I Google Chrome

I love to have quick links available to sites I visit often. That’s why I love the Google Chrome “New Tab Page”, with links to my 8 most visited sites, and also links to recently closed tabs. I also love auto-complete in the Chrome address bar – I can start typing in the address of sites that I visit often, and it fills in the rest.

But there are some sites that I don’t visit every day, perhaps just 3-4 times a week, but I still want 1-click access to them. I don’t want to memorise the URLs, because they are long, or similar to other URLs that I visit more frequently. A perfect example of this is some of Google’s other services – Analytics and Adsense. The URL for both of them begins with http://www.google.com/ so auto-complete isn’t of such great help, and I don’t go there often enough to make the New Tab Page.

This is exactly what I use the Bookmark Bar for! The Bookmark Bar sits just below the address bar, and gives a thin strip containing links and folders of links – providing quick access to your bookmarks and favourite sites. To add a site to your bookmark bar, simply click and drag the star next to the address bar (the Bookmark button) down to the Bookmark Bar. A right click in the Bookmark bar also give options for adding new pages and folders. Folders are fantastic, because with 2 clicks (Right click > Open all Bookmarks) you can open all of those pages in separate tabs (even in a new window). Perfect for opening a group of related sites very quickly (at lunch break for example).

So, I was horrified and lost when I got to work this morning and saw that my Bookmarks Bar was no where to be found. I thought perhaps an over night update to Chrome had disabled or changed it. Fortunately, this was not the case. The Bookmark Bar can be instantly shown/hidden with the key combination ‘Ctrl + B’. Nice and simple. So for those of you who like the extra bit of room for the web page, hiding and showing the Bookmark Bar is quick and simple, allowing efficiency and convenience. And who knows – you may even like it enough to leave it there all the time!

Release Early. Release Often.

That is a philosophy that can work well in some software development circles, but in others it can fail miserably. Most people, especially those who are less technically minded, expect their software to ‘Just Work’, and will complain, give up, or stop using a program if it doesn’t. And that’s where the problem lies with this strategy – If you release a rough version of a program, many people may be turned off of it forever. Look at Windows Vista – when it was released it was slow wand had all sorts of issues. So many people, myself included, vowed to never install it. By many accounts, Vista has been greatly improved by its service packs (as is common for Windows Operating Systems), but Vista is still avoided where possible.

However, there are many among us who would rather have the new features sooner rather than later, and are willing to live with a few rough edges for that privilege. So with all of this in mind, Google has done something clever with Chrome – there are three different update ‘Channels’ available, Stable, Beta and Dev. Google describes the channels as follows:

• Stable channel. Everyone is on the Stable channel when they first install Google Chrome. The Stable channel is updated with features and fixes once they have been thoroughly tested in the Beta channel. If you want a rock solid browser but don’t need the latest features, the Stable channel is for you.
• Beta channel. People who like to use and help refine the latest features subscribe to the Beta channel. Every month or so, we promote stable and complete features from the Dev channel to the Beta channel. The Beta channel is more stable than Dev, but may lack the polish one expects from a finished product.
• Dev channel. This developer preview channel is where ideas get tested (and sometimes fail). The Dev channel can be very unstable at times, and new features usually require some manual configuration to be enabled. Still, simply using Dev channel releases is an easy (practically zero-effort) way for anyone to help improve Google Chrome.

I have been subscribed to the Beta Channel updates for a few months now, and love that it has been updated so often. And today it has been updated to version 3.0. The dev channel has been in 3.0 versions for several months now, with extensions being one of the big new features being worked on. Extensions promise to allow many more optioinal features to Chrome, giving a richer browsing experience. Many people, myself included, miss the large range of extensions available for Mozilla Firefox. In fact, one of the few reasons I still open Firefox is to use DownThemAll, an extension which allows you to download many links on a page with very few clicks.

The 3.0 Beta version does not yet have extensions enabled – if you want to try them out, you’ll need to subscribe to the dev channel. But, with 3.0 reaching beta status, it give me hope that it will not be too many more months before 3.0 is considered stable, and extensions can come to Beta.

