Support for panels outside of Google Hangouts without requiring users to navigate through chrome://flags

[Sean Anderson]

Hello,

When I install the Google Hangouts chrome extension, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hangouts/nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd?hl=en, I note that it heavily utilizes panels in order to effectively display its content.

I would like to have this functionality for my extension, as well. However, it would appear that any extension other than Google Hangouts requires users to navigate through chrome://flags and enable the 'panels' option. Is this true? If so, why? I believe that requiring users to enable panels raises the barrier of entry to an unnecessarily high level. This is made evident by the fact that Google Hangouts does not demand this of its users.

If this isn't going to be opened up to the general public - perhaps it could be considered on a case-by-case basis? I develop one of the most highly rated extensions in the store, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/streamus-beta/jbnkffmindojffecdhbbmekbmkkfpmjd?hl=en, and have contributed to the Chromium project in the past. I'm unsure what else would be needed to highlight me as a potential candidate, but I would really love to speak with someone regarding panels and start some dialog.

Thanks for your time. Looking forward to talking.

Sean

[Omnray]

+1
And I also have highly rated extensions in the store that really needs access to panels

[Omnray]

By the wy, this extension has also several other advantages over regular one:
It's not showing any scare permissions on install.
It's has access to tray icon

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 12:58:53 AM UTC+3, Sean Anderson wrote:

[Ben Wells]

We (the chromium apps platform team) would like to remove panels from the code base, and we'd also like to remove any whitelisting that exists for hangouts. We are working with the hangouts team to help them transition away from panels and a tray icon, after which those APIs are planned to be removed.

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[Sean Anderson]

Ben,

Thank you for your reply. That's a shame to hear. How are you helping the hangouts team transition away from panels? Is there an alternative API -- I haven't seen anything listed in experiments.

Cheers

Sean 

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 6:14:15 PM UTC-7, Ben Wells wrote:

We (the chromium apps platform team) would like to remove panels from the code base, and we'd also like to remove any whitelisting that exists for hangouts. We are working with the hangouts team to help them transition away from panels and a tray icon, after which those APIs are planned to be removed.

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 8:50 AM, Omnray <omn...@gmail.com> wrote:

By the wy, this extension has also several other advantages over regular one:
It's not showing any scare permissions on install.
It's has access to tray icon

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 12:58:53 AM UTC+3, Sean Anderson wrote:

Hello,

When I install the Google Hangouts chrome extension, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hangouts/nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd?hl=en, I note that it heavily utilizes panels in order to effectively display its content.

I would like to have this functionality for my extension, as well. However, it would appear that any extension other than Google Hangouts requires users to navigate through chrome://flags and enable the 'panels' option. Is this true? If so, why? I believe that requiring users to enable panels raises the barrier of entry to an unnecessarily high level. This is made evident by the fact that Google Hangouts does not demand this of its users.

If this isn't going to be opened up to the general public - perhaps it could be considered on a case-by-case basis? I develop one of the most highly rated extensions in the store, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/streamus-beta/jbnkffmindojffecdhbbmekbmkkfpmjd?hl=en, and have contributed to the Chromium project in the past. I'm unsure what else would be needed to highlight me as a potential candidate, but I would really love to speak with someone regarding panels and start some dialog.

Thanks for your time. Looking forward to talking.

Sean

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[Ben Wells]

We'd like to come up with more general APIs that would work for a range of applications. E.g. the normal app.window API. There other other APIs hangouts are looking at using. None of the APIs are secret - you can have a look through the API proposals to see them all - but I don't really want to point out which ones they are investigating.

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[Omnray]

Panels looks like an exelent addition as for Sean Anderson work, as for my, as for Hangout....
It might really exchange experience for users. Meantime I must render interface in popup window, as it's must stay during surf to be usable, yet for example it's quite common for users to ask the ability to be always on top for this window - i direct users to external system utils for this - will be asome to just have this feature out of the box. Some of them even create some system scripts that hide and show my window when the mouse touch screen sides - again, this might be implemented in panel directly.

May we ask why the panels API is rejected?

Just so we will better understand of where the platform is going and what is the tendencies?

Is the API just wrong or the whole idea of separate panels is disturb the chromium team?

