

Chrome Web Store have a new look - B-Scan
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home?newlook

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jaredsohn
I was hoping that they restored the review ordering back to how it was.
(Google is aware of this and working on a fix (there is talk on the Chrome
extension developers mailing list); just hoped to see the fix now.)

I believe they now sort them by 'usefulness' when up until a month ago or so
they sorted them by date. The current order is annoying because 1) the top
reviews tend to be older and often talk about old bugs giving new potential
users inaccurate impressions, 2) it is harder to see the new reviews (although
the developer can log into a different interface and see them sorted by date),
and 3) it makes conversations between the developer and users harder to
follow.

The reason the last point is relevant is that for many users posting a review
is the most obvious way to mention bugs. They should let developers respond to
individual reviews and provide optional links to a bug tracker and a forum to
better move traffic there.

UPDATE: Noticed that it now only allows you to write one 'review' so a
developer can no longer respond multiple times; hopefully some of the above
suggestions will be implemented.

A couple of other unrelated changes I noticed:

* They include your Google profile info when you write a review; not sure if you can leave a review anonymously (beyond having an anonymous Google profile) anymore.

* They no longer show a count of how many people +1ed it (but still let you do so from there.)

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diamondhead
I agree. First couple of comments in my app's page are my replies to the users
questions. Which look nonsense since the questions are in random order...

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dpcan
You know when you go to Wal-Mart and there's that giant basket full of $5
movies? There "may" be a gem in there, but you have to stack and pile them all
over the place, dig through loads of repeat garbage, and just hope something
is in there you want. After 5 minutes you're frustrated because you just
wasted your time.

The Chrome Web Store is a pile of apps - especially games. Except there's no
way to pile, sort, and cart them. If you could at least STAR a game so you
could go back and look at the ones you've given a STAR to later, then it would
be helpful.

G+1 doesn't help because I don't want to +1 something that may suck. You CAN
create a bookmark while a pop-up of the app is showing, and when you return to
that bookmark, the app popup shows.

But you know what would make sense because it's the way SHOPPING HAS BEEN DONE
FOREVER? A ton of categories and sorting methods so you can browse small
niches of apps you are interested in, like Platform games, or RPG games, or
Sports games.

Not on the Chrome Web Store. Nope. Just GAMES. That's it. GAMES. Thomas the
Train is right next to Counter Strike.

Ridiculous.

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dclaysmith
Title change suggestion: "Chrome Web Store _has_ a new look"

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JoshTriplett
Possible culprit:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural#Discretionary_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural#Discretionary_plurals)

~~~
alastairpat
I disagree - I speak British English and have never seen Store as a plural
possessive before. I think it's just a mistake.

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chunkyslink
Wow thats one long page.

Seriously though I like it. I just kept scrolling and reading, scrolling and
reading. I think this worked well as I had no desire to look in any of the
categories and just wanted to browse. And browse I did.

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sudonim
I went to the link using safari and got the message:

"Sorry, we don't support your browser just yet."

Will the chrome web store _ever_ support other browsers? Seems like bad copy
otherwise.

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azakai
> Will the chrome web store _ever_ support other browsers?

It's very confusing.

On the one hand, it is the " __Chrome __Web Store". Not the "Google Web
Store", which is what we can assume they would call it if it were meant for
all browsers. Just like it isn't "Chrome Maps", it's "Google Maps". So the
name implies it is Chrome-only.

On the other hand, it does say "we don't support your browser just yet", as
you quote from there.

My bet is that they will never support other browsers, since apparently they
allow applications into the Chrome store that use Chrome-specific technologies
(NaCl, for example). So given that, the store's applications will not work in
all browsers anyhow.

And that is kind of worrying. A chrome-only store for __web __apps is against
the idea of an open web, where any website is accessible from any standards-
compliant browser.

~~~
azakai
To the people modding me down - can you explain why? I thought I gave a fair
analysis of the situation.

