Personal perspective

Oct 19, 2006 11:04 GMT  ·  By

I have downloaded Internet Explorer 7 and I'm intensively using it since this morning, and I thought I would give you a first impression, so to speak. And I will do so by highlighting some of the key aspects of IE7. If you want access to a full list, here is a link to a Microsoft page that describes the features of Internet Explorer 7, but they are also available here in Softpedia. Well, as you may have guessed, it is some of these that I wanted to address.

First off, the Menu Bar isn't on top of the Address Bar and I haven't been able to switch back to the old GUI. I guess I'll just have to get used to it. The Address Bar has been drastically overhauled. The Go To button has been merged with the Refresh button. In the far right corner you can embed a search engine of your choice to be the native search engine in IE7. But in the drop-down menu next to the search box, the second option allows you to effortlessly switch back to Live Search. It seems that Microsoft has introduced a few surprises up the browser's sleeves, so to speak, to give itself the upper hand, but I don't think the feature will generate any consistent negative feedback.

The tabbed browsing is impressive. I'm a loyal user of Firefox, but the IE7 tabbed bar just feels better, more natural.

You can: - Open links in a new tab in the background CTRL+click - Open links in a new tab in the foreground CTRL+SHIFT+click - Open a new tab in the foreground CTRL+T - Open a new tab from the Address bar ALT+ENTER - Open a new tab from the search box ALT+ENTER - Switch between tabs CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB - Switch to a specific tab number CTRL+n (n can be 1-8) - Switch to the last tab CTRL+9 - Close current tab CTRL+W - Close all tabs ALT+F4 - Close other tabs CTRL+ALT+F4 - Open a link in a background tab: Click the middle mouse button on a link - Open a new tab: Double-click the empty space to the right of the last tab Close a tab: Click the middle mouse button on the tab

But you can also manage them via drag and drop on the tabbed bar, or access them via Quick Tabs (thumbnail view) CTRL+Q.

The Favorites list has changed to a scrollable menu. This is not something I am particularly keen on. Personally, I have a generous amount of links stored here and I found that the management options of older versions of IE more suited to my preferences. Scrolling and scrolling, just doesn't fit me. The Favorites Center is a small consolation though, and - when pinned - it is more manageable, which does come in handy. This is it for now.

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