Another highly anticipated feature is here for ChromeOS 124

Yesterday, the update to ChromeOS 124 rolled out with a handful of new features available to users both right out of the box and behind some flags. But as I always do, I ended that post assuming I’d run across a few more new items that made it into the update, and one particular addition surprised me last night that I couldn’t wait to share this morning.

Snapping and Overview together at last

Late last year, I stumbled across a feature in the works that was hiding behind the #ash-faster-split-screen-setup flag, and it adds a very useful change to the way your open windows behave after snapping a window to either side of the screen. Here’s a demo I made of it back then.

To my great surprise, last night as I was doing a bit of web development work, I snapped a window to the right side of my screen and was so delighted to see all my other open windows pop into their overview orientation. I happily selected the one I was planning on putting to the adjacent side and smiled a bit as I continued my work. I really like this feature.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure this one would make it down the channels and actually launch. I still think there needs to be a way to turn it off for those that don’t like it, but the assumption it is based upon makes a lot of sense: if you are snapping a window into place, it only makes sense that you are planning on putting another next to it. With this new snap/overview feature in place in ChromeOS 124, that process is made far simpler, and I like that a lot. I think many of you will as well.