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Keyboard controls for video inside the Chrome browser are scant at best. For most video content, whether Flash or HTML5, basic keyboard functions exist but require a lot of tabbing to focus on the particular control element you are wanting to use.
A recent update to Chrome Canary is looking to make navigating videos a little more natural. Google Guru François Beaufort, share the latest addition to the experimental channel of Chrome in a Google+ post.
The feature will only pertain to HTML5 video at this point but the function will give users basic keyboard controls like scrubbing, play/pause and volume up/down simply by having the video in focus.
When a video loads on a page, one tab to bring the media “in focus” will then trigger the ability to scrub with the left/right arrow keys. Play/pause is the traditional space bar input and volume is controlled by the up/down arrow keys.
Check out the details on Google+ and if you’d like to give it a try you will need to download Google Chrome Canary for Mac, PC or Android. I have tested this with Chrome for Android on my Chromebox and it worked like a charm aside from the volume controls.
This feature is another one of those minute details that add to a more seamless workflow when using Chrome. I’ll be digging around Chrome OS Canary later today to see if we can expect this feature to come to Chromebooks.
