I love the new Quick Insert feature on Chromebooks, but it’ll take some getting used to

With ChromeOS 129, a new feature was introduced that stands to truly change up the general workflow for tons of users: Quick Insert. The idea is simple even if the functionality itself is a tad bit complex, giving users the ability to quickly insert all sorts of content (links, text, emojis, GIFs, Drive files, etc.) into any text field in any part of the OS across the board. It’s like copy/paste on steroids.

With Quick Insert, Google is even debuting a dedicated key for it on the new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, and it’s in a prominent space that was once occupied by the Search/Everything/Launcher key. As dedicated keys on a keyboard go, I’ve long thought the Search/Everything/Launcher was a bit of overkill for what it actually does, so seeing Google make the shift to putting the Quick Insert key in that spot will make a lot of sense down the road a bit. But it’s gonna take time.

This is going to take some getting used to

And that’s not due to the fact that Quick Insert isn’t useful: it really is. But there are two major factors that play into how it will be adopted by Chromebook users: habits and awareness. Let’s talk about awareness first.

As it stands, only the new Galaxy Chromebook Plus comes with the new, dedicated key for this new feature. That means all of us not using the new Samsung Chromebook will need to use the built-in shortcut (LAUNCHER + F) or set up a new shortcut to call up Quick Insert. For reference, I’ve found the LAUNCHER + F to be perfectly serviceable, but I’m toying with some alternative setups to prepare my fingers and my brain for what’s coming.

The problem is, I forget about Quick Insert all the time. Other than when I’m writing about it, I simply don’t remember it is there to use and, as a result, I just skip leveraging it all together. I hope that changes over time, but for now, I simply forget its a thing and continue – by habit alone – doing the same things the same ways I’ve always done.

For Galaxy Chromebook Plus users, this won’t be an option. For instance, I have a few memorized shortcuts I use the Launcher key for, and when my time for reviewing the Galaxy Chromebook Plus comes, I’ll struggle mightily to retrain that part of my brain.

For reference, I use the LAUNCHER + [ or ] to move Virtual Desks constantly, LAUNCHER + V to call up multi-paste multiple times a day, and LAUNCHER + BACKSPACE to delete all the time. When I’m testing the new Galaxy Chromebook, I can still do those things, but I’ll have to switch to using the new “G” key between the CTRL and ALT keys instead.

This will be a massive adjustment, but it will also force my brain to see and deal with that Quick Insert key on a very regular basis. In doing so, I predict I’ll be frustrated for a day or two, and then I’ll be good to go with a new set of habits I can lean on when using the Galaxy Chromebook Plus.

Which habits to form?

And therein lies the issue for me at the present moment. I like building repeatable, useful habits with my keyboard, and I’m a bit torn at the moment. On a standard Chromebook keyboard, swapping the Launcher key with the Quick Insert function isn’t really an option since there’s no way to map any other key to the Launcher key at this piont. So I’m now forced to adopt two sets of keyboard habits: one for all other Chromebook keyboards, and one for the Samsung.

For keyboards like the Logitech K580 I’m typing on now, that’s not an issue. This keyboard has the Assistant key on the bottom row, so I can map that to the Launcher and make the Launcher key a serviceable Quick Insert key to start changing my habits. But that simply won’t work on every other ChromeOS keyboard currently out there.

So I’m stuck at the moment deciding what to do. It would be a different story if my habits were around non-useful shortcuts, but the things I use the Launcher key for are actually things I lean on all day long. So I suppose my move towards adopting those new shortcuts will come down to how good the Galaxy Chromebook Plus is. If I see it as good enough to be my daily driver when there are no new devices to review, I’ll likely adapt my habits to this new keyboard layout.

After all, Google says this key will be a standard-issue thing on other devices moving forward, so at some point it will be worth developing the new habits. But the whole thing just puts regular Chromebook users like me in a bit of a strange spot for the next few months, for sure. Again, I love the Quick Insert feature and look forward to developing habits that leverage it on a regular basis. But change is hard.