Now that a stable version of Google Chrome with extension support has been released to the public it is time to concentrate on some of the usability issues in the web browser. One of these usability issues is that most extensions add buttons to the Google Chrome toolbar. This toolbar can fill pretty quickly with buttons reducing the screen estate for the remaining items on the Chrome address bar. There is currently no way to hide or move those extension buttons so that only those are displayed that are relevant to the user or the specific situation.
The latest Chromium developer build – Chromium is the core browser that is used by Google to create Google Chrome – contains a first step in the right direction. It adds a movable separator to the Chromium toolbar which the user can move to the right or left to decrease or increase the space that the extension buttons get in the Chromium toolbar.
This is not a perfect solution yet as there is no way to sort the extension buttons in a different order so that those that are used the most by the user are displayed in the visible area while the others are not. The extension buttons on the left are the ones that have been added first by the user which means that a user could theoretically uninstall all extensions and install the most popular ones first so that they are displayed even if the slider is used to hide some of the buttons from the toolbar.
It is very likely that the Google developers will add that slider to Google Chrome eventually and that the slider is just one of the new usability options in the web browser. An option to customize the placement of toolbars and elements on those toolbars just like Firefox offers would be welcome by most Chrome users.
The latest Chromium release can be downloaded at the Chromium snapshots site (via Techie Buzz)
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Thanks, I didn’t even think to see if I could drag (there’s no bar) the edge of the address bar. I don’t need such a long address bar, but it’s better than having all those logos there unnecessarily. By now in version 6, you can, of course, drag the icons into a different order. (You probably know this, just mentioning it for anyone who comes across this post as I did.)