With one of the Project Fugu team’s objectives being to make it possible for developers to do
anything on the web that platform-specific apps can, the team has been busy adding missing features
web developers needed to close this app gap. If you don’t believe me, just look at the
“Shipped” section of the Fugu API tracker. Here are the 55
shipped APIs, in order of least to most recently shipped:
It’s a long list, and there is more on our plate. There are still a couple of APIs and features
currently in developer trial (that is, implemented,
but behind a feature flag), some that we have started to
work on, and many under consideration. As you
can see, it’s not time to lean back and say we’re done.
Synchronous file methods for the origin private file system
Quite the opposite, rather than declaring our effort as completed, we’re actually just getting
started. For example, consider the chart below that shows
skyrocketing relative usage growth
of the
navigator.storage.getDirectory()
method, used as an entry point to the origin private file system (OPFS). This method is used, for
example, for
Photoshop’s high performance storage
needs, and which the storage community is
highly interested in
since the started deprecation of Web SQL and even before.
Now that more people use the OPFS, additional requirements have emerged. For example, the need for a
fully synchronous set of file methods in a worker context (see
whatwg/fs#7 for background). While new web APIs are
generally asynchronous, having synchronous methods would make working with the OPFS a lot simpler in
a Wasm context, and since this is happening in a worker, the main thread can’t be blocked.
Privacy improvements for the hardware APIs
Another example are the hardware APIs that allow you to connect to
HID, serial, USB,
Bluetooth, and NFC devices. While some of
these APIs have been around for a while, until recently there was no way to forget a device that you
had previously connected to. Now there is thanks to the
forget() methods for some of the APIs. For
example, here’s how to forget a previously connected serial device, which improves the privacy of
the API.
// Request a serial port.
const port = await navigator.serial.requestPort();
// Then later revoke permission to the serial port.
await port.forget();Refinements for the Multi-Screen Window Placement API
A final example is the
Multi-Screen Window Placement API, where, based on
developer feedback, the previously generic screen labels like "Internal Display 1" were replaced
with more meaningful labels like "Built-in Retina Display" so users can more easily associate
these labels with the screens of their multi-screen setup.
Conclusions
As you can see from just these three examples, Project Fugu is far from being done. Keep or start
using our APIs and send feedback. Since all Fugu specs are developed in the open on GitHub, you can
file a spec issue on the corresponding GitHub repo or add your thoughts to an existing issue. If you
find a bug with Chrome’s implementation, or discover that the implementation is different to the
spec, then file a bug at new.crbug.com. Be sure to include as much detail
as you can and provide simple instructions for reproducing.
And, if you are concerned about browser support, many Fugu APIs make for great progressive
enhancements. See my article
SVGcode: a PWA to convert raster images to SVG vector graphics for
inspiration.