Chrome 48 Beta: Present to Cast, custom notification buttons, and network estimation
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Unless otherwise noted, changes described below apply to the newest Chrome Beta channel release for Android, Chrome OS, Linux, Mac, and Windows.
Presentation API
Historically, sites have been unable to present content to nearby devices, which made it hard to build experiences like a slide “presenter mode” for the mobile web. The latest release of Chrome on Android now allows mobile sites to present to Google Cast devices using the standards-based Presentation API and the Cast Web SDK.
Custom buttons on notifications
Chrome 42 introduced the ability for users to receive push notifications from websites, allowing users to build deeper relationships with the sites they love. Usage of the feature has grown quickly, with Chrome now delivering more than 350 million push notifications every day. In the latest Chrome release, sites can now add custom buttons to notifications, enabling users to complete tasks entirely within the notification.
Notification actions in Chrome 48 on Android
Detecting maximum connection speed
A user’s mobile phone connects to the internet over anything from high quality WiFi to 2G, which has made it difficult to design the right mobile experience. Developers can now use NetworkInformation.downlinkMax to detect a device's maximum bandwidth so they can send the optimal resources for the connection speed. Sites can also respond to changes in connection quality using the NetworkInformation.onChange event handler.
Other features in this release
- The new DevTools security panel enables developers to understand the security state of a page to help them migrate their websites to HTTPS.
- WebRTC now supports the VP9 video codec, and can serve HD video at almost half the bandwidth of VP8 or H264.
- Web Audio JavaScript syntax can now be shortened and simplified with method chaining for AudioNode.connect() and AudioParam.connect() automation methods.
- The MediaStreamTrack.remote attribute allows sites to detect if a media stream is from a remote source.
- Sites can now detect key presses from a user without worrying about browser type or operating system using the KeyboardEvent.code attribute.
- Developers can now leverage JavaScript language behaviors not previously exposed in ES5 or below using the well-known symbols @@isConcatSpreadable, @@toPrimitive.
- ServiceWorkerRegistration.update() no longer bypasses the cache for update checks within 24 hours, improving spec compliance.
- The error attribute on IDBRequest and IDBTransaction will now return DOMException instead of DOMError to improve Chrome's spec compliance.
- The MediaStreamTrack.getSources() method has been deprecated in favor of MediaDevices.enumerateDevices().
- SVG glyph-orientation-horizontal and glyph-orientation-vertical properties have been removed in favor of the CSS text-orientation property.
- SVGElement.offset* properties and SVGPathSeg interfaces have been removed to improve spec compliance.
- The item() method has been removed from TextTrackList and TextTrackCueList to improve spec compliance.
- Developers can now build robust RTL text experiences using CSS Writing Modes Level 3 without prefixes.
Posted by Anton Vayvod, Presentation MC