Smarter address bar

Article Nov 8, 2011

In Internet Explorer 9, search and navigation functionality is integrated into the address bar. One Box gives users a single place to begin their online experience, whether they want to navigate to a specific URL, or start a search. In the new One Box, inline auto-complete anticipates what they are looking for and helps them get to websites quickly. Users don’t have to worry about having to remember the full web address. Instead, they can type in familiar terms like "news" or "music" and can quickly get to the sites they need. Search suggestions also help users find what they’re looking for and get to their sites faster and with less typing.

To search the web, type the search query into One Box and press the Enter key to get search results. If users type a single word into One Box, Internet Explorer 9 determines whether the word is a valid URL. If it’s valid, users go directly to the website. If it’s not, they are sent to the search provider to see the search result page. The ability to switch between search providers or add new providers is integrated into the bottom of the One Box drop-down menu, making it easier to get results from different search providers quickly. One Box can also save you keystrokes when you want to refine a search. If you want to add terms to your search query, you can now enter search mode from One Box. When you do this, you just click the original term to include it in the new query and then start typing to add terms to the query. No need to retype the original term.

User privacy is an important part of the Internet Explorer promise. With Internet Explorer 9, users or IT professionals are in control of what information, if any, gets shared with search providers. From the One Box drop-down menu, users or IT professionals can choose to get search suggestions or to turn them off, through the browser interface or using a group policy setting. If they decide to turn search suggestions on, the text they type will be sent to the select search provider as they type it. The search provider will suggest searches based on what is sent, one keystroke at a time, which can help users get results more rapidly. Users or IT professionals are always in control, and can turn search suggestions on or off at any time.

 

Tear-off tabs and Aero Snap tabs for side-by-side web browsing

Web navigation and multitasking are made easier in Internet Explorer 9 with natural gestures like dragging and snapping tabs.

Users often need to use more than one website or page to accomplish a task. Tearing off a tab and using Windows Aero® Snap is a great way to show two sites or pages side by side. With Aero Snap, users can compare products from different websites, watch videos while reading email, or look at a map while reading an itinerary for a trip.

To tear off a tab, click a tab and drag it to edge of the screen. Content on the site is rendered continuously and videos continue to play when snapping a window in place, providing a fluid experience.

In a corporate environment, there are many scenarios where users have many tabs open at the same time. To support these scenarios, you can place tabs below the address bar, which gives you more space for your tabs and for One Box. We’ve also improved the visibility of the active tab and enabled you to close background tabs by using a close button that appears when you hover over a background tab. A single tab also can be closed by using the close button on the tab.