Why does Microsoft Edge hate bookmarks?

Recently, I wrote a series of notes, one way or another related to working with bookmarklets in browsers, and almost every one mentioned some problem with IE, expressing hope that MS Edge would come and fix everything.

Therefore, I could not miss the appearance of virtual machines with Windows 10 and decided to check how things are now with the collection of annoying experience.

By car, there was a version of MS Edge 11.00.10240.16397 from 07.22.2015 (according to the file version), it is also 20.10240.16384.0 (according to the information in the browser settings) ...
')
It all started well. XPath support is finally implemented ( document.evaluate ). The insertText command has been insertText to Document.execCommand() - a good help for automating work with Rich Editor. Slightly easier with XMLHttpRequest : By default, third-party cookies are allowed in Edge, and now you can’t beat painfully over the reason why XMLHttpRequest.withCredentials does not work in cross-domain queries. The strange error disappeared. The null Access-Control-Allow-Origin during the redirections to CORS, described here , now the second Edge request formally sends out the same Origin that it previously held in mind - null .

Then I had to be a little upset: the navigator.languages and XMLHttpRequest.responseURL properties that I used are still not implemented. It became even sadder when it was discovered that localStorage is still unavailable for local pages.

Pokryakhtev, getting used to the new developer tools (they are now detached, but they still refer to the page for which they were initially called, so sometimes you have to get confused in several separate consoles or DOM trees for different pages, despite the fact that This is not very convenient for observing when one window closes another), I proceeded to the main point: how work with bookmarklets is implemented in MS Edge.

And then the unimaginable began. It was as if I began to get blow after blow at the face, only having time to exclaim “for what ?!”. Judge for yourself.

1. In IE 11, you could bookmark the current page either by clicking on the button or by dragging the address by the icon at the beginning of the address bar — wherever convenient. In Edge there was only a button.

2. In IE11, you could immediately bookmark any link — either by dragging it to your Favorites, or by calling a command in the context menu. In Edge, the link can not be added to the bookmarks at all - you must first open it, and then click on the button.

3. In IE11, you could rename the bookmark directly from the panel's context menu. In Edge, this can be done only in a special window, on the favorites tab (we did not even dare to think about editing the same URL before).

4. From IE11, you could drag and drop links to the desktop or to any file manager folder, even transfer them over the internal network. In the Edge, links are not dragged anywhere at all.

5. Finally, in IE11, you could drag bookmarklets to the favorites panel. In Edge, there is no longer any simple means to create a bookmarklet: after all, unlike a regular address, it cannot be opened as a page, instead it starts searching for a string with its code.

6. Only the file system operations remain. But here, instead of relief, severe tests await us. In this article, I described the format and features of creating / storing bookmarklets in IE11. In Edge, the format remained exactly the same, but added additional difficulties, so that life does not appear raspberries.

but. In IE11, you could create as many bookmark or bookmarklet files in a folder as possible, say, c:\Users\[ ]\Favorites\Links\ - IE picked up all of them when you restarted and “adopted” if we weren’t messing with the format. Now Edge does not recognize its own files in the folder C:\Users\[ ]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_[]\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Favorites\Links (oh beautiful new address! ), if he did not create them there himself. Now the method of creating a bookmarklet looks like this: you open any page in the browser, press the button to create a temporary bookmark, close the browser, go to the C:\Users\[ ]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_[]\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Favorites\Links folder C:\Users\[ ]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_[]\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Favorites\Links , and then choose: either call the properties of the file and substitute the address with the code you need, or open the .url file in notepad and manually edit / replace it completely.

b. If you allow a jamb in one bookmark file, most likely all Favorites will not be loaded.

at. In Edge, the limit on the size of the URL has been reduced, and thus on the size of the bookmarklet code - more than doubled as compared to IE11: from 5119 to 2083 characters. So now the URL and ExtendedURL keys described in this article should be the same in size and content, no matter how foolish it sounds and looks. But the bug with the ending space in the URL key disappeared, but this is no consolation at all.

Honestly, even Microsoft already has no desire to write bug reports to Microsoft . The fact that in Firefox or Chrome for many years already implemented easily, simply, freely and without any restrictions, in IE becomes more inconvenient and more limited. Given that this is an area or basic actions when surfing, or key tools to facilitate the lives of experienced users.

Perhaps, for programmers, the number of finally implemented standards will outweigh the rest, but programmers still write for the end user ...

Somehow, this is not the beginning of a new life for our ugly duckling. Instead of a swan, he begins to turn into a small, grumpy dragon.