Proposal: opt-out to transformations of extension icons

[carlosjeurissen]

Safari applies a bunch of magic to extension action icons. As mentioned here: lapcat/SafariExtensions#56

Similar issues happen when setting the action icon with a canvas. Extension developers would like to be able to opt-out to this kind of treatment. A potential way to address this would be a new property in the manifest action property. Something like action.icon_transformations: false. Open to other suggestions.

In any case, having documentation on what kind of transformations browsers apply to action icons is very useful.

[oliverdunk]

Removing the needs-triage: chrome label - we don't apply any transformations beyond resizing to icons.

[xeenon]

This is not likely something we could support in Safari. We have user privacy reasons we do some of the transforms we do.

I'd like to know more specifics on what you want to opt-out of though.

[carlosjeurissen]

@xeenon One of the reasons is whitespace around your icon. If the icon is not edge to edge, Safari removes the whitespace and scales the icon up, making it nolonger pixelperfect. There are a bunch of other situations mentioned:
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2024/11/2.html

Can you elaborate a bit on the privacy reasons for some of the transforms?