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Chrome recently introduced modules for your browser’s New Tab Page that would allow you to interact with recently used Drive files, shopping items, tasks, recipes, and more. You can customize these or hide them entirely using our tutorial. Now, the development team has added some much-needed polish to the modules themselves, and has even included a drag and drop feature to reorder them as you see fit. Today, I want to focus on something that’s more interesting though – the inclusion of a new Google Photos module.
A new development flag I encountered on Chrome OS Canary indicates that the company’s popular photo sharing and storage service will be joining the lineup of stuff you can quickly access from your new tab page. More specifically, photos you’ve recently viewed in the official web app should appear there for you and you alone to see. Though we don’t have much information based on the flag itself, this should be exactly how it operates because that’s exactly how all of the other modules operate. They’re meant to be glanceable data that you can resume or share, and not the full experience.
NTP Photos Module
Shows the Google Photos module on the New Tab Page. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
#ntp-photos-module
You’ll notice in the image above that the Google Photos module does not show yet on my new tab page, but in its place are several improvements to the modules themselves. They now have rounded corners, additional buttons, stylized menus, and icons. All of the padding and such finally looks more appropriate, so the feature is clearly maturing towards its finished stages. Still, it was a surprise to see a Photos module appear. It’s one of those things that I should have expected them to add, but I hadn’t thought of it first!
I would love to see these modules have the option to sit side by side a la iGoogle, but the company seems set on making it vertical down the center of the page only – likely so it adapts easier to mobile. Are there any other Google services that you hope join as new modules before this is released to the public, or will you be turning it off entirely?
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