Collections is now available to test in the Canary channel

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Today, we’re releasing an experimental preview of Collections for Microsoft Edge. We initially demoed this feature during the Microsoft Build 2019 conference keynote. Microsoft Edge Insiders can now try out an early version of Collections by enabling the experimental flag on Microsoft Edge preview builds starting in today’s Canary channel build.



We designed Collections based on what you do on the web. It’s a general-purpose tool that adapts to the many roles that you all fill. If you’re a shopper, it will help you collect and compare items. If you’re an event or trip organizer, Collections will help pull together all your trip or event information as well as ideas to make your event or trip a success. If you’re a teacher or student, it will help you organize your web research and create your lesson plans or reports. Whatever your role, Collections can help.

The current version of Collections is an early preview and will change as we continue to hear from you. For that reason, it’s currently behind an experimental flag and is turned off by default. There may be some bugs, but we want to get this early preview into your hands to hear what you think.

Try out Collections


To try out Collections, you’ll need to be on the Canary Channel which you can download from the Microsoft Edge Insider website.

Once you’re on the right build, you’ll need to manually enable the experiment. In the address bar, enter edge://flags#edge-collections to open the experimental settings page. Click the dropdown and choose Enabled, then select the Restart button from the bottom banner to close all Microsoft Edge windows and relaunch Microsoft Edge.

Once the Collections experiment is enabled, you can get started by opening the Collections pane from the button next to the address bar.

Start a collection


When you open the Collections pane, select Start new collection and give it a name. As you browse, you can start to add content related to your collection in three different ways:

• Add current page: If you have the Collections pane open, you can easily add a webpage to your collection by selecting Add current page at the top of the pane.

• Drag/drop: When you have the Collections pane open, you can add specific content from a webpage with drag and drop. Just select the image, text, or hyperlink and drag it into the collection.

• Context menu: You can also add content from a webpage from the context menu. Just select the image, text, or hyperlink, right-click it, and select Add to Collections. You can choose an existing collection to add to or start a new one.

When you add content to Collections, Microsoft Edge creates a visual card to make it easier to recognize and remember the content. For example, a web page added to a collection will include a representative image from that page, the page title, and the website name. You can easily revisit your content by clicking on the visual card in the Collections pane.

You’ll see different cards for the different types of content you add to Collections. Images added to a collection will be larger and more visual, while full websites added to a collection will show the most relevant content from the page itself. We’re still developing this, starting with a few shopping websites. Content saved to a collection from those sites will provide more detailed information like the product’s price and customer rating.

Edit your collection

• Add notes: You can add your own notes directly to a collection. Select the add note icon
  
  from the top of the Collections pane. Within the note, you can create a list and add basic formatting options like bold, italics, or underline.
• Rearrange: Move your content around in the Collections pane. Just click an item and drag and drop it in the position you prefer.
• Remove content: To remove content from your collection, hover over the item, select the box that appears in the upper-right corner, and then select the delete icon
  
  from the top of the Collections pane.

Export your collection


Once you’ve created a collection, you can easily use that content by exporting it. You can choose to export the whole collection or select a subset of content.

• Send to Excel: Hit the share icon from the top of the Collections pane and then select Send to Excel. Your content will appear on a new tab with pre-populated table(s) that allow you to easily search, sort, and filter the data extracted from the sites you added to your Collection. This is particularly useful for activities like shopping, when you want to compare items.

• Copy/paste: Select items by clicking the box in the upper right. A gray bar will appear at the top of the Collections pane. Select the copy icon
  
  to add those items to your clipboard. Then, paste it into an HTML handler like Outlook by using the context menu or Ctrl+V on your keyboard.

Sending content to Excel is available for Mac and Windows devices running Windows 10 and above. We’ll add support for Windows devices running Windows 7 and 8 soon. Additional functionality, like the ability to send to Word, will also come soon.

Send us feedback


This is the just the first step in our Collections journey and we want to hear from you. If you think something’s not working right, or if there’s some capability you’d like to see added, please send us feedback using the smiley face icon in the top right corner of the browser.

Thanks for being a part of this early preview! We look forward to hearing your feedback.

– The Microsoft Edge Team

The post Collections is now available to test in the Canary channel appeared first on Microsoft Edge Blog.

 

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A top piece of feedback we’ve heard from Microsoft Edge Insiders is that you want to be able to roam your settings and browsing data across your work or school accounts in Microsoft Edge. Today, we’re excited to announce that Azure Active Directory work and school accounts now support sign-in and sync in the latest Canary, Dev, and Beta channel preview builds of Microsoft Edge.

By signing in with a work or school account, you will unlock two great experiences: your settings will sync across devices, and you’ll enjoy fewer sign-in prompts thanks to single sign-on (Web SSO).

Personalized experiences across devices


When signed in with an organizational account on any preview channel, Microsoft Edge is able to sync your browser data across all your devices that are signed in with the same account. Today, your favorites, preferences, passwords, and form-fill data will sync; in future previews, we’ll expand this to support other attributes like your browsing history, installed extensions, and open tabs. You can control which available attributes to sync, once you enable the feature from the sync settings page. Sync makes the web a more personal, seamless experience across all devices—the less time you have to spend managing your experience, the more time you’ll have to get things done.

Single sign-on across work or school sites


Once you’ve signed in to your organizational account in Microsoft Edge, we’ll use those credentials to authenticate you to websites and services that support Web Single Sign-On. This helps keep you productive by cutting down on unnecessary sign-in prompts on the web. When you access web content which is authenticated with your signed in account, Microsoft Edge will simply sign you in to the website you’re trying to access.

To try this, just navigate to Office.com while signed into Edge with your work or school account. Notice that you didn’t need to sign in with your username and password—you are simply authenticated to the website and can access your content immediately. This also works on other web properties that recognize the organizational account you are signed in to.

How to sign in with your work or school account


To get started with an organizational account in Microsoft Edge, all you have to do is sign in and turn on sync. Just click the profile icon to the right of your address bar and click “Sign In” (if you’re already signed in with a personal account, you’ll have to “Add a profile” first and then sign into the new profile with your work or school account.)

At the sign-in prompt, select any of your existing work or school accounts (on Windows 10) or enter your email, phone, or Skype credentials into the sign-in field (on macOS or older versions of Windows) and sign in.

Once you’re signed in, follow the prompts asking if you want to sync your browsing data to enable sync. That’s it! To learn more about sync, check out our previous article on syncing in Microsoft Edge preview channels. You can always change your settings or disable sync at any time by clicking your profile icon and selecting “Manage profile settings.”

What do you think of sign-in with your work or school account?


We are excited to bring you work/school account sign-in and sync in the Microsoft Edge Insider channels. We hope to make your everyday web surfing experience a breeze. However, we want to be sure that sign-in, as well as all the personalized experiences, actually work for you. Please give sign-in a try and let us know how you like it – or not. If you run into any issues, use the in-app feedback button to submit the details. If you have other feedback about work/school account sign-in or personalized experiences, we welcome your comments below.

Thank you for helping us build the next version of Microsoft Edge that’s right for you.

– Avi Vaid, Program Manager, Microsoft Edge

The post Sign-in and sync with work or school accounts in Microsoft Edge Insider builds appeared first on Microsoft Edge Blog.