Chrome Capabilities

 This was another journal I pulled from my computer files (it was originally a txt file):

 

 

I was getting frustrated at my school Chromebook today because of what I mentioned yesterday about the search feature. This time though, I noticed a bunch of OTHER issues that I didn't even talk about. In addition to it being on the left side, the search key is actually super laggy and takes like a full second for the search panel to appear. I have two possible theories as to why this happens:

        1) The Chromebook is just slow and takes time to display that menu
        2) They intentionally programmed it to not immediately appear because there are keyboard shortcuts that involve the search key. If it appeared instantly, it might cause issues with those shortcuts.

    Either way, as someone who actually uses the search feature on any computer (Mac and Linux), it is incredibly annoying to have to wait a second for the window
to appear, and then type in your query. If you don't wait and immediately start typing, the window won't open and nothing will happen.

Another annoying thing has to do with what actually appears when you search something. Since it searches through your files and frequently visited websites, it's possible that two seperate things with similar/the same name can appear at the same time. If the one you actually want isn't the first option, you have to move you hand off the keyboard and use the arrow keys to tab down or click on it with your trackpad. This is a tremendous waste of time and feels so tedious, almost as if it was pointless to even use the search feature in the first place. In my case, I wanted to search for "Chrome" to quickly open the browser, but instead my document "ChromeOS tips" kept appearing before it. The more annoying part is that sometimes Google Chrome would have priority, and sometimes the doc would. I don't understand why it couldn't just pick one and be consistent. Or better yet, have any app that you search for have priority. If you want to have the file/other thing appear first (in this case, my doc), then make it so that if you further specify in your search, it appears. Example:

 - I search "chrome", and the browser opens
 - I search "chromeOS t" and the doc appears

 IDK what it is, but MacOS and KDE Arch Linux got their search system down to a tea. It feels so good and accurate to search for anything on my Mac. ChromeOS has a long way to go.


Besides yapping about the search tool for the entire time, let's talk about other "Chrome Capabilities". Google Classroom. The weirdest web app ever.

On it's surface, it may not seem that weird to you. It's just an app mostly for schools that let's teachers post work, announcements, or resources to their students digitally. It's also free. However, you don't need to be in a school to use it, and you obviously don't need to be a teacher either. Sure, some features are gone if you're not using a school account, but who cares. To me, it could become like a subreddit. You have a subject (the r/), and if you let your students (members) post, they can pretty much post whatever they like. The teachers of the class will be the mods. I'm not sure if Google moderates or watches over what is posted on Google Classrooms, and I know it won't be school related at all. Either way, it's interesting to me how a Google Classroom class code link could be distributed and essentially become it's own social media page for whatever you want. I've seen some online were people post memes or other stuff like that. The only issue I think is with the class size, as with a personal account you're limited to 250 people per class. With a G Suite account (not free) you can have like 1000, which to me is insane.