IE8 address bar | The Coffeehouse

rhm

God I hate IE8. Not quite enough to be bothered to uninstall it, but it's close. The worst thing about it is the address bar. Why put History and Favourites in the drop-down? They have their own place in the UI. When I open that dropdown I want the addresses that I typed in.

The IE8 address bar drop-down only displays 12 typed addresses plus the other stuff that shouldn't be there. There's no scroll bar like there was in IE7. I know that more than 12 typed addresses are stored because sometimes (and I've no idea how or why) IE8 doesn't display History and Favorites in the drop-down and shows 24 typed addresses instead and they're all things I typed, so I know it is storing it, it's just only displaying the 12 most recent most of the time. When did UI designers start thinking it was a good idea for software to get in the way of the information we want. It would have been so easy to add an 'expander' to the Typed Addresses section of the drop-down (like the History and Favourites sections) have, but they didn't.

Anyway, has anyone else seen this happen? Is there a trick to get the drop-down to just display typed addresses?

I won't bore you with all the other ways IE8 is a useability step-back from IE7 (which was also a step back from IE6). I'm going back to FF (not brave enough to try Chrome).

daSmirnov

I like the address bar like it is. I want it to display history etc, because chances are they're places I want to go to.

In fact I woudln't mind the address bar and search bar being merged, like Chrome.

rhm

In reply to daSmirnov

#Apr 14th @ 1:48 PM

Well yes, I guessed someone would like it otherwise they wouldn't have implemented it. What I want to know is: Is there a way to turn it off and if not, why not?

ZippyV
Fired Up

My biggest problem with the address bar is that it displays my local folders. 90% of the entries are C:\Users\ZippyV\Desktop\blabla
I don't want to browse my C drive when I'm looking at the address bar in IE.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to ZippyV

#Apr 14th @ 2:57 PM

This, and the history/favorites thing being on top. I like them in the dropdown, but not on top. Also it sometimes randomly seems to forget things. For instance, when I remember parts of a url, I type something like "channel9 hardest riddle" and it usually shows me the http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/4454576-The-Worlds-Hardest-Riddle/ URL I typed earlier, but sometimes it just forgets about it and shows me nothing. Is this going to be like favicons all over again?

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

If you dont like it, turn it off. It has that option.

rhm

Seems that if I hit the drop-down arrow while IE is still initializing then it just shows typed addresses and will continue to do so until IE is completely closed and restarted.

So it's probably a bug. One which I hope they don't fix, at least until they give us an option to make the dropdown work like it did in previous versions.

intelman

In reply to Bas

#Apr 15th @ 1:00 AM

I am hoping there is an IE 8.1 or 8.0.1 or 8.5 anything newer that addresses these concerns and more. Tab open delay perhaps?

I doubt it though. In all likely hood, if this is to be fixed, it will be in hotfix form, probably named KB9492393.

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

I wander if someone over at IEBlog has been reading this thread?...

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/04/20/customization-in-ie8.aspx

androidi

History & Favs in address bar is the sole reason to install IE8. I suggested that feature in Connect and it's super duper useful for me as I can type a part of some eg. forum thread title and bang it comes from history.

edit: but yes sometimes it's not quite doing what you'd expect. Especially straight after cold boot it doesn't find anything from history, it seems to take some time for the indexing service or whatever it uses to get up and running or something. I have no idea.

Koogle
I'm a Terminator - Astalavista, Vis7a!

In reply to androidi

#Apr 21st @ 12:12 PM

the IE8 sidebar + favourites/rss/history should have had a lot more work done... I've yet to see any IE8 sidebar addon either .. probably because its absolute crap. And compared to Maxthon(s) sidebar or FF AiO sidebar +addons.. really at bare minimum their should by now have been a search field in both favs/history sidebars(let alone a proper management method with deadlink+favicon updating).. having to use the address bar to get a searching both is just stupid if all you wanted to do was search through your history or favourites seperataly, saying that the IE8 address bar compared to FF3.. its close... really I'd want hybrid of both. with some extra improvements.

Anyway this is Internet Explorer, its still the pits in more ways than I could possibly be bothered to go into.

Koogle
I'm a Terminator - Astalavista, Vis7a!

customization-in-ie8.aspx <that customization? LOL are they taking the piss or what?

androidi

In reply to Koogle

#Apr 21st @ 12:56 PM

I've got nothing against having search fields everywhere, it's a great as it gives the search a context. However I do like Google too. And I really like doing things from the keyboard. Doing a search from one bar then finding out that you need to go with a mouse to another place is not very optimal experience. For this reason among others, during Vista beta I suggested they'd add a feature into start menu search that does everything from one place but also giving ability to narrow it in short form (similar but shorter form of eg. site:msdn.com in google). Want to search favorites? Just press Win key, type f:whatever the f would be user customizable namespace and the separator : would also be user customizable so it would be optimally placed on the keyboard layout you use.

