A First Look At Google's Chrome Aura Interface

There are countless Aura entries in Google's Chromium revision blog, but there is not much information about it beyond a project page and the explanation that it will be a hardware accelerated UI. Google developer François Beaufort recently published videos on YouTube that provide a first look at Aura.

The video showcases an experimental feature that is only available in the Aura version of Chromium - translucent windows, which demos translucent window frames as well as constrained window dragging. Aura is still very much work in progress, but will enable Google to depart from GTK and decrease its reliance on Windows - and achieve much more UI code consistency across all supported platforms.

For the more immediate future, Google recently added a timeline feature in Chromium, which draws a graph of the data traffic sent and received by the browser. There is also a new flag, Pointer Lock, in the most recent nightly builds, which allows web applications to take over the mouse pointer to enhance web app functionality. A browser user can cancel such an action simply pressing the Escape key. A notable additions is also the chrome://sessions local URL, which displays all active tabs in Chrome - which works across multiple devices, if the live tab syncing feature is activated.

  • joytech22
    Great.. I'm at a LAN party so the video can't load because it's blocked..
    I thought you would show pics or something in this article :L
    Reply
  • Sailor Moon
    First :D
    Reply
  • Filiprino
    It seems to me as they have copied Firefox grouping.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    That's an old Compiz concept in Linux, actually. XGL desktop times!

    Anyway, not new at all IMO.

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • soundping
    Now they'll be windows of porn jumping all over the place. lol
    Reply
  • alidan
    YukaThat's an old Compiz concept in Linux, actually. XGL desktop times!Anyway, not new at all IMO.Cheers!if im thinking of the same thing, i never liked that part of linux, i know its usefull, but i never liked it.
    Reply
  • southernshark
    its so amazing... how could i live without it??? its rich....
    Reply
  • Thunderfox
    Uh, if it uses GTK, how reliant on Windows can it be? Isn't its whole purpose supposed to be to make the UI portable?
    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    Am I correct in assuming this is for Chrome OS? If so, then why bother making this for the 5 people in the world that use it? I understand Google wants to increase adoption of Chrome OS but there's nothing Chrome OS can do that others can't - regular users are happy with Android/iOS tablet and Windows netbooks, and power users use Windows and Linux. The clueless use Mac OS X. Chrome OS just doesn't fit in there.
    Reply
  • amk-aka-Phantom
    eddieroolzAm I correct in assuming this is for Chrome OS? If so, then why bother making this for the 5 people in the world that use it? I understand Google wants to increase adoption of Chrome OS but there's nothing Chrome OS can do that others can't - regular users are happy with Android/iOS tablet and Windows netbooks, and power users use Windows and Linux. The clueless use Mac OS X. Chrome OS just doesn't fit in there.
    But but but.. it's the CLOUD!! It's TEH FUTURE!!!!!

    :lol:

    Chrome interface is a POS. It's not "simple", it's dumbed down. I installed it on my PC yesterday and made my grandma do the same so that I can use Chrome's remote desktop feature (very easy and I don't know of any similar addon for FF), and SHE had trouble with the interface. First thing I hear: "Where did all the menus go? WTF?"

    :D
    Reply