Google will natively offer scrolling screenshots in Chrome – Frandroid

Google will integrate an API into Google Chrome allowing you to take screenshots of entire web pages on Android 12.

Google chrome

If there is one feature that is already present and particularly anticipated on Android, it is the scrolling screenshots. It must be said that Google has already tried to offer this type of functionality natively in its operating system, without ever pushing it to the final version. The manufacturers therefore had to integrate their own versions to their software interface to allow capturing an entire web page.

However, it seems that for the next version of Android, Android 12, expected in the fall, Google is trying to go through a derivative route in order to offer the screenshots by scrolling. As reported by the XDA Developers website, the Android 12 beta 3 already allows you to take advantage of this screenshot system, but not for all applications. Google Chrome, for example, doesn’t allow these scrolling screenshots to be used. A rather annoying restriction, since this type of functionality is mainly of interest to capture a web page.

The problem actually stems from the method Google implemented for scrolling screenshots in Android 12. As XDA Developers points out, it actually relies on Views, of the graphical interface elements of Android 12. However, these elements are not present in the Web pages which cannot therefore be captured in this way. To remedy this, Google has nonetheless developed a new API for developers so that users of their applications can take scrolling screenshots. Called ScrollCapture, this API has just arrived on Google Chrome.

Still a little patience

On the Chromium repository, an entry indicates that the browser will now be able to take advantage of scrolling capture for Android 12. However, some limitations are still in place, especially for AMP pages or web pages with multiple zones in which users can scroll.

For now, it is still only the development of the functionality. This is not yet available in the final version of Google Chrome. It will first have to go through the different Canary or Beta versions of Google’s browser. We can nevertheless hope for availability for the release of Android 12, expected by this fall.