ChromeOS’ Partial Split windows feature is getting closer

We reported exactly a month ago, after Chrome Story first spotted the code change, that Google was working on a ChromeOS Partial Split mode to resize windows into 2/3 and 1/3 configurations, similar to what Windows 11 does. In that post, we speculated how the implementation might go since, at the time, there were no visual cues as to how Google may go about it and wrote:

How I imagine this could work is that once you start dragging your window to one side to snap it, you will be shown three different overlays with snapping options: a third screen split, a half screen split, and a two-third screen split.

We still don’t have a clear visual of how Google may accomplish this, but thanks to new code found by About Chromebooks, we now have a better idea. A clear reference to a multitasking button is present on the Chromium Gerrit, which states to “Add Split button and multitask button to multitask menu. Link button to split view, full screen and float.” Combine that with About Chromebook’s discovery of a tweak to the icon used to maximize a window, which in ChromeOS Dev v105 shows an empty floating window when hovered, shows that we are getting very close to seeing this feature come to fruition.

The idea is that this floating window would show you the different split-screen configurations you can use when multitasking, which so far, based on the code, are: two halves, two partials (70% + 30%), full screen, or float on top.

This is still a work in progress, though, and from the comments in the repository, it looks like the testing so far hasn’t gone as smoothly as they wanted it to. However, the flag is currently present on ChromeOS 104 Beta and 105 Dev, even though it doesn’t do anything. So I’m hoping that by the time 105 hits Stable, the feature will be fully fleshed out and ready for prime time.