# Officially announcing the new Observable

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/officially-announcing-the-new-observable/10782>\
**Category:** Announcements\
**Created:** [September 1, 2026, 7:57pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/officially-announcing-the-new-observable/10782 "2026-09-01T19:57:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 24

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**Author:** ![mbostock](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/mbostock/32/9_2.png) [@mbostock](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mbostock)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2026, 5:43pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/officially-announcing-the-new-observable/10782/24 "2026-09-02T17:43:02Z")

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> [@rusosnith](#):
>
> it´s really akward when there are a lot of pinned cells and you want to unpin them or vice versa

For this we recommend selecting multiple cells and doing them all at the same time rather than one by one. Using keyboard shortcuts, if you are editing a cell, hit **Esc** to focus the cell, then hit **Shift-K** to select the current cell and move up, or **Shift-J** to select the current cell and move down. Then hit **.** (Period) to toggle whether the selected cells are pinned, or click the corresponding pin button in the toolbar.

You can also **Command-click** the left gutter to select cells with the mouse.

> [@rusosnith](#):
>
> In the old notebooks all this controls where in the same area and behaved similary, and now they are spread in different places with odd and unexpected UX?

We’ve consolidated all the controls into the toolbar rather than repeating the controls separately on each cell. The new design favors bulk actions on multiple cells rather than repeating actions for each cell. And it means the controls don’t move when you move between cells, or appear and disappear (as much) when you hover over different parts of the notebook; the toolbar is always in the same location to improve predictability, and the user interface is more stable.

The mode menu is an exception… It’s nice to see the cell mode in the cell itself because it affects how you read the code. And there isn’t yet a way to change the mode of multiple cells. I’d like to add that soon, as well as some more discoverable ways to select cells, like the checkboxes we have in the old editor.

Anyway, I’m sorry if you dislike the new interface but I thought you might like to know our rationale and I hope the new interface will grow on you after you spend more time with it. Thank you for the feedback!

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_[View the full topic](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/officially-announcing-the-new-observable/10782)._