Hello all, As a few of you have noticed from changes in the bug system, we've decided to replace toolstrips with a new extensions UI surface area: browser actions<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/BrowserActions> . Here is what they look like:
[image: browser_action.png] A browser action is a 19px image button that shows up in the main Chrome toolbar to the right of the omnibox. They can be rendered from a static set of images in your extension, or you can render them dynamically using the HTML5 canvas. They can also optionally have a popup, which is implemented using HTML, similar to how toolstrips worked. We will be disabling toolstrips before the beta release of Chrome 4, so we encourage extension developers to start converting their extensions to use browser actions soon. We'll be updating the docs in the coming weeks with details. Even though we are still in the dev channel of Chrome, where everything is subject to change, we try to avoid ever breaking APIs. So we didn't come to this decision lightly. The reason we did it that we got a lot of negative feedback about the toolstrip shelf across the bottom of the browser. Many users did not like the wasted space, particularly when only one extension was installed. When we stepped back and thought about the use cases, we came to the conclusion that most extensions don't really need to show complex UI in the toolbar -- a single button with an expandable area is usually sufficient. This also had the advantage of being a more prominent location and fitting better with Chrome's sparse aesthetic. While we understand this change is frustrating and won't work perfectly for every extension, we think it is for the best, and are excited to see what you can do with it. If you want to get started even before we finish the docs, you can take a look at our samples, which have already been converted: - http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/test/data/extensions/samples/buildbot/ - http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/test/data/extensions/samples/gmail_browser_action/ - http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/test/data/extensions/samples/set_page_color/ - http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/test/data/extensions/samples/mappy/ - http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/test/data/extensions/samples/test_browser_action/ I'll post on this mailing list as the browser action API solidifies and the documentation is completed. - a --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chromium-extensions" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-extensions?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
