Developers are gearing up for the big extensions support roll out coming soon

Nov 26, 2009 09:44 GMT  ·  By
Aviary has released a Chrome version of its popular Firefox Screen Capture add-on
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   Aviary has released a Chrome version of its popular Firefox Screen Capture add-on

Developers are abuzz over the latest thing to come to Google Chrome. It's not a new feature in the browser itself, it's the Extensions Gallery which is about to launch bringing add-on goodness to Chrome. The browser has had some support for extensions for several months, but now that Google thinks it's ready for a wider roll out, developers are not wasting any time and starting to support the platform. Aviary, a startup specializing in web-based image editors and now even audio editors, has been working on a Chrome extension of its own similar to the Firefox add-on it already offers.

Installing the Aviary Screen Capture extension for Google Chrome is as easy as any other Chrome extension. It only works on the dev channel builds of Google Chrome, but extensions support should be coming to the beta soon. Once you're done, a small icon will show up in the right side of the toolbar. With the icon you can access any Aviary tool from a drop-down menu or access the website. The interesting part, though, is the screenshot capture option right at the top of the menu. This is the reason to install the extension in the first place and the feature is one of the easiest ways to capture a web page.

All it takes is one click and the screenshot opens up in the default Aviary image editor you have setup. Initially, this is set to Aviary Image Markup, which is more of a blogger's tool with little edition options focused on making annotations and comments on the image. If you're looking for something with a bit more horsepower, you can switch to the Aviary Image Editor, which is a traditional editor with most of the basic tools you'd expect. It's not going to replace Photoshop any time soon, but it can get the job done.

The capture tool isn't an exact equivalent to the one in the Firefox add-on, you can't capture the entire page, the content below the fold, and it doesn't do Flash either; however, the developers say these should be coming soon. The extension is useful enough for Chrome, but the real promise for the Aviary suite is Chrome OS, Google's upcoming, exclusively web-based operating system, for which these online tools are a perfect match.

Aviary Screen Capture 0.4 for Google Chrome is available for download here. Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.

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Aviary has released a Chrome version of its popular Firefox Screen Capture add-on
Aviary Screen Capture for Google Chrome
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