Intent to Prototype: App Icon Shortcuts Menu

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Rahul Singh

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Apr 15, 2020, 11:35:58 AM4/15/20
to blink-dev

Contact emails
rah...@microsoft.com, jungke...@microsoft.com, cmum...@google.com

Explainer
Shortcuts Explainer

Design doc/Spec

Chromium Bug
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=955497

Summary
This feature provides PWA developers the ability to show a shortcuts menu of common tasks in their app. The menu can be invoked by right clicking the app icon in the quick launch bar after the PWA has been installed on the user’s machine. This capability already exists for native apps on various platforms (Android, Linux, macOS, and Windows).

This prototype adds a shortcuts menu for PWAs installed on Windows. The work is behind a feature flag (kDesktopPWAsQuickLaunchBarShortcutsMenu) that will initially be off by default.

This prototype builds on blink support for parsing and storing the shortcuts member of the Web App Manifest http://crrev.com/c/1941051.

Motivation
Native applications on both desktop and mobile OSes offer users a menu of commonly performed tasks This menu is usually associated with the app’s icon. Installed PWAs cannot currently offer this feature.

To enhance the installed PWA experience, we should provide this feature for PWAs. We’ve received positive feedback from developers for this feature.

Risks
No known risks at this time

Interoperability and Compatibility
No interoperability and compatibility risk has been identified for the prototype phase. The feature is behind a feature flag that is disabled by default. When a web developer doesn’t provide a shortcuts member in the PWA’s web app manifest, current installation behavior is not affected by this feature.  

Edge: In development/Public Support

Firefox: No signals

Safari: No signals

Web/Framework developers: Positive feedback from web developers.

Ergonomics
This feature is integrated into the PWA installation flow. It will be behind a feature flag that will be disabled by default. Implementations for other desktop platforms will follow.

Activation
For an end user to see a shortcuts menu for installed PWAs, the PWA developers will need to include shortcuts in their app’s Web App Manifest. The feature flag will also need to be enabled for the user. 

Debuggability
N/A

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and Android WebView)?
No. This feature is scoped to installable PWAs.

There is already an implementation on Android. For desktop OSes, we will start with an implementation for Windows. Support for MacOS and Linux will follow.

Link to entry on the feature dashboard
https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5706099464339456

Requesting approval to ship?
No
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