Browser UI layout change

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Srini

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May 28, 2010, 3:17:40 PM5/28/10
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Hi Guys,

I was looking for a way to rearrange omnibox, change tab size/
behavior, and add/remove few buttons.

What part of the code I should be looking at for the browser UI?

As mentioned in tech talks(Ben Goodger's UI talk), I understood the
overall architecture about the UI but I couldn't point to the source
for the basic browser layout. I guess it is under src/views/ and src/
views/windows but I couldn't pin point.

Is there an easier way than what I am doing? Like hidden keywords in
extension theme keyword aka in manifest.json.

thanks in advance.

-Srini

Scott Violet

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May 28, 2010, 3:29:37 PM5/28/10
to vas...@gmail.com, Chromium-dev
Look to chrome/browser/views/toolbar_view for positioning of omnibox,
back/forward ... Look to chrome/browser/views/tabs/tab_strip for
sizing of tabs. I don't believe you can accomplish any of what you are
after in an extension.

-Scott

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Peter Kasting

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May 28, 2010, 3:45:05 PM5/28/10
to vas...@gmail.com, Chromium-dev
On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Scott Violet <s...@chromium.org> wrote:
Look to chrome/browser/views/toolbar_view for positioning of omnibox,
back/forward ... Look to chrome/browser/views/tabs/tab_strip for
sizing of tabs. I don't believe you can accomplish any of what you are
after in an extension.

To expand on what Scott said, all of this stuff is hardcoded, and much of it is separate for each OS.  This is extremely different from, say, Firefox, which writes its UI in XUL and thus is fairly malleable.

If you make local changes in these areas, it could be hard to keep them up to date in the future.  For example, the tab strip code has recently been seeing some major changes under the hood.  And it's unlikely that we'd accept patches that made the behaviors here more configurable, as that means added code complexity and testing paths.

PK

Srini

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May 28, 2010, 5:06:14 PM5/28/10
to Chromium-dev
Thanks for the pointers Scott. This is exactly what I am looking for.

PK, I am still at the very early prototype stage - will let you guys
know if configuration options make sense. I don't know if any other
configuration can be significantly better than already sleek layout.

thanks
-Srini
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