3 ms·

It feels like a premature launch. When I got this from chrome-unstable a couple of weeks ago, it was a shock. Many styling problems, and widgets not working as

by jsnell 13y ago

It feels like a premature launch. When I got this from chrome-unstable a couple of weeks ago, it was a shock. Many styling problems, and widgets not working as expected. Some of the stuff that didn't work was pretty niche (e.g. horizontal scroll-wheels), so it's understandable nobody noticed it. But there's even stuff like central UI elements (tabs, the URL box) being rendered in some big, ugly and badly hinted font instead of the system font. Menu items having just insane amounts of whitespace, etc. There might be good technical reasons for the change, but on a UX level it feels unfortunate :-( I still remember how nice it felt to switch from Firefox to the initial Chrome Linux alphas. It might have been missing major functionality, but at least it looked and worked the way I expected a Linux desktop app to work instead of having the UI be just a little bit off in a dozen places. I'm sure they'll get it to a 99% state soon enough, but getting that last 1% looks like it could be a challenge.

JamesMcMinn 13y ago
"premature launch"..."chrome-unstable". This is not a launch. You are running the UNSTABLE build. What do you expect? Stop treating unstable and testing software like it's stable. The clue is in the name.
- jsnell 13y ago
  I'm not treating it as it's stable, but it's what's going to be released as stable in a fairly short while given the Chrome release cadence. I was hoping that they were going to let this bake for a bit more before making it the default. This post makes it clear that they aren't going to do that.
  - awwaiid 13y ago
    They don't seem to do a straight unstable -> stable path. I'm not completely sure, but I'm pretty sure I've seen features stay in unstable while stable releases keep happening.
  - JamesMcMinn 13y ago
    Generally, unstable things that appear in unstable channel will only appear in stable 6 months later. That's plenty of time to iron out bugs. Perhaps you should consider the beta channel?
    - jsnell 13y ago
      I'm totally fine using unstable, thanks. The point is that this particular feature is going to be enabled by default in Chrome 35 on Linux, as per the submitted article. That's not going to be 6 months from now. What happens with unstable features in the general case isn't particularly relevant when we know what the plan is with this specific case.

by jsnell 13y ago

JamesMcMinn 13y ago

"premature launch"..."chrome-unstable". This is not a launch. You are running the UNSTABLE build. What do you expect? Stop treating unstable and testing software like it's stable. The clue is in the name.

jsnell 13y ago
I'm not treating it as it's stable, but it's what's going to be released as stable in a fairly short while given the Chrome release cadence. I was hoping that they were going to let this bake for a bit more before making it the default. This post makes it clear that they aren't going to do that.
- awwaiid 13y ago
  They don't seem to do a straight unstable -> stable path. I'm not completely sure, but I'm pretty sure I've seen features stay in unstable while stable releases keep happening.
- JamesMcMinn 13y ago
  Generally, unstable things that appear in unstable channel will only appear in stable 6 months later. That's plenty of time to iron out bugs. Perhaps you should consider the beta channel?
  - jsnell 13y ago
    I'm totally fine using unstable, thanks. The point is that this particular feature is going to be enabled by default in Chrome 35 on Linux, as per the submitted article. That's not going to be 6 months from now. What happens with unstable features in the general case isn't particularly relevant when we know what the plan is with this specific case.