

Ever notice Chrome has no "Set image as wallpaper"? - ivank
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1019

======
gmurphy
I'm the 'Glen' from the Chromium UI team referred to in the bug report; we
actually do torture ourselves over questions like this - it comes down to
painful decisions about keeping Chrome lightweight.

Sure, a single small context menu item might not make a lot of difference, but
there are thousands of features like this, each servicing a different small
set of people. In addition to the interface overhead of having all of those
features, the engineering (don't forget cross platform, keeping it up to date,
translation into 40 languages, and support) is never as small as you think it
is.

It's painful because taken individually, we know we could fix an issue and
make a set of people happy, but there are never ending piles of these issues,
and we none of us want to let Chrome become a never-ending pile of menu items
and buttons and extra leading to cruft and bugs.

Now I have made myself sad.

~~~
travisjeffery
I was doing my pre-sleep reading of HN on my iPad and got out of bed and on my
computer to thank you and tell you that I'm very happy you guys have the balls
to say no and choose what's best over the public opinion.

You guys have made caught up and surpassed in many ways every other web
browser out there in a staggering pace -- seriously, congrats to that.
Chromium is my default browser and I love and look forward to what you guys
are doing! :D

------
bruceboughton
Who says it's a bug? Maybe they've omitted it on purpose to de-emphasise the
desktop/OS as part of their Chrome OS play. Still a pain if you use it though.

As an aside, it's interesting that the reporter says it's their favourite
feature. Either they're emphasising for effect or they don't think of most of
Chrome's core features as features.

~~~
ulf
I agree, they gradually push the user towards a browser-only environment. When
you have no wallpaper, you do not like to look at your desktop that much. But
when they are ready to make Chrome OS more mainstream, the Chrome users may go
easier in the transition.

~~~
pyre

      >  When you have no wallpaper, you do not like to look at your desktop that much
    

Because the browser is the only/best way to set your wallpaper? :-\

------
davvid
That thread was hilarious.

"Definitely thinking of going back to firefox over this"

"Stupid Google; I set new backgrounds more often than I download pictures by
far. This is not bloat. Breathtaking arrogance and disrespectful attitude
toward users."

:-) are we sure this isn't some kinda 4chan joke?

~~~
wtracy
Five comments in, I was absolutely certain this was a joke thread. O_o

------
Zak
I've never noticed the lack of this feature in Chrome, and I don't think I've
ever used it in a browser that had it.

Maybe this is a feature an extension could handle, assuming Chrome's security
model allows it.

The security model is one area in which Chrome could, perhaps do with a bit
more complexity. The fact that I can't use mouse gestures on local directory
listings or the new tab page annoys me. I want to mark the mouse gestures
extension as trusted and therefore allowed to run on any page Chrome can
display.

------
nakkiel
I didn't notice it was lacking this option until this reading. Like most other
people here when I see my desktop background it means I'm shutting down the
computer.

Funnily though, the Google folks are silly enough to give people the ability
to add a background image feature to their that-many hits/day search page, but
not the user's own desktop..

------
Xuzz
People get so worked up about the little things.

------
patrickaljord
This already works on KDE, just drag the picture from chrome to the desktop
and you'll be asked to set it as wallpaper.

~~~
corin_
The chances of anyone requesting this feature being a linux user are slim.

------
InclinedPlane
This is a feature I'm glad Chrome lacks. This is also an excellent reason why
you need a deep understanding of your product and its uses so that you know
when to ignore user suggestions. Users will beg and plead for you to ruin your
product if you're not careful. Remember the importance of listening to your
users, but also remember that your product is not a pot-luck.

------
soyelmango
After reading this, I've just noticed that my FF _has_ the option. I've never
felt the urge to use it - probably because I have a (127,127,127) background
so that I can actually see my icons and text.

I think Glen justifies it well - it's not a tiny little feature, it's a load
of unnecessary overhead. Good on him and the team for standing their ground.

Reading some of the comments on the tracker, I'm amazed at how much of a _must
have_ they consider it.

------
wccrawford
It occurs to me that I take my background a lot more seriously than most
people. I can't imagine using that feature to set my background. I would want
to have a good view of the background while I do it, and I would want to make
sure I like it more than my current background, or any other options at the
moment.

Also, I change backgrounds ... Well, almost never.

And finally: I have multiple monitors and they can have different backgrounds.

------
mohamedmansour
Hey Glen, its Mohamed (Chromium contributor/committer), I decided to create an
extension for this feature and it works great. Hopefully those people who are
left out will be happy again, and continue to use Chromium. It is uploaded to
the Gallery as of 30 minutes ago!
[https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ddkmiidlgnkhnfhi...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ddkmiidlgnkhnfhigdpadkaamogngkin)

------
ivank
(I didn't notice, I just somehow landed on it via the bug tracker.) The
tracker has quite a few of these amusing threads. You'll frequently notice: 1)
it's only one line of code! 2) this bug has been open for a year - outrageous!

Edit: the WontFix reason from a Googler is at
[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1019#c16...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1019#c165)

------
cjg
The thing that struck me was the level of passion that the users who wanted
the feature had.

Also the range of argument quality: "i think ya'll should be able to have your
thing mothafucka" vs "Lengthening the context menu? Finally a REASON as to the
WontFix. A seriously flawed one, since you could easily allow your users to
customize things such as what's displayed in the context menu."

------
mahmud
I haven't seen my actual desktop for _ages_. I always have applications,
editors and viewers running.

------
nitrogen
Is it possible for a Chrome extension to access desktop settings, such as the
background?

~~~
ivank
"Theoretically you could make an extension for this using the Context Menus
API
([http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/dev/contextMenus.ht...](http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/dev/contextMenus.html))
and an NPAPI plugin... "

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1019#c45...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1019#c455)

------
cstuder
Obligatory Userfriendly-link:
<http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20000229>

Perhaps that's why.

------
Maakuth
Talk about building a bike shed :D

Personally I think I've used that feature in other browsers more as an
accident than on purpose, so I see why they don't have it.

------
jarin
"Comment 32 by orphenshadow, Jan 24, 2009 I love chrome, but this is one of
the main reasons it is 2nd behind firefox."

Clearly.

------
noverloop
This thread made me realize how disciplined a team must be to resist feature
creep.

------
sid0
Chrome's philosophy is self-consistent, and that's probably the only objective
metric, even though this means that they produce (to me) a useless browser. (I
use set image as wallpaper all the time.)

------
danielnicollet
maybe that's why I use Chrome and dread IE ;-)

------
pendragon
Hmm: "direct from our Browser, like we have since the dawn of the internet".
I'm young, and the internet existed when I was born, but I don't think there
was a web in the internet's "dawn", let alone graphical web browsers. Still,
aren't applications made for their users? The use case would be commoner among
the less computer savvy people I suppose (i.e. not the three Google people).

~~~
corin_
People who wouldn't use that feature and aren't tech-savvy won't bother making
the argument against it, so it falls to the tech-savvy ones to make the point
already made in these HN comments, that if they catered to every small request
the browser would end up too bloated.