There's something similar but afaik not quite as good in the start menu search which can be configured with group policy.

edit! Ok so you can go to favorites with alt+c I notice, which is quite fast but that's already a compromise since alt+f is file menu.

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to androidi

#Apr 21st @ 1:07 PM

You can use Start++ for custom searches in the start menu.

And if u use a keyboard your a n00b.

Koogle
I'm a Terminator - Astalavista, Vis7a!

In reply to androidi

#Apr 21st @ 1:07 PM

"Doing a search from one bar then finding out that you need to go with a mouse to another place is not very optimal experience."

I never said having the address bar bring up results from different locations favs/history etc was a bad did I? ...nope I didn't, my post was merely agreeing with OP and doing some IE bashing Smiley

"I've got nothing against having search fields everywhere, it's a great as it gives the search a context" ...exactly its just nice to have it there for when its something you want to specifically do..

http://brandontools.com/content/StartPlusPlus.aspx I can't remember if there was the option of having it direct the search url to your default browser and not have the result display in the startmenu.. but whatever I can't stand to look at Vista/7 startmenu and not used much at all really, why use a startmenu for internet purposes if youre only going to end up viewing and using things in your browser anyway, I suppose if your browser wasn't already opened using the startumenu like that is a quicker shortcut.. but for me the web browser is always running. More power functionality like that can be setup in your browser where you can do things straight from there.. if that isn't IE ofc.

SlackmasterK
I write my OWN blogging engines

Bring back the IE6 UI!

ziare

If you hate is so much just use another version.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

In reply to ziare

#Apr 22nd @ 12:58 PM

It's not like Firefox where every version from 1.0 is pretty much standards compliant, IE6 is awful and IE7 has room for improvement. Then there's the issue of security...

jamie

In reply to SlackmasterK

#Apr 21st @ 8:37 PM

re

Bring back the IE6 UI!

...with tabs top like chrome

Koogle
I'm a Terminator - Astalavista, Vis7a!

In reply to jamie

#Apr 22nd @ 3:08 PM

"If you hate is so much just use another version."

omg lol jeesh! was that in response to "Bring back the IE6 UI!"??? I wonder what other version you'd recommend Big Smile

"with tabs top like chrome"

... tabs at the top like that above the address bar(even the bookmark bar aswel) is rubbish imo.

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

In reply to Koogle

#Apr 22nd @ 3:39 PM

and chrome won't maximise right.

It ain't getting even a consideration from me 'till they fix that/

Koogle
I'm a Terminator - Astalavista, Vis7a!

In reply to GoddersUK

#Apr 22nd @ 4:15 PM

yeah plenty of things wrong with chromes UI.. even fixing the tiniest of visual issues in the dev builds like the cursor jumping position when invoking the autoscroll, and when they do attempt a fix they still get it wrong.... Anyway really ain't much in Chrome to use.. .. its fast.. but then it doesn't really do much else but the bare minimum, the detaching/re-attaching tabs feature is about its biggest plus point really, some of other things in progress features just aren't upto scratch... perhaps when they get decent extensions support things might improve faster.

and on that tabs above address bar.. its a prefernce thing personaly, I like the tabbar to be directly above the document view as it is done in all apps with a tabbar with no other bars inbetween .. but I guess for a browser where you have a different address bar location for each tab it does work and fit in, just breaks that standardized view really... hopefully they'll support more on the customizability front in the future.

RoyalSchrubber
One. How many time travellers does it take to change a lightbulb?

In reply to Koogle

#Apr 22nd @ 5:10 PM

Wow, a coherent post without a single use of N-word. That's something new... Color me impressed, you're making progress. :O

jamie

re: ... tabs at the top like that above the address bar(even the bookmark bar aswel) is rubbish imo.

hey koog.. ps - ms popularized tabs in win95

they are the tabs..they are the tabs... they are, they are, they are the tabs
(Quadrophinia)

It bugs me that google went and made tabs... well ... tabs!

ms can steal that back.

?

ps - i get this all the time...

GoddersUK
I CAN has cheezburger and you CAN'T has stop me!

In reply to Remotay

#Jun 20th @ 2:34 PM

I see that ociasionaly in FF 3

EDIT: OK... replying to spam just makes me look stupid Sad