Is there something I'm missing that justifies downmodding me? Please tell me
hacker news isn't degenerating into reddit.

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buster
Wow, that really looks good, nothing i would have expected from the pre-Page
Google.

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Kylekramer
Looks pretty and I like the general trend of Google's new design, but it
horribly breaks search (example:
<https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/gmail?newlook>). I'd rather having
functioning ugly over broken sleek.

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lzm
Front page looks good, but I don't really like the popup format for the apps.
It feels too cramped.

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simonbrown
Most of my extensions don't have enough UI to justify the 1280x800 screenshot
it now requires (if you want to update an old extension or upload a new one),
so now the extension is hardly visible in them.

Edit: Scaling it up looks decent.

~~~
ortatherox
It looks like they don't have to, my favourite chrome extension Viumium just
uses a youtube videos as it's header.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dbepggeogbaibhgnhh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dbepggeogbaibhgnhhndojpepiihcmeb?newlook)

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galadriel
A bit off topic, but NPR chrome app is awesome! <http://www.npr.org/webapp>

If anything, new Chrome store design makes things more discover-able than
before.

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adrianwaj
I don't like it. Not enough whitespace, too colorful.

I think it'd be better if the middle column was a scrollable list and the
right column was fixed and display information when middle column boxes
hovered.

Also, if I were looking for browser addons, I'd be looking for a "Chrome
Extensions Center."

"Chrome Web Store" could mean many things. Web could mean anything so it
should be omitted, and store is misleading if things are free.

~~~
jaredsohn
Google had something like a Chrome Extensions Center before this but then
added apps that you can pay for and started calling it a store. Apple's
Appstore also calls itself a store, yet many of the downloads are free so
calling it that is not misleading, at least in a new way. I imagine it is
called a 'web store' since other stores tend to be either mobile (Apple,
Android, ...) or desktop (Mac App Store, new Windows 8 Store coming next year)
and it promotes the idea of a webbrowser being an operating system (albeit it
is redundant).

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jarek-foksa
The contrast between the body text and background is way too low (designers,
please read <http://contrastrebellion.com/>).

Having one scrolled window inside another scrolled window also seems to be a
bad idea, but overall this is a great improvement over the old design.

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jkn
I'm a bit surprised with the positive comments: don't you find the layout
confusing? It's hard to scroll horizontally and vertically with the eyes
especially with the diverse fonts, colors, etc. making up each app
description.

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lewispb
Wow, I thought I'd just stumbled across the Apple App Store. Just look at that
breadcrumb navigation!

~~~
jmitcheson
If it was Apple, the buttons would be done with images, and have nice corners
with aliasing. None of this horrible CSS business ;)

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sktrdie
Wow look at all the games! Are these all made with JavaScript and HTML5?

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abraham
They can be made with whatever web technology the developers want to use. I
believe however that Angry Birds is HTML5 though.

~~~
mmahemoff
Yep, it's written in GWT. [http://www.quora.com/Angry-Birds-game/How-did-
Rovio-build-it...](http://www.quora.com/Angry-Birds-game/How-did-Rovio-build-
its-Google-Chrome-version-of-Angry-Birds)

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ryanwhitney
Note: You aren't seeing the new design unless you're using Chrome.

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jacques_chester
Look around. It seems as though style changes are being rolled out across the
whole Google portfolio -- I've noticed changes to Blogger and Search during
the day.

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csomar
The problem with the Chrome Web Store is that 90% of the apps there are
bullshit. Most of them are simply shortcuts to Web App; which is in my opinion
quite disappointing. I was expecting to find applications similar to "Quick
Note"
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mijlebbfndhelmdpml...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mijlebbfndhelmdpmllgcfadlkankhok)).

The application shouldn't be in the cloud. It can save data their and requires
an Internet connection to work, but the application should be downloaded and
make heavy use of Chrome features. Applications should be picked carefully,
and only few should be there. Only the good ones stand out.

Actually, it's just a link farm, and a free advertising medium for many Web
Apps.

