Adobe Bridge For Windows 7

[Tosha Dickason]

I think this is one of the big improvements in that you don't need to open different Bridge windows anymore - you can have muliple Content panels inside Bridge - see -new/2023.html. They've introduced this pretty much to enable exactly what you are trying to achieve.
As an aside, when you install a new version of any Adobe software, always keep the previous version installed! I've still got Bridge 2021 and 2022 for this very reason, new versions often have bugs/issues and you can keep using the old version until the new one is sorted.

I hear you, but not being able to take a quick glance at what folders are open (ie the images that are in them) is a real PITA, and just having extra content panels doesn't provide the same functionality. There's not even a way to switch between panels with the keyboard (similar to command+`) on a mac, that would scroll through the open windows. The only good thing I see about this new setup is that the panels come back when you quit / re-open (though, I've had issues in the past where a particular folder would contain a file that caused a bridge crash, so that would actually not be helpful in that, admittedly fringe situation).

Agreed. Everyone suggesting this as a solution doesn't understand how many compromises have to be made. These new content panels don't take advantage of OS-level window management features which is incredibly dumb.

Second: a bug. when i have the undocked tab open on the second monitor, i cannot preview an image in the original window on my primary screen by using spacebar, as normal. Doing so causes the primary screen to go blank grey, hitting spacebar again brings back the standard browsing view. While i can previw an image on the secondary monitor in the 'undocked tab', i need to drag both windows onto my primary monitor to allow preview by spacebar to work in both windows, thereby destroying the usefulness of the secondary monitor. More unbelievable garbage.

Forgive me if I am stating the obvious but....I was confused and disappointed that you could not open a new window in Bridge 2023 until I realised you can undock the content panels. Now I just drag the undocked panel to my second monitor and have more or less what I had with a second window in previous versions of Bridge. The only annoying thing is remembering to make sure a panel has focus when sorting, filtering etc.

Ok. thanks for the info sounds interesting.. the problem is I am a 70year old old dog, and learning such new tricks it getting beyond me... and it also gives me the pip that there is often no option to revert to work in old ways.. things that I am used to that let me smoothly work as I have done for several decades, and why I had the same computer and OS etc for more than 12 years. if it works and ain't broke, then why try and 'fix it"... which often causes ages of heartache... (been with photoshop since I came out, but started in photography on 10"x8" cameras). then again 'progress' is often not in a straight line... sad. Regards, And thanks for the info... but now I have re-installed Bridge 2022, and it is all working smoothly, I am not going to rock the boat by changing..

Hi, thanks. yes the problem is these 'boffins' can often come up with a "way of working' something that seem Ok to them, and loos track of the sight, that they greater many users are not young technos that can easily grab such complex or "NEW' advancement as easily... too smart for their own good.

On first run, Bridge puts up a "Whats new" dialog that explains content tabs. Now, I agree that the devs still have a lot of work to do and should bring back multiple windows, but its difficult to get the news about changes to a user if they ignore attempts to do so.

This is so disappointing. I can't stand it when software upgrades make things worse. I can't see any benefit in tabs without being able to open a new window. I often have to visually compare one folder against another, and now it's impossible.

It's frustrating when companies have spent time, effort and money on developing/upgrading an app only to make the experience worse. These days it happens far too often. They must go through each upgrade and ask themselves, "is this making things easier"?

2023 is not an upgrade in the truest sense of the word.

I agree with you completely, barrieg. What is the point of having one visual browser when one must rely on Explorer to "see" other files? The whole point of Bridge is that one can see thumbnails and at varying scale. How can we now compare files with only one window open??? It like playing Concentration, but with subtly different, extremely detailed images!

I would always have multiple windows open.
This has changed/limited my whole workflow.

Please bring back multiple Bridge windows.

I don't know why multiple windows has been removed. No idea?

I've had to revert to Bridge 12 as having multiple windows/instances of Bridge running is critical to my workflow. I tried to make undocked tabs work for most of the day, but I need at least three full-screen windows, sometimes up to six, across two monitors. It's okay that content tabs work well for some people, but why does it have to come at the expense of multiple instances - why not have both?

Agreed. I use multiple windows when transferring digital files from my cameras. And maintain multiple windows for the particular image folder, the SD card, my "digiprep" folder, etc. Same for design work...the working folder, other assets such as clip art, and so on. Really bummed by this newest (de)improvement.

