Chrome OS could let you split your screen in different ways

The importance of managing windows on Chrome OS (soon to beChromeOS) is growing. Splitting the screen in half for two windows may be useful for most people, but there’s more than one way to cut a cake or slice a screen and a new commit in the Chromium Gerrit may be a sign that Google is recognizing this.

Thecommit(viaChrome Unboxed) originally indicated in its description that a new #partial-split feature would allow users to “enable the option to snap windows by thirds for split view.” Which is great if we had more ChromeOS devices with super-wide displays — shoutout to the Chromebook and Chromebox users plugging into one — but even at 16:9, it’d be a stretch to make three windows usable on a display.

The flag description, however, was later updated to read “snap two windows into 2/3 and 1/3 for split view,” which makes a bit more sense for people who run feeds on one side and work on the other.

As opposed to an impartial split where each window gets equal space, enabling a partial split would give spatial preference to one window over the other. Of course, more split view combinations would be great, but like with anything else in life, we start with baby steps.