Chromebooks are receiving native Google Calendar integration directly on the shelf

A few months ago, I created a mock-up showing what a dedicated Calendar widget would look like baked directly into the Chromebook shelf. This would allow users to have quick access to see what date falls on what day of the week, and even potentially see any upcoming events on their agenda. I also alluded to the fact that said widget would be best integrated with Google Calendar. If you’re interested, you can see it in the video and image below. While I do wish I did some things differently with the design, I remained optimistic that Google would eventually happen upon the same logic as me – it’s a vital tool that’s missing from Chrome OS for productivity.

Well, guess what? They did! A new Chrome developer flag discovered originally by Chrome Story shows that Google has plans to integrate a ‘Calendar view’ into the ‘UnifiedSystemTray’ of the device and that it even links directly to Google Calendar! In fact, this is being deemed another ‘Productivity experiment’ – yes, just like the new and upcoming ‘Productivity launcher’ that I showed off in my mock-up as well. It seems as though my vision for the future of Chrome OS is slowly coming to life!

Productivity experiment
Monthly Calendar View: Show Monthly Calendar View with Google Calendar events to increase productivity by helping users view their schedules more quickly.

Add feature flag for calendar view

Add the flag based on the flag info provided by our pm in this doc: go/calendar-weekly-meeting

Bug: 1236276

Originally, I thought that after seeing the ‘Show date in tray’ feature added to the shelf via another flag, our expectations of receiving an actual calendar were dashed to pieces, but this proves otherwise. The Repository for this change actually shows that the same developer who is helping to bring that feature to Chromebooks is working on this calendar integration, so this seems to be a continuation of this experiment to increase productivity by placing these tools front and center. After having enabled the date in tray’ flag, I can’t live without it – it’s actually very strange to see the bottom-right of my Chromebook without it!

According to Chrome Story, you’ll also be able to quickly toggle the Calendar view on your shelf via a keyboard shortcut, which is awesome. By pressing Alt + Shift + C (for Calendar, naturally), the new ‘view’ – however it ends up looking – will pop onto the screen. I’m assuming you can toggle it off again with the same keyboard shortcut, but I’m also assuming you can simply click off of it to make it disappear. Well, what do you think about all of this? Are you excited to have a more full-fledged productivity desktop setup on your Chromebook, or is this too much clutter for you? Let me know in the comments below!