Please give me a chance to develop chrome sidebar extension!

[Yumikiyo Osanai]

Hi! I'm a software engineer and I would like to contribute to chromium
develpoment.
For now, I'm interested in chrome sidebar extension, so I would like
to try to develop it.
But, according to below post, it seems that chrome sidebar extension
was ripped about a month ago.
http://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/group/chromium-reviews/browse_thread/thread/c0384eeb9f353ff1/09be0421af46f938?lnk=gst&q=sidebar&pli=1

I believe the concept of chrome sidebar extension is great, and it can
serve very convenient for user if we improve it.
I write the detail reason below and I made a movie about this.
So, I'd like to revive chrome sidebar extension in chromium source
branch and I'd like to develop it.
Please give me a chance!


link to the movie:
A proposition to revive Chrome Sidebar Extension
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVCXBd7zA8o&context=C365f81fADOEgsToPDskLnV4TUKoShCEUHEByzl6a9
(I'd like to apologize about the quality of the movie in advance.
There are some noise, and the movie sometimes flash, and the sound is
a little out of sync with the picture of the video...
It's due to lack of enough skill to create movie. I'm sorry for
inconvenience.
And, it's better to turn on caption bacause my pronunciation in
English isn't good for now.
I promise you that I'll improve that kind of skill.)

The detail reason:
The great feature of chrome sidebar extension is to serve multiple
contents in just one window.
It's very convenient when we're doing several things at the same time.
For example, I often see twitter timeline and tweet while I'm browsing
github, hacker news, and other site.
In this case, I create several tabs and I continuously switch them.
I think it's a bit of waste of time and it causes users to do many tab
switching operations.
Of course, we can use multi displays and virtual desktop, so we can
create some windows and set them to each window.
But, I thought we can use displays more efficiently.
I tried to find better solution and I got the idea using Chrome
sidebar extension.

My idea is to set Social Network System's and Cloud Service's contents
in sidebar.
If we use this idea, We can see twitter timeline and tweet with
sidebar while we are browsing github.
Not only twitter, we can use Facebook, LinkedIn, Evernote, and other
Social Network Systems and cloud service which offer javascript API.
It seems that the concept of sidebar in browser has been recently more
valuable and essential, because there are many great social networking
systems and cloud services now, which didn't use to be a decade ago.
(In addition to this, we can use sidebar to set bookmark, history, and
such kind of contents. It's usual way other browsers use sidebar)

This is the reason why I'd like to revive chrome sidebar extension.
And I have some ideas which can improve the quality and UX of it.

ideas:
(1) Enable sidebar to use chrome extension API.
(Even in latest version, we can't execute chrome extension API
in sidebar...)
(2) Implement some basic functions.
ex.) Able to open URL in sidebar contents with new tab or current
tab.
Able to choose where sidebar set. (Not only right, but
also left.)

I already implemented one of (2) ideas in my source code, which open
URL in sidebar contents with new tab or current tab.
I implemented OpenURLFromTab function in SidebarContainer class as
below.

+++ chrome/browser/sidebar/sidebar_container.h
virtual TabContents* OpenURLFromTab(TabContents*,
const OpenURLParams& params);


+++ chrome/browser/sidebar/sidebar_container.cc
TabContents* SidebarContainer::OpenURLFromTab(TabContents*,
const OpenURLParams&
params) {
tab_->OpenURL(params);
return tab_;
}

I found above solution by myself.(Reading code and watching some Tech
Talks)
Therefore, I can assure you that I have enough skill to contribute
chromium!
If I get the chance to develop chrome sidebar extension, I try to
implement above ideas at first.


/*** matters to be attended ***/
1. I'm not a sidebar enthusiast. I just believe it makes Chrome user
happier.
2. I'm not only interested only sidebar, but also the other features
in chromium.
If there is something I can help, let me know!
3. My biggest purpose isn't just to implement this feature, but also
contribute chromium project and chrome/chromium users.
To contribute chromium project, I hope I brush up my skills about
programming, debating and collaborating.
I very like to debate and collaborate with each other.
It's very exciting for me and I get new perspectives and great
ideas with them.
4. To be honest, I'm not good at English for now.
If there are some mistakes in my post, I would appreciate if you
point out them.
I've been trying to improve my English skill.


Thank you for reading such a long message!
I hope that Chrome Sidebar Extension revive and I will contribute
chromium project!
I look forward to hearing from you.