Chrome OS 3-finger swipe gesture for tab scrubbing set to stay

Chromebook laptops, powered by Google Chrome OS, are designed to be used primarily when on an internet connection since most apps are cloud-based.

Initially aimed at the education market, the appeal of Chromebooks has expanded over time, becoming some of the best laptops overall today, both for home and work purposes.

We all know Google has always been excellent when it comes to the basics and Chrome OS is just that. Using a Chromebook laptop, you can effectively enjoy watching movies, music, playing games, and, of course, web browsing.

With the update to Chrome OS 78, Google finally introduced the much-awaited Virtual Desks to the stable channel. This feature allows users to add multiple virtual workspaces, you know, just like on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

On these operating systems, users can easily add multiple “desktops” and proceed with tasks in the new workspaces. When set up, users can easily switch between the desktops using, for instance, a 3- or 4-finger swipe gesture.

Chrome OS, like other operating systems, also comes with a set of gestures for easy and quick navigation. Long-time users will know the 3-finger swipe gesture is for tab scrubbing, but when Chrome OS 78 arrived, Google assigned Virtual Desk navigation to this gesture.

Sure the change might be tiny, but for those used to move between open tabs in a browser using a quick 3-finger slide left/right on the trackpad, this has been hard to live with since Virtual Desks arrived.

On the brighter side, though, we’ve bumped into a bug report that suggests Google has plans to keep the 3-finger swipe gesture assigned to tab scrubbing. This change will also mean switching between Virtual Desks will now use the 4-finger left/right gesture.

Desks: Prepare Virtual Desks Gestures for launch

This CL makes the following changes:
– Tab scrubbing will always use 3-finger gestures.
– 4-finger horizontal swipes will switch desks only if the flag “–enable-virtual-desks-gestures” is enabled.
– 3-finger horizontal swipes while in Overview will always move the highlighter.

This CL is meant to be merged back to M-79. A follow-up CL will remove the “–enable-virtual-desks-gestures” flag entirely on M-80 so that virtual desks gestures will always be enabled going forward.
Source

Of course, these small changes will be effected through new software updates to Chrome OS 79 and 80 expected in the coming weeks.

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