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Why not add a "Zoom on double-tap" tickbox in Chrome's Settings? Leave it ticked as default so users aren't adversely affected. Even better, add another Settin

Why not add a "Zoom on double-tap" tickbox in Chrome's Settings? Leave it ticked as default so users aren't adversely affected. Even better, add another Setting to let users change the amount of time the browser waits for the second tap. Windows has had this since at least Windows XP (Start → Settings → Control Panel → Mouse → Double-Click) and I think since Windows 95. Set it to 300ms as default so existing users aren't adversely affected. People like me can set it to 180ms (which is what the iOS stopwatch indicates my maximum double-click delay is). If you want to put the icing on the cake, add a little applet in Settings to measure your double-tap speed.

hyperpape 13y ago
Settings don't get used. It's good to have nice flexible settings so people who investigate can make the device work the way they want, but most of the time people are using defaults, and developers spend the most time worrying about how to make their app/website work well with the defaults.
- jackgavigan 13y ago
  I would use it! That's all that matters! :-)
jaffathecake 13y ago
Are users adversely affected by this change? In what way? This change is designed to make the existing web faster. If we improve the performance of rendering, JavaScript, or scrolling, we don't put it behind an opt-in option. Why should this be?
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  It's not so much the change as letting websites disable zoom. Letting websites disable zoom is a braindead user-hostile decision that could only have been made by people with perfect eyesight (or perfect glasses.)
  - waterlion 13y ago
    I have good eyesight. I don't need glasses. I still like to zoom in on text by double-tapping and pinching to zoom. What if I'm on a bus and it's easier to read larger text? You can add 'with an under-developed theory of mind' to the end of that list.
    - sanderjd 13y ago
      Or you can get rid of this uncharitable list altogether and replace it with something like 'with a mandate to balance complex trade-offs between technological constraints and competing user, web page, and web application designer needs'.
      - waterlion 13y ago
        That's the thing though (I agree, it's not a nice list, but it's not nice to remove features either). Who says they have a mandate to do the balancing this way? It's their software to do with as they want. That's less mandate and more unilateral. I wouldn't mind swapping a bit of a delay for a checkbox in the settings. I wouldn't even mind the checkbox being unticked by default.
      - kinlan 13y ago
        Just to add there is a Checkbox in Settings (at least on the beta of Chrome) that overrides this behaviour --- it is in accessibility settings
      - jaffathecake 13y ago
        I'm not convinced this makes things worse for any user. Can you think of a case?
      - jackgavigan 13y ago
        You don't have to balance complex trade-offs if you make it a configuration setting. Soooo many "Should we do A or B?" debates over software functionality are settled by "Do A but let the user change it to B in the Settings."
- jackgavigan 13y ago
  Well, I'm not suggesting they do my idea instead of what they've done. I'm suggesting they do it in addition to what they've done. I hate the delay between tapping the screen and the "click" being recognised. It drives me up the wall. I'd far rather switch off "Double-tap to zoom" for all pages (not just those with the relevant meta-tag) and use pinch-to-zoom instead. There are obviously very good reasons to not disable "Double-tap to zoom" entirely or by default (primarily accessibility, but also the fact that people have gotten used to it) but where's the downside in making it a Setting so that people like me can choose to disable it? Okay, maybe the upside is quite small but there's zero downside and (given that they've already implemented the ability to switch "Double-tap to zoom" off if the webpage has the relevant meta-tag) it would be relatively easy to implement. Making stuff like this user-configurable is a Good Thing. It's like when Apple changed the behaviour of the iPad's side switch in iOS 4.2 to switch it from rotation lock to audio mute and Steve Jobs said there wouldn't be a configuration option to let users change the switch back to rotation-lock [1]. A lot of people (including me) were disappointed. Fortunately, he changed his mind and iOS 4.3 made the function of the side-switch user-configurable in the Settings. [1]: http://9to5mac.com/2010/10/23/jobs-there-wont-be-a-mute-switch-becomes-an-orientation-lock-option-for-ipad/ http://9to5mac.com/2010/10/23/jobs-there-wont-be-a-mute-swit...
  - jaffathecake 13y ago
    You can actually disable tab delay all together in Chrome Beta. Go to about:flags and enable "Disable tap delay".
    - jackgavigan 13y ago
      I'm on iOS so that's just cruel.