On Tuesday, May 6, 2014 3:44:55 AM UTC+3, Ben Wells wrote:

We'd like to come up with more general APIs that would work for a range of applications. E.g. the normal app.window API. There other other APIs hangouts are looking at using. None of the APIs are secret - you can have a look through the API proposals to see them all - but I don't really want to point out which ones they are investigating.

On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Sean Anderson <meo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ben,

Thank you for your reply. That's a shame to hear. How are you helping the hangouts team transition away from panels? Is there an alternative API -- I haven't seen anything listed in experiments.

Cheers

Sean 

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 6:14:15 PM UTC-7, Ben Wells wrote:

We (the chromium apps platform team) would like to remove panels from the code base, and we'd also like to remove any whitelisting that exists for hangouts. We are working with the hangouts team to help them transition away from panels and a tray icon, after which those APIs are planned to be removed.

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 8:50 AM, Omnray <omn...@gmail.com> wrote:

By the wy, this extension has also several other advantages over regular one:
It's not showing any scare permissions on install.
It's has access to tray icon

On Sunday, May 4, 2014 12:58:53 AM UTC+3, Sean Anderson wrote:

Hello,

When I install the Google Hangouts chrome extension, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hangouts/nckgahadagoaajjgafhacjanaoiihapd?hl=en, I note that it heavily utilizes panels in order to effectively display its content.

I would like to have this functionality for my extension, as well. However, it would appear that any extension other than Google Hangouts requires users to navigate through chrome://flags and enable the 'panels' option. Is this true? If so, why? I believe that requiring users to enable panels raises the barrier of entry to an unnecessarily high level. This is made evident by the fact that Google Hangouts does not demand this of its users.

If this isn't going to be opened up to the general public - perhaps it could be considered on a case-by-case basis? I develop one of the most highly rated extensions in the store, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/streamus-beta/jbnkffmindojffecdhbbmekbmkkfpmjd?hl=en, and have contributed to the Chromium project in the past. I'm unsure what else would be needed to highlight me as a potential candidate, but I would really love to speak with someone regarding panels and start some dialog.

Thanks for your time. Looking forward to talking.

Sean

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[Ben Wells]

Panels were basically designed for hangouts. Instead of having APIs designed for one app, as a platform it is better to have APIs defined for apps in general. E.g. there is already a way to get your windows to stay on top - search for 'alwaysOnTop' here for details.

If there are other features you'd like to see added to the chrome.app.window API let us know (ideally at crbug.com) and we'll consider them.

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[Omnray]

alwaysOnTop is not working for extensions as far as i try it last time (we are in /group/chromium-extensions/ after all)
anyway, thanks for clarification

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[Omnray]

And by the way, if anybody will implement the alwaysOnTop for extensions - please keep in mind that what is really needed is not be globaly on top of all the system window, but just on top of all Chrome windows.

For Apps - this will be cool to have such limited alwaysOnTop capability as well. As i plan to transform my extension to App form for many reasons.

[Ophi D]

I just got into web development three days ago and spent countless hours searching for a way for Chrome to handle the UI that I wanted to present. I finally found panels and they are almost everything I wanted and I can't believe more people aren't using them.

I don't want to have a clunky popup window opened on click that is in an uncomfortable position (away from the default position of the windows taskbar) that will close and lose focus on every misclick, or when the user sees something on the page they like.

I don't want to be forced into an entirely new tab or new window, that is extremely inconvenient for what I am doing along with most other extensions. Opening smaller borderless popup windows are nearly as unclean and they 'feel' restricting. Notification are nice but they lack functionality and are intrusive.

What I want is an 80% transparent window that is embedded into the current browser window as an overlay that can slide in and out from either side. This is almost exactly what the panel is offering and it is beautiful, I am sure by the time I am finished they will be the option that offers the sleekest interface. 

Panels should not be removed and users should not have to navigate to some terrifying flags section of chrome in fear they might break their computer just to enable a style (that a chrome application has no problem using). I am honest to god shocked more people aren't using them.

I don't know the technical reasons as to why they are being removed but I hope you will fix them instead of just throwing them away, or ATLEAST have something ready that is equally as clean before they are removed.

If there is some other way to get the functionality I mentioned above besides creating a new window and attempting to constantly relocate it to a position over the browser window in a desperate attempt to embed it please let me know.

[Laisson Silveira]

I would like of prompt () native javascript, which would block all access to those who are behind. Is it possible?