Chromium Blog: August 2010

Chromium Graphics Overhaul

Freitag, 27. August 2010

ANGLEdesign docPosted by Vangelis Kokkevis, Software Engineer

New Flock Browser Based On Chromium

Dienstag, 24. August 2010

Foreword: When we released Google Chrome almost two years ago, we also released the source code under an open-source license. Just as Firefox, WebKit, and other open source projects helped to drive the web forward, we wanted to follow suit and ensure that others could use the code we developed to make their products better. The Chromium codebase provides a complete browser to build on, so that if you want to focus on one particular piece, such as drastically changing the user interface, you can do that without having to worry about how to get amazing performance in the rest of the browser.Recently, Flock released a new beta version of their browser built on top of the Chromium codebase. For those of us in the Chromium project, this is extremely exciting and encouraging. We believe that users having a choice between multiple browsers is a great thing, as it spurs innovation and competition, and lets users choose a browser that provides the best experience for them. Flock brings an innovative approach to their "social web browser," and we are glad to welcome them into the Chromium community. As part of that, we wanted to offer the team behind Flock an opportunity to talk about the ideas behind Flock, how Chromium helped them in achieving their goals, and their vision for the future. What follows is a perspective from Clayton Stark, VP Engineering at Flock.
When Flock began developing its first web browser five years ago, "the social web" was a small, niche market. Today social is the mainstream web, and this evolution in the market drove our development roadmap. With the new Flock browser, our engineering team focused on designing a straightforward and integrated social dashboard that delivers an experience simple enough for a mass audience. This is where the technology behind Chromium came into the picture for Flock. As Chromium emerged, we saw that not only was there significant improvements to performance, but also apparent was a simple and elegant user interface and architecture across all the various systems.
A core goal of new Flock is to keep our users in touch with all of their friends and feeds with a minimum of configuration, and at the same time, make it fun and simple. With all of the users’ feeds and social activity streams flowing into the scrolling sidebar, we knew the performance had to be first-rate, and that techniques we used for earlier versions of Flock were unlikely to perform at scale. With Chromium under the hood, we were able to leverage web workers, and that, combined with the raw horsepower of V8, allowed us to scale the use of the sidebar to manage very large data sets (in the first few weeks after the beta launched we saw a few hundred million activities flowing into Flock’s sidebar). Most importantly, benchmark testing shows us that New Flock with Chromium performs in the top-tier of all browsers available in the market.
Clearly the web is evolving very quickly, and we are seeing more and more people discovering content through their friends. The Flock team is energized by the big developments coming fast in this emerging, interest-graph-enabled web, and we have a roadmap in front of us that we are really excited about. The browsing platform needs to continue to mature at a rapid pace to support the dramatic changes in online user behavior. And, as it does, we already see the performance and power in Chromium that we need to allow us to focus on the innovations we want to bring forward, on top of the platform.
So, I’d like to send out a huge thanks on behalf of the Flock team to all those who have contributed to the Chromium project. Your work has made our project possible, and made new Flock our best release ever.
Clayton Stark, VP EngineeringFlock, Inc.
Posted by Ian Fette, Product Manager

New in Google Chrome Beta: More Extension APIs, Free Hoodies

Montag, 23. August 2010

Since we launched the Google Chrome extension system, one of the most frequent requests we’ve gotten is to add the ability to integrate with the context menu (the menu that pops up when you right-click on a link, image, or web page).

Now in Google Chrome Beta, developers can do just that. The new context menu API allows extension developers to register menu items for all pages or for a subset of pages. Developers can also register menu items for specific operations, like right-clicking on an image or movie. For example, you could create an extension that makes it easy for users to share interesting images from images.google.com with their friends on Google Buzz.
Some users have lots of extensions installed. To help these users avoid ending up with gigantic unwieldy context menus, Google Chrome automatically groups multiple menu items from the same extension into a sub-menu.

We’d also like to announce two new experimental APIs. These APIs aren’t quite ready for prime-time yet, but we’re really excited about them and couldn’t wait to get your feedback.

The omnibox API allows extension developers to integrate with the browser’s omnibox. With this API, you can build custom search support for your favorite website, keyboard macros to automate tasks, or even a chat client right into the omnibox.
The infobars API allows extension developers to display infobars across the top of a tab. These infobars are built using normal HTML, so they can be heavily customized and interactive.

For the complete list of new extension APIs in Google Chrome beta, see the docs. And let us know if you make something cool. If we like it, we’ll send you a free extensions hoodie and may even feature you in the gallery.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Posted by Aaron Boodman, Software Engineer

Get your apps ready for the Chrome Web Store!

Donnerstag, 19. August 2010

announcementdeveloper preview of the Chrome Web Storeinstallable web appslicensinguser authenticationGoogle Chrome Extensions Gallery

developer discussion groupChromium blogPosted by Michael Noth, Software Engineer

Security improvements and registration updates for the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery

Donnerstag, 19. August 2010

extensions galleryfrom day 1Google’s Webmaster Toolsdeveloper discussion groupPosted by Gregor Hochmuth, Product Manager

HTML5Rocks v2 - More Guides, New Studio

Freitag, 13. August 2010

We think HTML5 will make your work more engaging and create a faster, more responsive experience for your users, so we're happy to add today a slew of new content to html5rocks.com.
If you want to not only get up to speed, but understand the browser differences and techniques for a robust implementation, please take a look through the new guides for implementing HTML5 video, understanding "offline," auditing your webapp with the Chrome developer tools, and using web workers and @font-face. You can now comment about your experiences with these features and stay up to date on new content via our new RSS feed.
We're also sharing the new HTML5 Studio, a collection of samples of these features in use, with code you can learn from and hack on.

If you'd like to contribute code, guides, or samples, please get in touch on the bug tracker or on @ChromiumDev. We'd love to incorporate your work.
Posted by Paul Irish, Google Chrome Developer Relations

Google Chrome in a Coal Mine

Montag, 2. August 2010

MacLinuxissueGoogle Chrome Canary BuildPosted by Henry Bridge, Product Manager

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