Extension URL: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/boards-for-trello/eknhddnoflchkcccjgdddmnimjggiona?hl=en
OS platform: Windows-10 desktop
Chrome version: 53.0.2785.70 and 53.0.2785.57.
Device pixel ratio: 1

Didn't observe any blurriness with the above extension and test environment. Attached is the screen-shot of the same.

thdoan@: Could you please provide any such extension URL where the blurriness is seen and also please mention the device scale factor of your system as well.


Thank you!

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#1: your example is invalid for 1x pixel ratio case because the extension you linked explicitly sets 38px icon in its background.js thus ignoring 19px icon specified in manifest.json. In other words this extenion's icon is always stretched on 1x scale displays.

Here you go...

BlurryExt.zip - sample extension using 19x19 and 38x38 icons as instructed in the official docs.

SharpExt.zip - using 16x16 and 32x32 icons instead, which results in a noticeably sharper icon.

icon_comparison.png - blurry icon (BlurryExt) is on the left; sharp icon (SharpExt) is on the right. It's obvious without zooming in that the left icon is downscaled.

It appears that the rendering since the Material Design update has been changed to render in 16x16/32x32 size instead of 19x19/38x38, hence the blurriness.

My setup: Windows 7 Pro with 1920x1080 desktop monitor (24" Samsung SyncMaster SA350).

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Here is another image that better demonstrates the very poor icon rendering in Chrome 53 beta. The icon on the left is a screen capture of what's being rendered in the toolbar (looks like 19x19 downscaled to 16x16); the icon on the right is what it's supposed to look like (19x19).

Please make this a high priority fix since the poor _perceived_ quality of extension icons might turn people off.

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I just asked Devlin about this and he said that estade@ made a bunch of improvements that might be rolling out in M54? To the original reporter: can you try grabbing a copy of chrome canary (can be installed side-by-side with stable/beta/dev channel of chrome) and see if things look any better to you?

I forgot to mention: we also allow you to specify any size icons in your manifest, so you can also give 16px icons and IIUC those won't be subject to any resizing. 

This is working as intended. The above analysis is correct; yes, we are downscaling from 19x19 to 16x16. You can update your extension to provide 16x16 assets (and/or 32x32 for retina displays, and/or 24x24 for surface pro which uses 1.5x dsf).

Yes, it's unfortunate that some extensions authors won't change their icons and downscaling can sometimes look bad.

I'm not sure what fix thdoan would like to see implemented. Changing back to rendering at 19x19? I don't think that will happen.

@estade Thanks for the clarification. I didn't get the memo that icons will start to be rendered in 16x16 instead of 19x19 starting with Chrome v53. I will certainly update all my extensions when v53 releases to stable channel.

"Yes, it's unfortunate that some extensions authors won't change their icons and downscaling can sometimes look bad." - True that some might not bother to update the icons, but there are probably a lot more developers in my boat who may not be aware of this change. The only reason I noticed is that I use Chrome v53 at work; if I'm on the stable channel I would never know.

Maybe developers should sync up with the documentation team to give a heads up that icon rendering will be changing in the next version because it is still instructing developers to specify 19x19 / 32x32 sizes:

https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/browserAction

Correction: Maybe developers should sync up with the documentation team to give a heads up that icon rendering will be changing in the next version because it is still instructing developers to specify 19x19 / 38x38 sizes.

The manifest.json example should be changed to:

      {
        "name": "My extension",
        ...
        "browser_action": {
          "default_icon": {                    // optional
            "16": "images/icon16.png",         // optional
            "24": "images/icon24.png",         // optional
            "32": "images/icon32.png"          // optional
          },
          "default_title": "Google Mail",      // optional; shown in tooltip
          "default_popup": "popup.html"        // optional
        },
        ...
      }

Yes, we may have dropped the ball a bit in communication. I think I prepared an email for the mailing list but it was never sent. Perhaps Devlin can comment on how we can best keep developers abreast of changes.

also +mkearney for doc updates (I'm pretty sure we discussed this before but perhaps failed to file a bug?)

@9, 10: Yes, we absolutely need to do a better job documenting this, and in general announcing changes.  We'll usually send out an announcement email on the group chromium-extensions@chromium.org, but this isn't a great platform because it's a) obscure and b) too noisy (and as estade@ mentioned, I don't think the email for this particular change was ever sent - partly because the goal was to make it as non-breaking as possible).

As a longer-term goal, it would be great to have a portion of the documentation announcing new and upcoming changes, and that's something we're looking into.

"As a longer-term goal, it would be great to have a portion of the documentation announcing new and upcoming changes, and that's something we're looking into." -- There's currently https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/whats_new, but that hasn't been updated since v46. There's also http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com, which I'm guessing gets more exposure than the What's New page. Maybe you can consolidate the content somehow, like replacing the What's New page with an RSS widget that pulls content from the Chrome Releases blog which you could designate as your main changelog for upcoming changes. Just a thought.

 Issue 645689  has been merged into this issue.