Chrome and Edge Will Soon Fix Drag and Drop Behavior

Jun. 5, 2020

Have you ever tried dragging and dropping a file to an upload window and witnessed the file just snapping the current tab out of existence and replacing the tab with the file just because you didn’t drop it at the exact location? Well, I have and it gets quite frustrating at times when you’re in a hurry and want to get things done at the earliest. Luckily, aMicrosoft Edgedeveloper named Eric Lawrence has put in efforts to fix this behavior in Chromium.

As detailed in a commit on Chromium Git, instead of replacing the current tab, the accidentallydropped file or URL will now open in a new tab.“Users can easily lose work if they drag/drop a file or URL into a tabthat does not consume the dropped data (e.g. as a file upload). Rather than navigating the current tab (blowing away whatever was in it), instead open the dropped URL in a new foreground tab,”reads the commit.

Meanwhile, if you’re someone who proactively uses the old behavior, you may continue using it by dropping the file or link on the browser’s tab. This way, whatever you just dropped will replace the current tab.

As detailed in hisblog post, thebrowser will show a small white arrow mark indicating the tab that is about to get replaced. In case you drop the file or link in between two tabs, the new implementation will replace the currently selected tab.Image: Eric Lawrence / text/plain

Lawrence mentions that the feature is present in Chromium 85.0.4163.0. We could expect Google and Microsoft to incorporate this much-needed change in the upcoming stable builds of their web browsers.

Subin writes about consumer tech, software, and security. He secretly misses the headphone jack while pretending he’s better off with the wireless freedom.