hyperpape 13y ago

Settings don't get used. It's good to have nice flexible settings so people who investigate can make the device work the way they want, but most of the time people are using defaults, and developers spend the most time worrying about how to make their app/website work well with the defaults.

jackgavigan 13y ago
I would use it! That's all that matters! :-)

jaffathecake 13y ago

Are users adversely affected by this change? In what way? This change is designed to make the existing web faster. If we improve the performance of rendering, JavaScript, or scrolling, we don't put it behind an opt-in option. Why should this be?

lukeschlather 13y ago
It's not so much the change as letting websites disable zoom. Letting websites disable zoom is a braindead user-hostile decision that could only have been made by people with perfect eyesight (or perfect glasses.)
- waterlion 13y ago
  I have good eyesight. I don't need glasses. I still like to zoom in on text by double-tapping and pinching to zoom. What if I'm on a bus and it's easier to read larger text? You can add 'with an under-developed theory of mind' to the end of that list.
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    Or you can get rid of this uncharitable list altogether and replace it with something like 'with a mandate to balance complex trade-offs between technological constraints and competing user, web page, and web application designer needs'.
    - waterlion 13y ago
      That's the thing though (I agree, it's not a nice list, but it's not nice to remove features either). Who says they have a mandate to do the balancing this way? It's their software to do with as they want. That's less mandate and more unilateral. I wouldn't mind swapping a bit of a delay for a checkbox in the settings. I wouldn't even mind the checkbox being unticked by default.
    - kinlan 13y ago
      Just to add there is a Checkbox in Settings (at least on the beta of Chrome) that overrides this behaviour --- it is in accessibility settings
    - jaffathecake 13y ago
      I'm not convinced this makes things worse for any user. Can you think of a case?
    - jackgavigan 13y ago
      You don't have to balance complex trade-offs if you make it a configuration setting. Soooo many "Should we do A or B?" debates over software functionality are settled by "Do A but let the user change it to B in the Settings."
jackgavigan 13y ago
Well, I'm not suggesting they do my idea instead of what they've done. I'm suggesting they do it in addition to what they've done. I hate the delay between tapping the screen and the "click" being recognised. It drives me up the wall. I'd far rather switch off "Double-tap to zoom" for all pages (not just those with the relevant meta-tag) and use pinch-to-zoom instead. There are obviously very good reasons to not disable "Double-tap to zoom" entirely or by default (primarily accessibility, but also the fact that people have gotten used to it) but where's the downside in making it a Setting so that people like me can choose to disable it? Okay, maybe the upside is quite small but there's zero downside and (given that they've already implemented the ability to switch "Double-tap to zoom" off if the webpage has the relevant meta-tag) it would be relatively easy to implement. Making stuff like this user-configurable is a Good Thing. It's like when Apple changed the behaviour of the iPad's side switch in iOS 4.2 to switch it from rotation lock to audio mute and Steve Jobs said there wouldn't be a configuration option to let users change the switch back to rotation-lock [1]. A lot of people (including me) were disappointed. Fortunately, he changed his mind and iOS 4.3 made the function of the side-switch user-configurable in the Settings. [1]: http://9to5mac.com/2010/10/23/jobs-there-wont-be-a-mute-switch-becomes-an-orientation-lock-option-for-ipad/ http://9to5mac.com/2010/10/23/jobs-there-wont-be-a-mute-swit...
- jaffathecake 13y ago
  You can actually disable tab delay all together in Chrome Beta. Go to about:flags and enable "Disable tap delay".
  - jackgavigan 13y ago
    I'm on iOS so that's just cruel.