5 new Chrome OS options it is best to discover proper now
Got a Chromebook? These superior, principally out-of-sight choices will grant your pc new powers and alter the best way you’re employed (for actual!).
Videoplasty.com / Google / JR Raphael
(CC BY-SA 4.0)
Android could also be Google’s highest profile platform, however Chrome OS is arguably the place the place the quickest and most fun progress tends to go down today.
Every 12 months as of late, we see leaps and bounds being made in how Chromebooks work and what they’re able to doing — the forms of applications they’re in a position to run, the sorts of benefits they’re in a position to provide, and the attention-grabbing methods they’re in a position to work together with Android to create a extra related and cohesive-feeling Google ecosystem expertise.
And whereas tons o’ of us are quick to jot down Chrome OS off as an irrelevant experiment, let me remind you: Those sentiments are primarily based totally on outdated myths from the platform’s earliest days. Chrome OS is sort of a decade previous now, and Chromebooks at present are surprisingly succesful — virtually sarcastically so, given the product’s unique restricted objective. What’s extra, they’re really unbelievable frequent, with an ever-expanding presence not solely within the training area but additionally within the enterprise and common ol’ client realms. Heck, they even outsold Macs in some current quarters. (How ’bout them apples?!)
So, yeah: When somebody scoffs on the very thought of Chrome OS, their remark is often much less concerning the platform’s relevance and extra about their very own ignorance. Chromebooks are more and more subtle and priceless productiveness instruments — and from the appears of it, their progress and improvement will not be slowing down anytime quickly.
Here are 5 attention-grabbing components Google’s acquired cookin’ with Chrome OS proper now — together with one which’s already broadly rolled out and 4 which are below improvement however available, if you know the way to search out ’em.
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(Note that the majority of those new options revolve across the present Chrome OS 97 launch, which is within the midst of rolling out to Chromebooks large and much as we converse. You can affirm that it is in your Chromebook by clicking the clock within the lower-right nook of the display screen after which clicking the gear-shaped settings icon and deciding on “About Chrome OS” in the primary system settings menu. If you do not see Chrome OS 97 listed on the high of the display screen, strive clicking the Check for Updates button — and if nothing exhibits up as being obtainable, give it a day or two and examine again once more!)
Chrome OS function No. 1: A brand new calendar view
For all of its progress, one factor Chrome OS has curiously at all times lacked is the straightforward integration of a calendar into its essential desktop interface. Especially when you think about the truth that Google is the corporate answerable for the calendar app so many people depend on — y’know, that little ol’ factor known as Google Calendar — it is vexing to have a built-in calendar perform M.I.A. on the platform all this time.
Well, as of this newest Chrome OS model, coloration your self befuddled no extra: With a single six-second adjustment, you’ll be able to (a) add the date proper into your Chromebook’s shelf, a.ok.a. the taskbar space — and (b) have a full month overview simply two extra clicks away everytime you want it.
See?
JR
Tada! Here’s easy methods to make it occur by yourself machine:
- Type chrome:flags into the browser’s tackle bar.
- Type calendar into the search field on the high of the display screen that comes up.
- See the road labeled “Productivity experiment: Monthly Calendar View”? Click the field subsequent to it and alter its standing from “Default” to “Enabled.”
- Eat a hoagie, if hungry. (Not instantly related however advisable however.)
- Click the blue Restart button on the backside of the display screen.
And that is it: When your system comes again up, you oughta see the date within the lower-right nook of the display screen. Click it, then click on the date on the Quick Settings panel that pops up, and your long-awaited month-to-month view can be proper in entrance of your suspiciously sticky face.
Chrome OS function No. 2: A wiser web-wide search system
Ever end up trying to find one thing, then clicking on a end in Google — and seconds later, realizing you have to look additional down the search outcomes record?
This subsequent new Chrome OS function is designed to handle that very scenario, and upon getting it enabled, you could by no means need to return.
It’s known as Side Search, and it creates a brand new icon in your browser’s tackle bar that seems anytime you’ve got carried out a search in Google after which clicked via to a end result.
Click that icon — a small Google-themed “G” within the upper-left nook, alongside the instructions for shifting again, shifting ahead, and refreshing — and candy sassy molassy, wouldya take a look at what occurs?
JR
There, proper alongside the web page you are viewing, seems a sized-down view of the identical search outcomes you have been gazing uponst a mere second earlier. And you’ll be able to proceed clicking via ’em as a lot as your unusually sticky coronary heart wishes — with every web page opening up inside the identical panel-adjacent body by default (although you could possibly additionally decide to open it in a separate new tab if you would like, in fact).
To get this beaut of an possibility to look:
- Once once more, sort chrome:flags into your browser’s tackle bar.
- Now sort facet search into the field on the high of the display screen that comes up.
- Find the road labeled “Side Search” and alter its setting from “Default” to “Enabled.”
- Click that blue Restart button to make the modifications apply.
