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Google Chrome 73 To Officially Support Multimedia Keys on Your Keyboard (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the up-next dept.

Google Chrome 73, scheduled for release next month, will be the first version of Chrome that will officially support the multimedia keys that some users have on their desk and laptop keyboards, ZDNet reports. From the report: Support for multimedia keys will initially be available for Chrome on Chrome OS, macOS, and Windows, while support for Linux will come later (unspecified date). Users will be able to control both audio and video content played in Chrome, including skipping through playlists. Initial support is planned for multimedia keys such as "play," "pause," "previous track," "next track," "seek backward," and "seek forward." Key presses will be supported at the Chrome level, not the tab level, meaning that multimedia buttons will work regardless if the Chrome browser is in the operating system's foreground or background (minimized).

47 comments

  1. Winamp by darkain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wrote the RMX plugin for Winamp to add multimedia key support there... like 20 years ago. Glad to see that Chome is a "modern" piece of software now!

    1. Re:Winamp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But will Chrome also whip the llama's ass ?

  2. Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Fuck no. This means if you press volume down, both your OS and Chrome will each reduce their audio levels, thus reducing pornhub by twice the amount you wanted. If you have Chrome minimized and a media player open, pressing play will start both the media player and every youtube tab you have open. Pressing next will both switch video files and change the playlists on all those tabs as well.

    WTF is Google smoking? No other piece of software functions like this nor should they. Software is indeed getting shittier with every release.

    1. Re: Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pause PornHub long enough to RTFS. It doesn't say volume controls will do anything in Chrome (as they shouldn't). This *is* how other software works: the media keys on your keyboard control media players. A web player should respond the same way as an OS app does.

    2. Re:Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just thought of the most stupid way of doing something, and pinned it on google to do it that way even though you have no idea for sure that thats the way its going to behave - and the only reason you think that way is because your brain is only capable of thinking that that is the only way that theyre going to do it. Thats pretty impressive.

    3. Re:Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Volume controls are not included in this API. Only play, pause, seekbackward, seekforward, previoustrack, nexttrack, and skipad.

      https://wicg.github.io/mediasession/

      Still a bad idea to grab the keys for the browser when it doesn't have focus, though.

    4. Re: Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This gives google an excuse to make Chrome a full-time keylogger. If they are intercepting multimedia keys foreground or background, their code will be silently intercepting all keys, whether they choose to ignore them or not.

      Google is/will be full on RAT spyware if someone at googleplex wants to flip that switch.

    5. Re: Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This makes no sense to me. I want to use my keys to pause the music I'm playing, so I can watch a video. Can't do that anymore because now the browser thinks it's a media player.

    6. Re: Idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's weird you think they aren't doing this already.

    7. Re: Idiotic by Red_Forman · · Score: 1

      But Chrome is not an OS-level media player. It's a web browser.

      What happens if I press the [Play] key on my keyboard? It should start iTunes, but it will also start the 20 YouTube tabs I have opened all at the same time?

      What kind of dumbasses makes these decisions at Google?

    8. Re: Idiotic by reanjr · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure keyboard events only occur on the active tab. Anything else would be a giant security hole.

    9. Re: Idiotic by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      I know this is Slashdot, but please RTFS.

      > Key presses will be supported at the Chrome level, not the tab level,
      > meaning that multimedia buttons will work regardless if the Chrome
      > browser is in the operating system's foreground or background (minimized).

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
  3. wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why the hell would I want browser keyboard shortcuts active while the window is minimized?? This is a silly idea...

    1. Re:wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because youtube is the best music platform out there and it beats the shit out of itunes, soundcloud, google music, spotify, tidal etc in price and variety. If you can control your youtube music while the tab is minimized then youtube would behave like most other minimized dedicated music players.

    2. Re:wtf? by Red_Forman · · Score: 1

      YouTube is only good for finding that one song you want. If you rely on playlists made by other people, you're a tool.

      Which explains why you think this is a good idea, dumbass.

    3. Re: wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep listening to new shit moron, seems like its doing its job killing the few brain cells you ever had.

    4. Re: wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only youtube had user made playlists. Oh wait it does. Did you forget to log out dumbass? Now everyone knows youre the shit for brains, rubbing dick with creimer all the time.

  4. Decades too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got a MS multimedia keyboard with a eMachines Windows 98 SE computer. And then another one with Windows XP. Those multimedia keys mostly just always annoyed me. Better to use the shortcuts in VLC or mplayer by themselves.

