Have you tried to click on the clock area on the Chromebook shelf to see what the date is, only to be disappointed that it is not presented to you as a calendar, but as plain text? In Windows 10, there is a mini-calendar widget (see below) that can help you quickly view and contextualize your month. Since Chrome OS became my daily driver, this is something I miss a lot. Now, it looks like the development team may be bringing something similar to Chromebooks!
First discovered by the super Kent in the Android Police, a new bug report from Chromium Gerrit identifies a “calendar widget feature” and joins the “scalable status area” we reported earlier. Basically, your device can soon do more than just show the month and day on the shelf, but also allow you to take a look at the current month on the calendar with a single click.
Scalable status area: place the date change in a later posting.
We decided to put the changes on the date in the later release since this change is consistent with the calendar widget feature. Changed the change to a different resource flag.
Chromium Gerrit
If that comes to light, and I have no reason to believe that it won’t, you no longer need to open the Google Calendar web app to better understand the weeks or months ahead. I can’t tell you how many times I had to do this! There is currently no mention in the bug report of any of your upcoming events or reminders that appear on the widget, but that would be a fantastic addition.
If Google explores the possibility of making this widget more feature-rich, it probably means that deeper integration with Google Calendar at the system level would be necessary. However, with the Archives app and Google Photos gaining system-level integration, it appears that the development team is relying heavily on making the operating system work natively with more Google services, rather than relying on the app for central and even secondary functionality.
Regardless of how it unfolds throughout its development, even a simple widget will put Chrome OS more in line with the basic needs of Windows and macOS users who are new to Google laptops. Resource parity increases the adoption rate, and if it’s Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president should be accredited (and he is), Chromebook owners have many exciting new features to look forward to this year!