Just remember to carry out a daily Google search as soon as your Chromebook comes again on-line, then search for the “G” icon within the upper-left nook of the browser to search out and activate your fancy new panel after you’ve got clicked on one thing from the outcomes.
Chrome OS function No. 3: More gooder grammars
No matter how crafty of a linguist you could be, even the brightest bulbs amongst us are responsible of creating the occasional grammatical goof. (Yes, even I are responsible.) And whereas Google-scented providers reminiscent of Gmail and Docs provide their very own on-demand grammar checking programs, your on you are personal when yo’u’re coming into textual content into another area on the world large interwhoomps. (I’m fairly certain I acquired all of that proper, sure?)
Well, worry no extra, ‘trigger Chrome OS is right here to assist. The newest Chromebook software program has a spiffy new system for checking your grammar wherever on the internet — be it in your organization’s content material administration service and even only a common ol’ type on a random web site — after which alerting you to any linguistic issues earlier than it is too late.
When your digital editor buddy detects one thing amiss, it will place a dotted blue line beneath it — like this:
JR
And clicking that textual content will pull up a suggestion for fixing up your phrases and saving your self some face.
JR
Best of all? The system works each on-line and offline, so you’ll be able to relaxation simple figuring out your most mortifying errors will at all times get caught — even when your Wi-Fi is letting you down.
Chrome OS function No. 4: A lighter look
This subsequent new Chrome OS function is only superficial, however hey: Sometimes, a freshened-up look could make a surprisingly massive distinction in your demeanor and your skill to focus.
One fast flip of a change in your Chromebook’s engine room, and bam! Check it out — a brand new mild theme of your whole system interface:
JR
Kinda purty, would not ya say?
What’s particularly attention-grabbing about this under-wraps possibility is that after it is activated, you’ll be able to toggle the lighter look on or off through the “Dark Mode” setting in your Chromebook’s Quick Settings space — and there, you will discover an extremely intriguing further addition:
JR
Yep — appears like Google’s cookin’ up an Android-12-inspired Material-You-like system for mechanically theming your entire Chrome OS interface to match your present wallpaper at any given second. It would not appear to be doing a lot for me in the intervening time (bear in mind, that is technically an under-development function we’re exploring right here), nevertheless it’s actually one thing to regulate because the weeks go by.
For now, to present your self the lighter interface look:
- Type chrome:flags into your browser’s tackle bar.
- Type mild mode into the search field on the display screen that comes up.
- Click the field subsequent to “Dark/mild mode of system UI” and alter it from “Default” to “Enabled.”
- Click the blue Relaunch button on the backside of the display screen.
My, you are abruptly wanting quite dapper.
Chrome OS function No. 5: A brand new and improved app launcher
We’re nearing the tip of this vigorous, beautiful record, however do not fret your biscuits an excessive amount of — ‘trigger we have positively saved the most effective for final.
This remaining tucked-away Chrome OS deal with is definitely one which’s been quietly obtainable within the software program for a short time now. In reality, we talked about it late final 12 months, as you’ve got been in a position to dig up and allow a model of it since all the best way again within the Chrome OS 94 period (ah, less complicated occasions).
But it is come a good distance since then — and whether or not you checked it out up to now or are scratching your flaky noggin in confusion and wishing I’d simply clarify what I’m speaking about already, it is properly value giving a glance now.
The function of which I converse is a very reimagined model of the Chrome OS app launcher — the panel that pops up whenever you click on the circle-shaped icon within the lower-left nook of the display screen or press the Everything button (also referred to as the Launcher key, the Search key, and “that one button the place Caps Lock often goes”) in your Chromebook’s keyboard.
Instead of being the same old full-screen, Android-app-drawer-like setup, the brand new and improved launcher is a extra Windows-10-reminiscent left-of-screen window that holds shortcuts to all of your put in apps together with a common machine/apps/settings/internet and Google-Assistant-summoning search field.
And my goodness, is it ever a sight to see:
JR
This newest model of the Chrome OS launcher fixes some flaws within the earlier incarnation (together with the vexing damaged folder bug within the Chrome OS 94 setup), and it introduces a brand new component that mechanically exhibits your most just lately used recordsdata on the high of the panel for simple entry to these whenever you want it, too.
Oh, and it appears positively dashing with the sunshine mode we simply completed speaking about, as you’ll be able to see within the screenshot above.
To strive it out for your self:
- One final time, sort chrome:flags into your browser’s tackle bar.
- Type productiveness launcher into the search field on the display screen that comes up.
- Click the field subsequent to “Productivity experiment: App Launcher” and alter its setting from “Default” to “Enabled.”
- And only for giggles, do the identical factor with the road labeled “App Launcher: Animation,” too.
- Click the blue Relaunch button on the backside of the display screen and sing a jaunty tune for good measure (and likewise to make your self appear to be a idiot to anybody round you — at all times a pleasant bonus).
Now yow will discover what you want in fashion and know you are a step forward of the sport — not a nasty option to begin the brand new 12 months, if you happen to ask me.
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