[Dev Channel] Google Chrome 4.0.237 Released


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The Dev channel has been updated to 4.0.237.0 for all platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux). The focus on this release has been feature polish, stability improvement, and extensions work.

Mac

  • Significant bookmark bar improvements.

Linux

  • [r29163, r29299] Audio playing improvements in video/audio tags. (Issues: 23974, 20945, 17703)
  • [r29261] Fix international keyboard handling (alt-gr, ctrl+f). (Issues: 10846, 2215, 21471)
  • [r29657] ~ now works in the Omnibox to expand to home directories. (Issue: 18200)
  • [r29857] Fix conflicts between accelerator keys and HTML DOM accesskeys. (Issue: 21624)
  • [r29903] Inactive pinned tabs on linux throb when the title changes. (Issue: 25308)
  • Text drawn over rounded corners (including buttons) is no longer blurry. This affected a variety of sites, including Google Calendar and Google Reader.
  • As an experiment, we've changed the way clicking in the omnibox works. Leave a comment on the bug if it bothers you.

Extensions

  • Lots of work to polish and stabilize the browser and page action APIs:
    • [r29556] Add badge text color API. Also change color APIs from ARGB to RGBA (breaking change, sorry!) (Issues: 24635, 24644, 25215)
    • [r29152, r29785] Browser actions (buttons, popups) are now implemented. (Issue: 23882, 23897)
    • [r29997] Add support for tab-specific state to browser actions. Also, fix the bug where only the first call to setIcon() works. (Issues: 24669,24472)
    • [r30346] Constrain browser action popups to a min/max size. Also fix some glitches in popup sizing. (Issue 25214)
    • [r30499] Use a better signature for the new page actions API (chrome.pageAction.* instead of chrome.pageActions.*). This is technically a breaking change, but hopefully not too many people had gotten around to using the new API yet. (Issue 25833)

    [*][r29665] Remove toolstrips on linux. They were causing lots of crashes and are going away soon anyway. (Issue 25106)

    [*][r29911] Add chrome.extension.sendRequest() -- a simpler way to do content script messaging. (Issue 23865)

    [*][r30341] Add new event chrome.tabs.onStatusChange. This makes the common case of wanting to know when tabs load much easier. (Issue 21729)

    [*]Other miscellaneous cleanup:

    • [r29498] Correctly handle reloading in the task manager (Issue 18693)
    • [r29555] Fix bug where content scripts did not always apply to first page load (Issue 11547)
    • [r29714, r29922, r29935, r30219] Various cleanup for the extension management page (Issues 12119, 25509, 25471)
    • [r30091] Improve install UI on mac (Issue 19654)
    • [r30312] Filter out hidden files when loading and packing extensions (Issue 23004)
    • [r30326] Copy chrome.extension.getTabContentses() to chrome.extension.getExtensionTabs(). Nobody liked the old name. (Issue 21433)
    • [r30384] Use the puzzle piece as the default extension icon. (Issue 25906)
    • [r30481] Hide the theme install bubble a little earlier. It was overlapping with the install dialog on linux. (Issue 26130)

Known Issues:

  • [r26861] - Autocomplete/ select box values are not being correctly populated in Linux. As a work around you can use the up/down arrow keys to view the current selection.
  • [r26600] - Task bar icon in Windows does not update/ display correctly.

More details about additional changes are available in the svn log of all revisions.

You can find out about getting on the Dev channel here: Early Access Release Channels (Chromium Developer Documentation).

If you find new issues, please let us know by filing a bug at Project hosting on Google Code.

Anthony Laforge

Engineering Program Manager

softicon.gif Download: Google Chrome 4.0.237.0 | Mac | Linux

.237, which was released about a day ago, has a white on white text issue on drop-down boxes that negatively affects Neowin.

It has already been fixed in .239 (released a few hours ago) so I'd recommend everyone to pass on this build.

.237, which was released about a day ago, has a white on white text issue on drop-down boxes that negatively affects Neowin.

It has already been fixed in .239 (released a few hours ago) so I'd recommend everyone to pass on this build.

As soon as I opened the About Dialog it updated to .237, guess I'll have to wait a bit for .239. :p

5d1fc594.png

I have no clue what happened, so I've given up... for now. ;)

Been having some of the same problem you are. The last couple of builds have been quite slow for me, especially after long usage it just seems to completely slow down the browsing to a point that I have to restart the computer to fix the issue. Then again, this is the dev channel and they are adding a lot of code for the extensions module. Some of those changes might be effecting the normal browsing as a result. I guess we just have to be patient and hope they do some major bug fix releases soon. I have switched to Firefox for at least some of my browsing in the mean time.

Been having some of the same problem you are. The last couple of builds have been quite slow for me, especially after long usage it just seems to completely slow down the browsing to a point that I have to restart the computer to fix the issue. Then again, this is the dev channel and they are adding a lot of code for the extensions module. Some of those changes might be effecting the normal browsing as a result. I guess we just have to be patient and hope they do some major bug fix releases soon. I have switched to Firefox for at least some of my browsing in the mean time.

Too true. :p It's not like these are permanent bugs. :lol:

Edited by WizardCM
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