A new and much improved Keyboard Shortcut Viewer is coming to Chrome OS. In the Chrome OS Canary Channel, which is currently running a pre-alpha build of Chrome 67, the viewer has been radically updated to a Material Design look and feel.
The find comes from long time platform evangelist François Beaufort via his Google+ profile. François is one of the best sources for what is coming in the Canary channel and this is another great example of it.
Today, when you invoke the Keyboard Shortcut Viewer, it looks like this:
Keyboard Shortcut Viewer in Chrome OS
But this is what we get to look forward to in a few months when Chrome 67 hits the Stable Channel.
Chrome OS Canary Material Design Keyboard Shortcut Viewer
As you can see, it has a much more Material Design feel to it and looks much better overall than the current viewer. The current viewer has been more-or-less unchanged in years so it certainly needed a refresh. Further, to back up this change, there is a commit on it in the Chromium review Gerrit that will enabled this new look by default.
Assuming that this new change stays with Chrome 68, it will be July 31st before we see it hit the Stable Channel. That is when 68 is expected to be released. It is possible it could move up or, conversely, slip. As with any commit or Canary Channel information, don’t get overly excited just yet.
Aw, I’d be super unhappy if this made stable. I loved the visual keyboard thing, and I use it daily.
Is the new viewer still as quick to use? Can I quickly hold down keys to see available shortcuts like the current one?
As it is in the Canary Channel Ducky, I don’t know about usability and such as I don’t have a machine in that channel. Based on the screenshot, it looks like it is more of a menu style than a keyboard image but with it essentially being pre-alpha, who knows what the final product will actually look like. 🙂
Clinton