drop
Dragging and dropping a link to the tab bar causes it to load in the current page, not in the tab it was dropped on. I'd like to see this.
It's still not possible to drop text into the address or search box. There are many users of forum sites who don't know how to create a link; it would be helpful to be able to drop text into these boxes. - Mike Dimmick
View Source
* Please please please - CTRL+U to view page source, or add a means to map a shortcut key to this action. This would be a boon to any web developer.
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File > open
Maybe I am simply overlooking where you have placed this feature, but if it is not included in IE 7, I will really miss it! I need to open files on floppy disks and
CD-ROMs in a controlled library setting easily from the toolbar.
MyComputer, Explorer, and the Start Menu is not available to library users. I can only open and save from the browser. Please take this into consideration for all the library users, else we will petition the librarians for a different browser. Thank you.
Ctrl+O will open this dialog, as will File/Open if you have the Classic Menu enabled.
Reloading page after pop-up blocker changed issue
Last night I learned to hate the implementation of the popup blocker in IE7. Last night, in the UK, tickets went on sale for the years largest music festival. I spent 4 1/2 hours hitting F5 trying to access the ticket site, then finally got through. After pressing 'Buy Tickets' the popup blocker blocked the redirection to the secure server done via a new window. Naturally I clicked 'Always allow popups'. Then IE tried to reload the page with the new pop-up blocker settings. I was then unable to reconnect to the server for another 3 hours, by which time tickets has sold out.
Please, when pop-up blocker settings are changed, do not re-load the page. This could cause many problems when accessing a site is hard due to heavy traffic. Pop-up are heavily in these types of scenarios, and so could (and now has) upset a lot of people. FF doesn't re-load, why does IE7? And anyhow, it is a really jarring experience have a content-heavy page reload itself when you haven't told it to.
Better URL History and URL Bar
The autocomplete on the address Bar is annoying since the earliest versions of IE. Cant they make the address bar a little bigger and allow intuitive navigation?
Image/advertisement blocker
The real "killer app" for Mozilla Firefox that finally convinced me to switch over from IE6 (despite FF's shortcomings..) was the ability, through extensions like Adblock, to selectively block the viewing of certain images or flash movies. This is something that greatly enhances my web browsing experience, as I don't have to suffer through looking at a bunch of obnoxious (always animated, blinking stuff that distracts the hell out of me now) ads I don't want to see. I don't think I'll be switching back to IE with the upgrade to Vista if IE7 doesn't have this feature.
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