If you’re wondering how to change your update channel, follow the following links for the installers

Beta Channel

Dev Channel

If you change your mind and want to go back, or have any difficulties with the above links, try using the Channel Changer program. Note that if you switch to a chanel which updates less often and is at an earlier version (ie, Beta back to Stable, or Dev back to Beta or Stable), you will remain at your currently installed version until the version number in your new channel passes your current version number. To go back to a previous version, you will need to uninstall Chrome, and reinstall the version you would like to use. Remember to back up your bookmarks and other browser data.

A Google engineer came and spoke at my university a few years ago, and talked about one of Google’s strategies – ‘Release Early, Release Often’. This partially explains why GMail is in perpetual Beta – It is constantly being changed and improved, and so never really reaches ‘Final’.

When Chrome was first released, I wondered how this would happen, since it is not a web-based application and updates depended on the user. I expected that updates would still be quite regular, but not quite so transparent. And so I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

The one day, I was checking for updates (via the Spanner icon, About Google Chrome), and I noticed that the version number was bigger than it had been. And then it twigged – the Google Update Service is automatically installed alongside Chrome, and runs continuously. That let Google continue to update Chrome for everyone at their pace. 

I’m not really a big fan of programs that run in the back ground continuously, so I turned off the Google Update Service. Today I had my first opportunity for a manual upgrade of Chrome. And it was seemless. Go to the ‘About’ page. Chrome checks for updates, and offers for you to download it. Press Ok, wait for the update to take place, and re-start Chrome when you would like. Too easy!

I think the best part about the upgrade process is that there are no annoying pop-ups or reminders to restart Chrome. It just says to close all windows and re-open Chrome to complete the update.

So, now I have a nice shiny new version of Chrome!

While playing with Application Shortcuts for the last post, I found that Chrome will not make an ‘Incognito Application Shortcut’. That is, even if you are in an incognito window when you first make an Application Shortcut, whenever you open it, your web application will be in a regular, non-incognito window. 

To get around this shortcoming, we’ll need to edit the application shortcut manually. Right click on your shortcut and click ‘Properties’. Go the the ‘Shortcut’ tab, and find the ‘Target’ text box. For example, the target text for my GMail shortcut is 
“C:\Documents and Settings\Dallin\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”  ––app=https://mail.google.com/mail/

 To turn this into an Incognito Application Shortcut, we’re going to add ‘–incognito’ before the ––app in the shortcut target, so that it now looks like 
“C:\Documents and Settings\Dallin\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” –incognito ––app=https://mail.google.com/mail/

Now when your run your application shortcut, the window will have the familiar darker tint of an incognito window, and you’ll know your private data will remain private!

Many have theorised that Google Chrome is the first part of a ‘Google Internet Operating System’. The idea is that the only application you really need to run on your computer is your web browser – everything else is web based. 

One feature in Google Chrome that demonstrates this paradigm is the ‘Application Shortcuts’. I like to keep GMail open all the time, so that I always have access to my mail. But when I’m looking at my mail, I don’t need an address bar, I don’t need access to Chrome settings, I just want to see my email. 

This is what a Chrome Application Shortcut does. Opening an application shortcut brings up a new Chrome window, with no address bar, no bookmarks, navigation buttons, tab bar or Chrome settings buttons. As much of the window real-estate as possible is used to display the web page – and it really does seem like it is running as its own application. 

So how do you create and use Application Shortcuts? Go the the web application you want to make a shortcut for, click on the Google Chrome ‘Page Options’ button (next to the wrench) and select ‘Create Application Shortcuts…’. You can then create a shortcut on the Desktop, Quick Launch Bar or in the Start Menu. Opening any of the newly created shortcuts will open your Web Application in a new window. It’s that easy!

Ctrl + F is the standard method of bringing up a search box in pretty much every application I use. Firefox has another method of searching the current page – Type to Search. Anytime when the focus isn’t on some kind of input element, just type a word to search the current page for that text. Now that this option is not available in Chrome, I realise how much I used it and how much I miss it.

Other than that, the page search in Chrome is quite good, as expected since Google is a search company. Highlighting all matchs by default is useful, and stating how many matches exist on the current page is a feature so basic and obvious I can’t believe it isn’t implemented in Firefox. The only other options lacking in Chrome are ‘Match Case’, as provided by most other browsers, and ‘Match Whole Word’, provided by Opera and Internet Explorer. 

I would also like to see regular expression matching as an advanced page search option. Being able to include options such as ‘Any Letter’, ‘Any Number’, or ‘Any Whitespace’ in a page search would be useful in many and varied different applications.

