Chrome Disses Developers

I actually think the Chrome guys are doing the right thing here. We got everyone to agree that Ctrl-T should create a new tab, consistently, in all browsers, and users should be able to depend on that behavior. If you need a full app-like HTML experience with no interference from browser UI, use an embedded rendering engine like PhoneGap.

Honestly, I think this is a good thing. It doesn't matter whether it's a crappy script disabling the right mouse button for "copyright reasons" or an equally crappy script thinking that it should disallow me opening a new page or tab via the keyboard.

Neither behavior is acceptable and I consider it a very good feature of Chrome that it gives control back to the user in that regard.

What a silly title.

Keyboard shortcuts are a major pain in web applications, you are inside the window manager with their shortcuts, the browser with their shortcuts, and the web application with their own.

If your application has "tabs" then you want to use the standard tab shortcuts, however the user may also want to use the browsers shortcuts (this has annoyed me a lot in cloud9 which doesnt let me close the browser tab with Ctrl+W)

I cant think of the best solution for this, I dont think chrome disabling access to them is going to help much though, but I can see why they did it

Chrome has every right to reserve certain key combinations. Chrome OS doesn't have any function keys, so alt+f4 can't work, and Ctrl+W is really useful. Likewise users expect that Ctrl+N and Ctrl+T do what's expected. Windows has the right to reserve Alt+F4, Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Alt+Del and since browsers are essentially operating systems now, they have the right to reserve certain key combinations.

Actually, Google just tried to prevent developers from hijacking common key combinations users want to be consistent between browsers.

I expect ^N to be "new window" regardless of the site I am visiting. If I had an app that rewired it to mean something else, I'd file a bug.

What isn't clear, but seems implied, is that Chrome developers have reserved these shortcuts for use with Chrome itself. Google seems to place a high importance on keyboard shortcuts for their applications. The list of shrotcuts for GMail, for instance, is impressive. It would seem though that most of the developers complaining on that bug report are using control+[key] to demarc the border between editing and issuing commands. Google seems to make heavy use of cursor focus to allow compound commands (press this key, then another key) to demarc that same boundary. I'm not sure who is right or wrong, but I can't blame Google for directing development along these lines to suit their own purposes.

tldr = Chrome won't let js capture certain key combinations like Ctrl+T, to provide a consistent usable experience for users.

A few developers are upset.

Personally, I applaud Chrome and think they made the right call. If I'm on a web page, and press Ctrl+T, I want a new tab.

I started using Chrome pretty much the day it came out. I don't know what exactly drew me in, but something made me keep coming back to it.

Just a couple of days ago, Firefox 5 came out, and it's the same thing. I like the new 'spaces' and 'pinning' of application tabs. Additionally they've adopted the 'tabs on top' and a neat new 'firefox button' to eliminate the dropdown menus. It's pretty slick.

Until Chrome comes out with these enhancements, I think I'm sticking with FF5.

Good thing too... I don't agree that this bug should be a "won't fix" ... so now, in addition to having become drawn to FF5 anyways, I can feel smugly superior for leaving :)

Overly dramatic title.

The tone of the comments on the linked page are overwhelmingly shrill, angry, hostile, and even conspiratorial e.g. "That makes this problem even more cynical[sic]…" And the title of the HN submission ("Chrome Disses Developers") is little better.