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    Chrome OS 77: First look at Virtual Desks on a Chromebook

    Kevin TofelBy 6 Comments1 Min Read

    I had hoped that virtual workspaces or desks would arrive in Chrome OS 76, but it appears that the feature will arrive with Chrome OS 77. With “Virtual Desks” you can group apps or browser tabs on up to four different Chromebook desktops. And it works either with a keyboard and mouse or with a Chrome OS tablet that doesn’t have a hardware keyboard.

    Here’s a demo of how Virtual Desks currently works in the Canary Channel of Chrome OS 77.

    Note that I ran through the demo very quickly; this isn’t exactly how I’d group my apps and tabs.

    For that, I’d likely have work tabs open on one desk, content consumption items on another and perhaps a Linux app for development purposes on a third.

    But that’s just me and everyone is different. After taking a look at how Virtual Desks works, is it a feature you plan to use, and if so, how?

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    After spending 15 years in IT at Fortune 100 companies, Kevin turned a hobby into a career and began covering mobile technology in 2003. He writes daily on the industry and has co-hosted the weekly MobileTechRoundup podcast since 2006. His writing has appeared in print (The New York Times, PC Magazine and PC World) and he has been featured on NBC News in Philadelphia.

    6 Comments

    1. CajunMoses on

      I would probably try out Virtual Desks just for grins, so to speak. It goes without saying that, to be really worth using, Chrome OS should automatically “remember” the configuration of each of the four VDs so that the user would be able to shut down and restart and then recall previously used VDs.

    2. Zarthan on

      As a full-time Canary user, I have been checking the Chrome://Flags after every day’s update. Yesterday I was rewarded. I can see the value of “saved” sessions but I do many different things every day. I might want some way to save specific desk setups for different jobs.

    3. Mark Stosberg on

      I’m interested to see how the GUI looks when multiple desktops is combined with multiple monitors.

    4. Denny on

      You mentioned there’s no real easy way to swipe through desks.

      I wonder if ‘Ctrl+Alt+ (right cursor)’ will switch desktops like on Linux distros and some other OSes?

    5. Kevin on

      I can see this today in v76 beta it and works a treat. I can’t see any switching working currently with any ctrl, alt, cursor, etc. combination.

      One thing on my wish list would be to be able to name the desktops so when you’re dashing between them it’s easy to identify which is which.