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!

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?

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 ...