Google Chrome to add hiding, click-and-drag for extension buttons?

Yesterday, extension support landed in the stable version of Google Chrome. Today it looks as though the Chrome team is looking at ways to enhance the current extensions interface.
One common gripe about some Chrome extensions is the creation of unnecessary buttons. In recent snapshot builds of Chromium, an tweak has been made that will allow us to hide unwanted items. Between the Omnibar and the browser actions area you'll see a slider -- click and drag the slider to expand and collapse the actions area.
That's all it does right now. Clicking the double arrows should allow you to see hidden buttons in a drop-down, but that's not working just yet. Expect to see that addressed in upcoming snapshots.
One common gripe about some Chrome extensions is the creation of unnecessary buttons. In recent snapshot builds of Chromium, an tweak has been made that will allow us to hide unwanted items. Between the Omnibar and the browser actions area you'll see a slider -- click and drag the slider to expand and collapse the actions area.
That's all it does right now. Clicking the double arrows should allow you to see hidden buttons in a drop-down, but that's not working just yet. Expect to see that addressed in upcoming snapshots.
It seems natural that we'll see the addition of click-and-drag to reorganize buttons as well. That would allow us to keep the extensions we use frequently within single-click reach. I'd also like to be able to double-click to fully expand and contract the browser actions area.
Hopefully those features will be added soon -- until I can choose which extensions are visible and which aren't, this isn't very useful. The Chromium dev team will sort it out, so I'll just have to be patient and keep checking the new snapshot builds..
[via Techie Buzz]












Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsLaserbeamJan 26th 2010 1:25PM
"until I can choose which extensions are visible and which aren't"
Well... I'm not sure about you, but I am using the latest chromium unstable build from the Google repositories (OS: Ubuntu 9.10 - karmic) and you can swap those buttons around to change their position by dragging them. No sign of the slider feature though (Tuesday January 26). I just hope the feature comes out in a couple days or so, I like have those extension buttons longer than the Omnibar.
temptationJan 26th 2010 2:08PM
I'd much rather they give us a way to perma-hide the download bar instead. It's becoming my number one gripe of using chrome.
dc96Jan 26th 2010 3:13PM
Why not an auto-expanding omni-bar? Then most of the space could be used for buttons which would get covered by an expanding omni-bar as you type.