The latest beta version of Chrome, version 111, includes a test version of a feature that could make the browser’s picture-in-picture feature significantly more useful. Instead of just being for playing videos, Google is looking to allow it to display basically any web content in a floating window that stays on top of all your other windows.
There are quite a few ways this feature, which is called Document Picture-in-Picture, could be useful. Some of Google’s examples they’re mostly just twists on how picture-in-picture already works, like video players but with a custom user interface (like buttons to like or dislike a video, a timeline, or subtitles), or a mini player for video conferencing that lets you see a grid of people and access controls to mute or raise your hand.
But it’s easy to imagine complete applets also taking advantage of the API; there is a pomodoro website that is already using it with supported browsers, and i would definitely use a website that would give me a notepad or picture-in-picture to-do list. Google also suggests that the feature could be used to display, for example, a playlist for your music.
Of course, if many sites start using the full document image-in-image feature, it would be nice to see the feature come to browsers with non-Chromium engines. However, it is currently unclear if that will happen. One of the feature’s developers asked the teams associated with Firefox and Safari for his position on the matter, and I did not get a definitive answer. However, the folks on the Mozilla team raised some concerns about using the feature as a place for annoying popups, and the folks at Apple weren’t sure if it would be possible on iOS.
According to the Chrome Platform Health Tracking, the feature will be tested up to Chrome 115, which will likely be released sometime in June. After that, the developers will likely consider any feedback they receive on the feature and decide how to move forward.
If you want to turn on support for the feature, you can enable its flag by pasting chrome://flags/#document-image-in-image-api in the URL bar and selecting activated from the drop down menu. At this point, there probably aren’t many sites that support it, but you might find some.
