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

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).

Comments

Winamp

[darkain]

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!

Idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Idiotic

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Idiotic

[Red_Forman]

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?

Re: Idiotic

[reanjr]

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

Re: Idiotic

[knorthern knight]

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).

Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[bjwest]

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?

Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[CODiNE]

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

Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[bjwest]

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.

Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Can it be disabled? and WTF??

[DeVilla]

Right. That's what systemd is for.

Re:No Winamp in Federal prison

[zidium]

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

google is the new dolt of the town.

[gl4ss]

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.

Re:google is the new dolt of the town.

[Red_Forman]

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.

Re:wtf?

[Red_Forman]

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.

So remote controls will work again!

[MobyDisk]

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.

Re:So remote controls will work again!

[drinkypoo]

LIRC supports those windows remotes.

Seems good, any privacy concerns?

[cfalcon]

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.

Inner System Syndrome

[kbahey]

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 ...

I use a Model M, you insensitive clods!

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

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