So, Have you looked at your Chrome Bookmark Manager lately?

I popped open my Chrome bookmark manager today.  I see it's been "improved".  What used to pop up as a reasonably useful little list now popped up as, you guessed it, a screen full of those lovely tiles.  I thought to myself "Don't panic, there's probably a list view," and sure enough I found the setting and thought "Whew" and clicked it. Oh but wait, that too has been "improved" - that formally reasonably useful little list now has been pumped up to where only about 20 lines or so fit on a screen.  In other words, I used to be able to just read the list pretty much all at once and now I get to scroll around on it to find what I'm looking for.

After you open it up for the first time a "Feedback" window pops up upon exit.  I thought to myself "I wonder what I'll be sending them in addition to my feedback."  Then I realized "Wait, it's Google, they've probably already got anything they want."  So I sent them my impressions, and I did keep it polite.

So, if you're using Chrome, have a look at it and maybe send them your feedback (at your own risk, of course).  Who knows, maybe you'll like it.  Or not.  ;)

56,548 views 7 replies
Reply #1 Top

i noticed it's been changed this morning when i bookmarked something and tried to place the bookmark on the toolbar (i only use chrome for a few odd webgames really. xD)

Reply #2 Top

The way around the tile crud is to make a bookmarks toolbar and organize it with files... ;)

Reply #3 Top

Absolutely, that's how I've had it set up since day 1.  Imagine how I cringed when I opened up the new version and got a blast of tiles  ;) .  Like I said, I did find the option to switch it back to the list.  I also decided setting the zoom at 75% makes the list a lot more tolerable, but still entirely too much wasted screen space between the lines to suit me in the updated version.

Also, unless my senility has kicked into full gear, I could swear that I used to have an expandable tree view on the left side so that I could directly drag a bookmark from e.g. Bookmarks Bar\Stardock\Reference to Bookmarks Bar\Computers\Reference.  Seems like that feature is gone.  Now I can drag it directly to the main folder e.g. Bookmarks Bar\Computers, but that seems to be it.  Then I have to go over and scoot it around.  Or else click the select box on the shortcut, then use the little navigation box at the top to navigate around to the folder I want to move it to, and tell it to move the file.  I have to vote for the good-old-fashioned direct-drag-and-drop technique.

One thing I will say though, the text is extremely legible.

Reply #4 Top

I'm using the latest Chrome and I see absolutely no change from previous versions when I open the Bookmark Manager. 

Reply #6 Top

I don't see the new one either, but it looks like it's a roll-out so I'm sure it will be here soon. 

Reply #7 Top

Ah thanks, that explains that.

In the thread I linked in Reply#5 there's a post by dtbmjax which details how to revert to the old version.  It also reverts the main browser Bookmark Star to it's previous behavior.  It took me 2 tries to get the change to take - The 1st time I had the "chrome://flags" tab opened in a 2nd tab alongside the webpage to copy and paste, the 2nd time I copied the instructions to a text file and used it to copy and paste with only the "chrome://flags" tab open.  I'm not familiar enough with Chrome to know if that really matters, but that's how it worked.  Just in case anyone else finds the new version to be as clumsy as I do.

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dtbmjax

Thank you for the tip!

For the uninitiated Chrome users:

1. Type "chrome://flags" in the address bar (without the quotes)
2. Press CRTL+F to open the "Find in Page" dialog box and enter "bookmark" in the search box (again without the quotation marks).
3. Press the down arrow in the search box until you get to the section titled:
Enable Enhanced Bookmarks Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android
Provides an off switch for enhanced bookmarks experiment #enhanced-bookmarks-experiment
4. In the drop-down, select "Disabled"
5. At the bottom of your screen, click the "Relaunch Now" button. Your old Bookmark Manager should be back.

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