Gone are the days when computers mandated the use of a mouse and keyboard. Today, many of our favorite Chromebooks are convertible 2-in-1 notebooks with fold-flat hinges and touchscreen support. Many desktop operating systems like Windows 11 also offer touchscreen-friendly display settings with larger menu items and convenient touch targets. Google appears to have the same idea for menu items in everyone’s favorite browser, Chrome, and its big upcoming refresh on desktop.
Google’s 2023 refresh for Chrome is supposed to be all hush-hush, but feature researchers like Leopeva64 regularly dig up interesting additions coming our way with this. Now, the researcher has found that enabling the flag for the 2023 refresh in Chrome Canary for desktop (v114) changes the vertical padding for items in the overflow menu. The larger padding creates a more spaced-out menu with bigger gaps between consecutive entries and the menu separators, much like on Microsoft Edge. The change is also evident in other sub-menus. The Find and Edit options in the menu have been combined, and a few others have been re-sequenced as well. The resulting interface appears touch-friendly too.
Increased spacing in the overflow menu
Interestingly, the researcher couldn’t find mentions of padding or margins in the Chromium Gerrit for this change, suggesting those could be a bug. Meanwhile, the re-sequencing and combination of overflow menu items seems deliberate.
Other elements of the 2023 refresh, like the overflow menu icons, are also seen after enabling the Chrome flag. If this change isn’t accidental, we would be happy to see Chrome become easier to use on touchscreen computers without enabling specialized settings. The change could match previous changes like the taller address bar/Omnibox, and help Chrome keep pace from Microsoft Edge which has an icon-heavy interface, albeit with compact menus.
If you are convinced this change is just a bug, or if you want to stay ahead of the stable releases without being on the bleeding edge, Chrome 113 just hit the Beta channel, and it packs several new features.