  5. Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by bjwest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I prefer to have the keys adjust the volume on my system unless the player (browser, in this case) is in focus. Seriously, how is this a good thing? The browser shouldn't be intercepting system keystrokes when not in focus, and most definitely shouldn't be overriding my system preferences. Does this mean Chrome now knows every key I type, and is this hook only active if Chrome is running?

    --

    --- Keep the choice with the user..
    1. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Volume isn't part of this API. Just play, pause, seek, and skip.

      https://wicg.github.io/mediasession/

      But it still shouldn't grab those keys when the browser doesn't have focus. I don't want my pause key to toggle two different apps at the same time.

    2. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      Conspiracy theory time... they want YouTube to take over as a default media player for people over their locally installed media apps.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    3. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by bjwest · · Score: 1

      Youtube is a web site, not a multimedia application, there is no way it could provide that function. I could see them possibly wanting Chrome to take on such a role, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I'd let that happen on my system. I wouldn't even want Firefox to do that.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
    4. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I have the same concern, particularly with regards my MS Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard: I use the Mute key all the time for exactly what it does natively on Windows 7 (and did on XP too): mutes all audio on the system. If this functionality is implemented in the browser, what exactly happens? Does it mute the tab (something Chrome 71 already made a mess of)? Does it mute audio in the entire browser? And if it does either of those, is there a way to disable it (say, through chrome://flags)? Because if not, that's a huge problem and major oversight.

      As I wrote the above paragraph, I noticed that a reply came in elsewhere indicating that apparently the only keys it'll look at are play/pause/seek and track-oriented keys. What if people are already using those with their media player of choice? Furthermore, the document is marked Editor's Draft as of 2019/02/09, a.k.a. working draft, a.k.a. subject-to-change-at-any-moment. And even if it wasn't, we all know this is exactly how it begins: today it supports only those functions, but 6 months from now it's extended to support Mute and Volume Up/Down, which will provoke someone to consider adding Home, Favourites, Mute, Calculator, etc. via something similar -- all keys that have historically (we're talking 15+ years, folks) been dedicated to the UX aspect of the OS only, UNLESS you specifically went out of your way to configure them on a per-program basis and within that program (ex: Winamp), with some exceptions (read: Internet Explorer actually does use some of these keys itself when running) -- then it'll get extended to Logitech G15 LCD so the browser can print stupid crap on the LCD, followed by RGB LED tweaking, then some kind of fan RPM mod, blah blah blah. This is what's called creeping featurism and it is not a new phenomenon, but its prevalence has greatly amplified in the past 10 or so years.

      I have no problem with the browser implementing, say, the appropriate API functions so that an extension/add-on could be used to set said keys up in the browser to perform media-related tasks (not a bad idea really, sort of akin to what the Streamdeck does alongside OBS Studio) -- the user has to install the Chrome extension by choice, thus the concern is alleviated for everyone as a default (read: majority) and bugs/quirks only affect those who effectively opted in through use of an extension.

      In all seriousness, the past few major Chrome releases -- 70, 71, and 72 -- all brought with them more UX-related problems than improvements, IMO. For example, in 72 for whatever reason they decided to get rid of the incredibly useful details at chrome://net-internals/#proxy that would tell you what the active/effective settings were -- extremely useful for knowing if your PAC file was loaded or not, if a proxy was in use at all (and if so, if it was SOCKS or DIRECT or what), etc.. And just today I found they removed the chrome://net-internals/#events viewer entirely and replaced it with a dump-crap-to-a-file model that requires you to install Python and a completely separate external utility to decode it. What was wrong with doing this natively? Why not offer both?

      I say all of this as a person who is an extremely strong advocate of KISS principle. I just don't see why removing useful information and capabilities of this sort is considered positive progress. Likewise, I don't see how adding media keys support to a browser is progress either. I think it creates more problems and annoyances than it solves. Obligatory Jurassic Park reference.

    5. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but it'll be a cold day in hell before I'd let that happen on my system. I wouldn't even want Firefox to do that.

      Thing is, google doesn't care if they don't get you or me, as long as they get the vast majority and non power users.

      Same way that they don't care if some users will manage to still use an adblocker after they block them. As long as the majority of users don't, that's enough for them. Our resistance means nothing to google as long as the unaware majority continues to use google and doesn't react.