Here is a link that Adobe posted on its facebook page regarding this. There are multiple complaints on that platform regarding the destruction of Bridge 2023. In essence, you can uninstall this mess and install the older version.

-install/using/install-previous-version.html

I've installed the older version to fix this problem. But when I want to start an action in Photoshop from Bridge, I'm told to install the latest version of Photoshop. (installed allready) , and bridge quits. So I'm back to zero. ANy ideas?

Yes, that is a pain. With smallish numbers of files I'm simply opening them into Photoshop and applying the actions there. Not ideal. For larger numbers of files I close older Bridge and use the latest, debilitated version to process the action, then revert to the older version...

This is not accceptable. It's way harder to use and removes quite bunch of UI that you might actually want to have. You will be adding open in new window back. It's not optional, unless you want to lose even more professionals. There isn't a single like on the Bridge 2023 announcement post. There's a reason for that. It's terrible.

Why is this marked as a correct answer? The extra content tab is useless as you can't maximize it on it's own, nor does it come with its own panels and work bar etc. Please give us the option back to open a completely new instance of bridge.

Wrong answer and not an answer at all Adobe Team. Look at the responses. Toss 2023 in the dust bin and build off 2022. Keep the ability to open multiple windows. Multiple tabs is NOT the same thing and doesn't function the way its users need it to. Congrats on the Worst Update Of Any Software surprassing even Microsoft.

NEW MULTI-WINDOW BETA ANNOUNCED:

I'm excited to start working in this Beta version.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with (S.P.) head of Adobe Bridge team by Zoom last December to explain why multi-window workflows in Bridge are such and important and necessary asset for photographers. I was given the opportunity to share my screen and walk through my typical photoshoot workflow using Bridge (before and after working the images in Lightroom). I use this workflow every day and also have been teaching this to my college and private workshop students for more than a decade!

I am very happy to learn that Adobe has listened!

Matthew E. Lit

If you've got their ear, Matt, get them to fix the nonsense labels on the tabs in the toolbar (Windows) - I tried it and had six tabs all called the same thing, defeating my efficient workflow yet again.

We have just released a new Adobe Bridge 2024 Beta build (14.0.0.94) which fixes this issue. We would love for you to try it out and share feedback.
For a complete list of fixed issues, please refer to the community post announcement:

The first time I tried to open a new window, Bridge (Beta) crashed, but after I reopened it, it worked fine. The named tabs are good and function well, and I played around a bit with new features. I like the panel isolation/enlargement/focus with the tilde key, similar to Premier Pro and Audition. I'm too busy with other work to do a deep dive in, but I'll let you know if I find any issues later.

This is not an acceptable solution. There are a ton of great features in the Bridge 2023, and content panels can definitely be useful. But the ability to open multiple windows is core functionality, that when missing completely cripples my ability to work productively! I've been using Bridge since version 1, and I work with multiple monitors and multiple spaces/desktops on my Mac. I always have several bridge windows open, frequently on multiple monitors.

My problem with the tabs is that each tab retains the same opened/expanded folder structure as the other tabs. This is a mess. Our image library has hundreds of product folders each with multiple nested folders within them. If I have 5 tabs open, each looking at a different product folder and each drilled down to sub folders, each tab shows ALL the expanded folders open across all the tabs. If each tab had a unique expanded folder view that ONLY showed the folders relevant to that tab then this would be better. I hope that made sense?

I have been using Adobe Bridge for some time and it worked fine. When I double clicked in a jpg or gif file, it would launch photos.exe and work just like it does from file explorer. I then reinstalled Adobe Acrobat XI which had been removed by mistake and when I double clicked on a gif, I got internet explorer 11 launched instead. I decided to upgrade the gif functionality by downloading from the microsoft store gifviewer.com. This works great from file explorer and when launched from the start menu (and I have made it my default for .gif files). However, it doesn't work on Bridge. Bridge has a file association preference and I navigated to the windowsapp folder, picked the exe and get several error messages (mrt100_app.dll, sharedlibrary.dll, msvcp140_app.dll and vcruntime140_app.dll ------- all missing). So I reset the default preferences and rather than getting photos back as the preference, I still get internet explorer 11? I tried to browse to the photos.exe app in the windowsapps folder and selecting it, but when it launches, I get the first two dll's above shown as missing. Selecting a jpg file still works fine...just the gif files that are messed up.

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