As someone who does some simple web design and programming, the look and feel of web pages is important to me. And when I want to lay something out in a specific way, I find that the best way to learn is by seeing what other people have done. But diving head first into 500 lines of css and html is no mean feat, especially since it is rarely well commented.

That’s why it surprises me that I’ve never seen something like the Google Chrome Element Inspector before. It is such a handy tool for seeing how a page is laid out, and which properties each element has inherited. It is incredibly detailed, showing every property, including javascript, that is available for each element. Any developer not making use of the Chrome Element Inspector is probably wasting time. Chrome will make you more productive!

The Element Inspector can be accessed by right clicking just about anywhere on a page and selecting ‘Inspect Element.’ Is is also accessible through the page menu, via the JavaScript Console in Developer options. We’ll be looking at the Element Inspector more later. But for now, have a look. I guarantee you will learn something!

Pop-Up blockers are a standard feature of the modern web browser. It almost makes you wonder why pop-up advertisements even still exist. But they do, so someone must still be making money from them.

The only problem is, that sometimes technology makes mistakes, and sites with legitimate pop-up windows get blocked. The hassle is then, how do I get to this window. As far as I am aware, all the major browsers do provide a mechanism for viewing these windows, but all are not created equal. Internet Explorer 7 requires you to ‘Temporarily Allow Pop-Ups’, after which the page will be reloaded, along with any pop-ups. Reloading the page is often not desired and sometimes not possible (think bank or shopping transactions).

Firefox has a better method, giving an Options button, and letting you chose individual windows to allow. Click the page title and the window will appear. Or, one click can close the yellow information bar instantly.

Chrome takes a novel approach, which is certainly not perfect, but provides another option. With some refinement, I think it would become my preferred method.

When Chrome blocks a pop-up, it shows a blue bar at the bottom of the screen, labelled ‘Blocked Pop-up’. Continue working and leave the site, the blue bars disappear. Click the x to make them disappear immediately. Or, if you want to see the window, click and drag the blue bar, and instantly your window appears. The width of the blue bar also represents the size of the window, which may give you a clue as to whether it is the pop-up window you are looking for.

The system is certainly not perfect. The blue bar is very big and distracting. It could be smaller, perhaps slightly transparent, and generally less conspicous. Multiple pop-ups also tend to be layered on top of each other, such that it is impossible to tell how many windows are there. That is not so much of a problem, but it leads to the next problem – there’s no way of closing all the blue bars at once.

Just a little more polish, and I think it’ll be fantastic!

One of my favourite features of Chrome is something very minor, and something I doubt I’d have noticed had it not been pointed out to me.

As is quite common throughout computing, Chrome has a ‘Loading’ animation. In Chrome, I call it the Spinning Glow Worm, and it’s in the tab, next to the page title. The unique feature that I love in Chrome is that it spins both ways – anti-clockwise means data is being uploaded, or a page is being requested, and clockwise means that the page is being downloaded. I believe the speed of rotation also relates to transfer speed.

This is such a simple little thing, but it is so much easier to see and understand than what you get in Firefox, with ‘Waiting for….’ or ‘Transferring Data From…’ in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. And, you can see the Glow Worm for all tabs that you have in your current window. Handy!

One of the innovative new features of Google Chrome is the Incognito Window. Any browsing done in an incognito window will leave no trace once the window is closed. No cookies, no cache, no download lists, no browsing history. To open an Incognito Window, press Ctrl + Shift + N. Alternatively, click the ‘Control the Current Page’ button between the Address Bar and the Settings button, and select “New incognito window”. This option is greyed out within an incognito window. If an incognito window is already open, this will open a new tab in an existing window.

One of the side-effects of this, is that you can log into two different accounts at the same site at the same time. And perhaps one of the best examples of this is GMail and the Google Account. Being logged into two different Google Accounts at the same time can be very handy. For example, I regularly use two GMail accounts. Have both open all the time saves considerable time in signing in and out.

It seems cookies and data are shared between incognito windows open at the same time. Thus there is effectively just one incognito window open. This means it is only possible to log into two accounts simultaneously, one in a regular window, one in an incognito window.

There are also some warnings about the incognito window feature. Websites will still be able to record data about you, files you download will be saved, and bookmarks created will be retained. So, you still need to be cautious if you want to be completely stealthy.