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Show HN: My project is a top comment in Reddit's top story

12 points by jaredsohn 15y ago

I'd like to get some input on my project from the Hacker News community. The Reddit thread can be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/j5bl3/can_whoever_makes_browsers_please_consider_adding/ The extension itself is located here: http://www.mutetab.com/ Basically, my project is a Chrome extension that attempts to provide browser-wide sound management to the extent possible within an extension. It helps a user find what is making sound by identifying what is possibly making sound, allows automatically muting background sounds, and provides a context menu with sound management commands that will use JavaScript where available and otherwise hides elements from the page. It does not solve the more general "mute tab" problem -- if a plugin instance doesn't have a JavaScript API, then the only way I can mute it is by hiding it from the page (like Flashblock does). This is unideal because if it is a game or a video, hiding and reshowing it will restart it. I'm most interested in getting technical feedback (please read the FAQ since I mention some ideas that I haven't heard anyone discuss) but am also interested in feedback about how I am presenting things (what I'm doing might be too complicated for many users to understand) and general feedback.

nodata 15y ago
This was rejected by Chrome developers because it wouldn't work with Flash. How does yours handle this?
- jaredsohn 15y ago
  It doesn't solve that problem. "It does not, however, universally allow muting a video or game so that it can be played silently while listening to background sounds coming from another tab. (This is not possible in Chrome without either plug-ins such as Flash being updated or Chrome's plug-in architecture undergoing an unlikely major redesign.)" Instead, it: "is a Chrome extension that helps you manage the sound coming from tabs in Google Chrome. It helps you to find which tab(s) are making sounds and provides browser-wide management of tab muting (calling JavaScript functions where available, otherwise hiding it from the page), including automatically muting all background tabs." Basically, the problems mentioned by the Chrome devs are real (at least without modifying Chrome to use a separate Flash process for each tab or updating Flash itself), but it is still possible to give users more control over browser sound than they are currently presented with. (Updated submission to try to make this more clear.)
jaredsohn 15y ago
On front page of Slashdot now, too
- jaredsohn 15y ago
  And gizmodo, lifehacker.

12 points by jaredsohn 15y ago

nodata 15y ago

This was rejected by Chrome developers because it wouldn't work with Flash. How does yours handle this?

jaredsohn 15y ago
It doesn't solve that problem. "It does not, however, universally allow muting a video or game so that it can be played silently while listening to background sounds coming from another tab. (This is not possible in Chrome without either plug-ins such as Flash being updated or Chrome's plug-in architecture undergoing an unlikely major redesign.)" Instead, it: "is a Chrome extension that helps you manage the sound coming from tabs in Google Chrome. It helps you to find which tab(s) are making sounds and provides browser-wide management of tab muting (calling JavaScript functions where available, otherwise hiding it from the page), including automatically muting all background tabs." Basically, the problems mentioned by the Chrome devs are real (at least without modifying Chrome to use a separate Flash process for each tab or updating Flash itself), but it is still possible to give users more control over browser sound than they are currently presented with. (Updated submission to try to make this more clear.)

jaredsohn 15y ago

On front page of Slashdot now, too

jaredsohn 15y ago
And gizmodo, lifehacker.