    6. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Volume up, volume down, and mute are not included in this API.

      Just the seeking and skipping functions.

      But those should also not be a global grab of the key. The browser should only respond to them when it has focus.

    7. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just like how google sites often steal the '/' from your browser because they're "smart".

    8. Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF?? by DeVilla · · Score: 1

      Right. That's what systemd is for.

  6. KDE already does this rather well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    with firefox, and it joins up over KDE Connect

  7. No Winamp in Federal prison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry Trump traitors.

    1. Re:No Winamp in Federal prison by zidium · · Score: 1

      I think the CEO of the National Enquirer might end up there first!!

      --
      Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
    2. Re: No Winamp in Federal prison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://youtu.be/CUdz13yK0zQ

    3. Re: No Winamp in Federal prison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://youtu.be/CUdz13yK0zQ

  8. Linux... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux (and GNU and the FL/OSS movement in general) is like the third world of operating systems... always last to get the goodies, has to put up with all the first world software makers using their resources without compensation of any kind, usually, to become even richer all the while treating the community like shit, and trash-talking its leaders, disregarding the wants and needs of the people they are exploiting, etc.

  9. Re:FireFux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stick to internet exploder or miscrosft wedgie. Sounds like your level of browser.

  10. google is the new dolt of the town. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    I mean. if I were to press play now and all tabs would capture it - how many fucking ads do you think would start to run simultaneously?

    if I have focused the tab and the browser is focused, fine, whatever, use the buttons just the same as you use space bar, p etc keys.

    but don't fucking tell all the tabs that I just pressed play. it's a bad fucking idea. you would think it's a good idea, but it's not. it's only a good idea if you have spotify on some tab and possibly just some google docs open on other tabs. but that's not the real world.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:google is the new dolt of the town. by Red_Forman · · Score: 1

      I hate playlists. I usually open a few tabs with the videos I want to play on YouTube. If they implement this, it will interfere with the way I use YouTube and also with the way I use iTunes.

      Google are making a lot of dumbass decisions lately. I sure hope we can disable this bullshit.

    2. Re:google is the new dolt of the town. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WAHHHHHH Wahhhhhhhhhhh. Call the whambulance for this dumbass. Youre the only one crying about this. Toughen the fuck up

  11. It's *my* keyboard, you twits! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why should the browser have any business in knowing what keys my keyboard has? Or whether I've a keyboard /at all/?

    Remember: the browser is the less trusted, dirtiest software running on my box, constantly contracting STDs via Javascript (or whatever media codec vulnerability du jour).

    KEEP OFF MY KEYBOARD!!!

  12. Nope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not on my keyboard. There are none.

  13. "Chrome now knows every key I type" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, you suspect that an overgrown, evil ad agency that makes its money strip-mining the dead corpse of your privacy and selling your private details to anyone and everyone willing to pay uses the software it gives away to spy on you?

    Whatever the hell gave you that idea?

  14. Re:FireFux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Internet Exploder
    Microsoft Wedgie
    Firesux
    Crapium
    Safarold

    anyone got better names?

  15. So remote controls will work again! by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

    This is super helpful because I have an IR remote control for my computer that sends these keypresses. The remote has been useless since Microsoft stopped supporting Windows Media Center Edition and I had to move all my streaming services to the browser. 3 years ago, I could turn on my TV with that remote, select a channel like Hulu, Netflix, etc, and pause/play/rewind with it. Fast forward 3 years and Microsoft dropped support for Windows MCE. So I had to go back to a keyboard and mouse to stream.

    1. Re:So remote controls will work again! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      LIRC supports those windows remotes.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  16. Seems good, any privacy concerns? by cfalcon · · Score: 1

    The way the article is written, it sounds like Chrome itself will be responsible for interpreting these keys, which sounds like the correct way to do it.
    Hopefully we can avoid Chrome sending information about your physical keyboard somewhere remote, which could be used for browser fingerprinting, etc.

  17. Inner System Syndrome by kbahey · · Score: 2

    Chrome is just another example of the inner system syndrome.

    Just like systemd, it becomes bloated and has feature creep as it tries to take over and devour the functions of the platform it is running under.

    Now, wait for Chrome taking more and more features away from the operating system ...

    --
    2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
  18. I use a Model M, you insensitive clods! by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

    Made in 1993. Dirty, but still works great, and useful for stopping bullets or clubbing an intruder over the head