Chromebooks to get settings menu for drawing and graphics tablets

I’m no artist. Let me be perfectly clear on that point. If you’ve watched any number of Chromebook unboxing or reviews we’ve done, you can see pretty quickly that not only am I not a gifted sketch artist; I’m also pretty bad at plain old writing as well. Today’s coming-soon Chromebook feature we’re talking about isn’t big news for people like me, but as a Chromebook enthusiast, it makes me very happy for all those users who will be able to take advantage of it soon.

New changes in the Chromium Repositories show that ChromeOS should soon be getting a dedicated settings section for graphics and drawing tablets. As it stands right now, there are a few of these dedicated drawing slabs that work with Chromebooks; and few of them from Wacom are actually certified Works with Chromebook, too.

But it’s one thing for a peripheral to technically work well with a Chromebook and another thing for that device to actually have some settings baked into the ChromeOS settings app. Think of it this way: if I plugged in a 3rd-party mouse and the cursor moved and the buttons worked, that would be considered a successful setup, right? But isn’t it far better that ChromeOS allows you to do some things to customize the mouse behavior? Within the ChromeOS settings, you can swap the primary mouse button, add acceleration, change the speed and reverse the scroll wheel behavior. And that works for any mouse you plug into your Chromebook.

In a similar fashion, graphics tablet settings should allow for some basic adjustments to the user experience once this change arrives. I’ve dug around a bit and can’t nail down precisely what changes will be on offer just yet, but I’d hope things like general sensitivity and button function would make the cut. Regardless of what Google adds here, it will be a step up from what is on offer right now when you plug one of these tablets into a ChromeOS device.

And as Micheal pointed out with a tablet like the Wacom One, these devices really do bring a pro-level interface to drawing and graphic creation on Chromebooks when in use. While pen support on Chromebooks can be a hit-or-miss type of experience, a dedicated drawing tablet can really take things to the next level for those wanting to sketch, paint, or create digital art.

As this new settings menu progresses, we’ll hopefully be able to define what types of changes users will be able to make. For now, we simply know that some type of options are on the way and that just like we see with mouse, keyboard and pen support, ChromeOS will soon give users some basic abilities to control the peripherals that they use the most. Stay tuned.