Google brings Material Design to overview mode in Chrome OS Dev update

Google has packed a pleasant surprise into the latest release of the Dev channel of Chrome OS. The window picker, officially named “overview mode,” has been redesigned to adhere to Google’s Material Design standards.

Once you’re running version 53.0.2785.29 of the Dev channel of Chrome OS, you can access the new view by swiping three fingers down on the trackpad or hitting the key with the square and the two lines next to it — typically, the F5 key on non-Chromebook keyboards.

The new look displays the name of the program on the top of each window in Google’s Roboto system font. When you start typing the name of an application, the search box has Google’s trademark white ground with a magnifying glass, just like the omnibar in Chrome. If you don’t want to type, you can alternatively select windows with your mouse or trackpad or cycle through your open windows by hitting the tab key or the arrow keys. (Hat tip to Francois Beaufort, happiness evangelist for the Chromium project at Google, for writing about the change in a Google+ post.)

In the case of Chrome browser windows, when you start typing, the picker will match them against the words in the page title of the tab you have open. Just hit enter to drop into the window you referred to in the search box. If you type in a word and there are multiple windows that match, all the ones that match the search will be highlighted, and you can use the arrow keys or tab key to flip among them. By default, Chrome OS will open up the most recent window if there are multiple matches for your search and you hit enter without toggling. Google shipped this filtering feature in Chrome OS in 2014 — now it just looks more modern and in line with other Google products.

This change follows the launch of Material Design updates in Chrome OS in recent months, including updates to the Video Player, the Gallery app, the Files app, and Chrome, itself.

Without question, Chrome OS is not as popular a desktop operating system as Windows or Mac or even Linux. But with Google bringing the Play Store to Chrome OS, making it possible to run Android apps on Chromebooks, interest levels could go up. These cosmetic updates will likely make a difference, too, for both Chromebook devotees and people who switch over from Windows or Mac.

While there’s no guarantee that this new overview mode will eventually make it to Chrome OS’ beta or stable channels, that is exactly what happened with the overview mode itself when it was first introduced back in 2013.