Intent to Prototype: Borderless Mode for Installed Desktop Web Apps

[Sonja Laurila]

Contact emails

lau...@chromium.org (preferably google.com), isandrk@chromium.org

Explainer

https://github.com/sonkkeli/borderless/blob/main/EXPLAINER.md 

Specification

Not ready yet but on-going here go/borderless-design-doc (googlers-only)

TAG review

Not yet filed.

Blink component

N/A, this feature is not large enough to need one.

Summary

When borderless mode is enabled for installed desktop web apps, the app's client area is extended to cover the entire window - including the title bar area and windowing control buttons (close, maximize/restore, minimize). The web app developer is responsible for drawing and input-handling for the entire window. (See go/additional-windowing-controls regarding additional windowing controls.)

Motivation

Developers want to customize the title bar area so their PWAs feel more like native apps. 

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

The feature mostly re-uses the capabilities built with window-controls-overlay (e.g. draggable regions) but additionally it involves new web app manifest entry and changes to frame (hiding the native title bar).

Firefox: No public signals 

Edge: No public signals

Safari: No public signals 

Web developers: Strong positive - partners 

Ergonomics

The changes associated with this feature will only be enabled for PWAs that opt-in to it, so there are minimal risks posed to the browser as a whole. A PWA that opts-in to the feature should also have minimal ergonomics risk since the manifest already needs to be parsed on startup to determine the correct display mode (which then gets enabled when the Window Management permission has been given), so adding one extra manifest check on startup should have minimal impact.

Security 

The major risk is that by giving sites control of the top of the app window, it allows developers to spoof content in what was previously a trusted, UA-controlled region. To minimize the risk of spoofing, to enter borderless mode Window Management permission must be granted and the app’s origin will be shown in the app settings. When navigating out of scope of the web app will bring back the title bar and show a custom tab bar containing the current origin with a close button returning back to the origin.

Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?

No, we are only targeting desktop OSs.

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests? 

No, N/A not implemented. There will be browser tests in web_app_frame_toolbar_browsertest.cc.

Feature flag (until launch)

chrome://flags#enable-desktop-pwas-borderless 

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/5551475195904000

[Thomas Steiner]

I tried this with on 106.0.5199.0 (Official Build) canary (arm64)  with the chrome://flags/#enable-desktop-pwas-borderless set, but it failed the installability checks:

Is this not enabled on macOS yet?

Thanks,

Tom

[François Beaufort]

I believe the CL that will fix support for instability is still WIP and not merged in Chrome yet. See https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/3780810/2/components/webapps/browser/installable/installable_manager.cc

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[Thomas Steiner]

Thanks, François, I'll just check it out later then. 

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Thomas Steiner, PhD—Developer Relations Engineer (https://blog.tomayac.com, https://twitter.com/tomayac)

Google Germany GmbH, ABC-Str. 19, 20354 Hamburg, Germany
Geschäftsführer: Paul Manicle, Liana Sebastian
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[Sonja Laurila]

Correct! Now the CL for supporting installability is merged but the actual CL for enabling the borderless is still under review but should also be merged soon :) 

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Sonja Laurila

Software Engineer

lau...@google.com
+49 1728 644080

Google Germany GmbH

Erika-Mann-Straße 33

80636 München

Geschäftsführer: Paul Manicle, Liana Sebastian

Registergericht und -nummer: Hamburg, HRB 86891

Sitz der Gesellschaft: Hamburg

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