Desktop windowing on Android Tablets

Posted by Francesco Romano – Developer Relations Engineer on Android, and Fahd Imtiaz – Product Supervisor, Android Developer

To empower pill customers to get extra finished, we’re enhancing freeform windowing, permitting them to run a number of apps concurrently and resize home windows for optimum multitasking. Right now, we’re excited to share that desktop windowing on Android tablets is accessible in developer preview.

For app builders, the idea of Android apps operating in freeform home windows has already existed with options like Samsung DeX and ChromeOS. Updating your apps to help adaptive layouts, extra sturdy multitasking, and adaptive inputs will guarantee your apps work effectively on giant screens throughout the Android ecosystem.

Let’s discover find out how to optimize your apps for desktop windowing and ship the optimum expertise to customers.

What’s desktop windowing?

Desktop windowing permits customers to run a number of apps concurrently and resize app home windows, providing a extra versatile and desktop-like expertise. This, together with a refreshed System UI and new APIs, permits customers to be much more productive and creates a extra seamless, desktop-like expertise on tablets.

In Determine 1, you may see the anatomy of the display screen with desktop windowing enabled. Issues to make notice of:

• Customers can run a number of apps side-by-side, concurrently
• Taskbar is mounted and reveals the operating apps, customers can pin apps for fast entry
• New header bar with window controls on the prime of every window which apps can customise

How can customers invoke desktop windowing?

By default, apps open in full display screen on Android tablets. To run the apps as a desktop window on Pixel Pill, press and maintain the window deal with on the prime in the midst of the display screen and drag it inside the UI, as seen in Determine 2.

As soon as you might be within the desktop area, all future apps will likely be launched as desktop home windows as effectively.

You can even invoke desktop windowing from the menu that reveals up beneath the window deal with whenever you faucet/click on on it or use the keyboard shortcut meta key (Home windows, Command, or Search) + Ctrl + Down.

You may exit desktop windowing and show an app as full display screen by closing all lively home windows or by grabbing the window deal with on the prime of the window and dragging the app to the highest of the display screen. You can even use the meta + H keyboard shortcut to run apps as full display screen once more.

To return to the desktop, transfer a full display screen app to the desktop area through the use of the strategies talked about above, or just faucet on the desktop area tile within the Recents display screen.

What does this imply for app builders?

Desktop windowing on Android tablets creates new alternatives to your apps, notably round productiveness and multitasking. The chance to resize and reposition a number of app home windows permits customers to simply examine paperwork, reference data whereas composing emails, and multitask effectively.

By optimizing for desktop windowing, you may ship distinctive consumer experiences to match the rising demand for tablet-based productiveness. On the similar time, you will improve the general consumer expertise on tablets, making your apps extra versatile and adaptable to totally different eventualities.

In case your app already meets the Tier 2 (Giant Screens optimized) high quality bar within the Giant display screen app high quality pointers, then there may be minimal extra optimization required! In case your app has not been optimized for giant screens but, updating it in line with the Giant display screen app high quality pointers turns into much more essential within the context of desktop windowing. Let’s see why:

• Freeform resizing allows customers to resize apps to their choice for maximized productiveness. Contemplating this, builders ought to notice:
• Apps with locked orientation are freely resizable. Meaning, even when an exercise is locked to portrait orientation, customers can nonetheless resize the app to panorama orientation window. In a future replace, apps declared as non-resizable could have their UI scaled whereas retaining the identical side ratio.
• Adaptive layouts: By adapting your UI, apps have a possibility to effortlessly deal with a variety of window sizes, from compact to expanded display screen layouts. In desktop windowing, apps may be resized right down to a minimal measurement of 386dp x 352dp, so be certain to leverage window measurement lessons to regulate your app’s format, content material, and interactions to adapt to totally different window dimensions.
• State administration: With freeform resizing, configuration modifications occur every time the window resizes, so your app ought to both deal with these configuration modifications gracefully or ensure you are preserving the app state when the OS initiates the re-creation of the app. As a reminder, customers can change the display screen density whereas your app is operating, so it’s greatest to make sure that your app can deal with display screen density configuration modifications as effectively.



Determine 3. Apps with locked orientation are freely resizable.

• Desktop windowing takes productiveness on tablets to the following stage with a number of apps operating concurrently. Much like break up display screen, Desktop windowing encourages customers to have a number of home windows open. Contemplating this, builders ought to notice: 
• Multitasking help: For enhanced productiveness, customers can have two or extra apps open concurrently, and so they count on to simply share content material between apps, so add help for drag and drop gestures. Additionally, guarantee your app continues to perform accurately even when not in focus, and in case your app makes use of unique sources like digicam or microphone, the app must deal with useful resource loss gracefully when different apps purchase the useful resource. 
• Multi-instance help: Customers can run a number of situations of your app side-by-side; for instance, a doc editor utility could enable customers to start out new paperwork whereas nonetheless with the ability to reference the already open paperwork. Apps can set this new Multi-instance property to declare that System UI needs to be proven for this app to permit it to be launched as a number of situations. Additionally notice that in desktop windowing, new duties open in a brand new window, so double-check the consumer journey in case your app begins a number of duties.



Determine 4. Begin one other occasion of Chrome by dragging a tab out of the app window.

• With desktop windowing, enter strategies past contact and insets dealing with develop into much more essential for a seamless consumer expertise. 
• Extra enter strategies (keyboard, mouse): Customers are extra doubtless to make use of your app with quite a lot of enter strategies like exterior keyboards, mice, and trackpads. Test that customers can work together easily along with your app utilizing keyboard and mouse peripherals or by way of the emulator. Builders can add help for app shortcuts and publish them utilizing the keyboard shortcuts API, which permits customers to simply view the supported app shortcuts by way of a standardized floor on Android units.
• Insets dealing with: All apps when operating in desktop windowing have a header bar, even in immersive mode. Guarantee your app’s content material is not obscured by this. The brand new header bar is reported as a caption bar in Compose (androidx.compose.basis:foundation-layout.WindowInsets.Companion.captionBar) and in Views (android.view.WindowInsets.Kind.CAPTION_BAR), which is a part of the system bars. API 35 additionally launched a brand new look kind, to make the header bar clear, to permit apps to attract customized content material inside.