Microsoft has rolled out another weekly release of their dev channel build of Edge. There’s not much in the way of new features this time, but there are a substantial amount of bug fixes and other improvements.
The most notable addition is being able to import data from Edge Legacy on demand. Other changes include:
- Fixed an issue where the Global Media Controls flag from upstream Chromium was removed.
- Fixed an issue where a checkbox was removed that allows a payment card stored in MS Pay to be saved to the local browser.
- Fixed an issue where PDFs with certain non-English letters aren’t read correctly with Read Aloud.
- Fixed an issue where PDFs with certain non-visible characters aren’t read correctly with Read Aloud.
- Fixed an issue where Edge’s autofill suggestion pop-ups sometimes cover pop-ups that are created by websites filling in forms.
There were also several fixes targeting improved reliability:
- Fixed an issue where opening websites from shortcuts that have been pinned to the Taskbar sometimes results in a crashed webpage.
- Fixed an issue where entering payment card info on webpages sometimes leads to a crash when the offer to save the payment card info to the browser is shown.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to add items to a Collection sometimes crashes the webpage.
- Fixed a hang when exporting a Collection to Excel.
- Fixed an issue where signing into the browser with a personal account sometimes fails.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to save a webpage into favorites while in Immersive Reader sometimes fails.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to cast media to certain devices like Xboxes fails.
- Fixed an issue where DolbyVision content doesn’t play properly.
To see more details about this release and related things Microsoft is working on, you can check out the official blog post.
As for the PDF reader roadmap, there are several requested features that are being worked on and some that have already been added, like:
- Filling PDF forms
- Ink on PDF files with colors and stroke width of your choice
- Creating highlights to give attention to different parts of the file
- Viewing PDFs in Dark mode
- Open Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) and Information Rights Management (IRM) protected PDFs and view permissions
- Accessibility support including keyboard accessibility, screen reader support, and capability to view PDFs in high contrast mode
- Read Aloud (available in Canary)
The features that are currently still being working on include:
- Smoother scroll experience: Smooth scroll of Legacy Edge will be brought to the modern version.
- Table of Contents: You will soon be able to view the contents of PDF files and navigate through the file.
- Highlight mode: In this mode, you will be able to create highlights directly by selecting text, without the need of clicking on a highlight button.
- Text notes: With this, you will be able to add your own notes to text in PDF files. These notes will travel with the PDF.
- Protected PDF files: Microsoft Information Protection adds a layer of security to your documents. It ensures that only the users who have certain permissions, such as to view, copy, annotate can take those actions on the file. So no matter where the document goes, the data of your organization remains secure.
- Viewing labels of protected files: You will soon be able to view the sensitivity labels
- Viewing MIP files protected in other tenants: This will enable you to view the files protected in other organizations, or in other tenants in the organization.
- Digital signatures: View and validate certificate based Digital signatures on signed files.
- Accessibility improvements: With this, you will be able to fill PDF forms using screen readers, and navigate through PDF documents using caret mode.
There’s not currently an estimate as to when these new features will be ready, but at least we know what to look forward to in coming updates. If you want to try out this week’s or any other dev builds for yourself, you can find the downloads on the Edge Insider website.