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Issue 741964 link

Starred by 4 users

Issue metadata

Status: Assigned
Owner:
Last visit > 30 days ago
Cc:
Components:
EstimatedDays: ----
NextAction: ----
OS: Chrome
Pri: 2
Type: Bug



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Add canary to Chrome OS channel switch UI when in developer mode

Project Member Reported by jamescook@chromium.org, Jul 13 2017

Issue description

When a Chrome developer fixes something that needs to be backported to a branch the TPMs ask if it's been tested on canary. If you want to test a change yourself on canary you need to download an image, since we don't let you switch to canary in the settings menu. There's a magic crosh command ("live_in_a_coal_mine") to switch to canary but that command isn't discoverable and it's only available on dev-mode devices.

We don't want to make it too easy to get onto canary channel, since it could brick the device or break the updater. Also, we want to avoid issues with device ownership and enrollment. See the live_in_a_coal_mine CL https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/344670/ - we should still limit the actual channel switch to developer mode. However, we should at least mention it in the non-developer-mode UI to help developers discover how to switch.

Proposed UI for "Change channel" dialog (not in developer mode):

(*) Stable
( ) Beta
( ) Dev - unstable
Canary channel available in developer mode  <- new label

"Change channel" dialog (in developer mode):

(*) Stable
( ) Beta
( ) Dev - unstable
( ) Canary - may damage your device

Notes:
* This changes the dev channel text from "Developer - unstable" to "Dev - unstable". That's to help emphasize that "dev channel" and "developer mode" are unrelated. Our help center refers to "dev channel" not "developer channel" https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1086915?hl=en
* I'm aware canary channel does not *require* developer mode. However, that's a piece of complexity that doesn't belong in this UI. People who are able to find and download canary images are likely to know that they will work without dev-mode.
* I say "may damage" because that matches the boot screen "Chrome OS is missing or damaged" text, and I think it is both brief and sufficiently scary.

For implementation: Chrome OS webui already knows if the machine is in developer mode, since OOBE uses that information to show the "Enable debugging features" link.

 
Cc: -zelidrag@chromium.org jamescook@chromium.org
Owner: zelidrag@chromium.org
Zel, can you find an owner for this?

Code for the webui is in //chrome/browser/resources/about_page/.

For the UI, we could also show "canary channel" in the list of radio buttons all the time, but keep it disabled with a tooltip that says to switch to developer mode.

Comment 2 by dpa...@chromium.org, Jul 13 2017

Cc: steve...@chromium.org michae...@chromium.org
chrome/browser/resources/about_page holds the old (and obsolete) About page. The new location of the code is at https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/chrome/browser/resources/settings/about_page.

Comment 3 by dpa...@chromium.org, Jul 13 2017

Actually to be more accurate, there is no chrome/browser/resources/about_page folder. The previous chrome://help page code is at [1] and the new is at [2].

[1] https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/chrome/browser/resources/help/
[2] https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/chrome/browser/resources/settings/about_page.

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