Gboard preps a new look for its shortcut toolbar
Gboard’s toolbar has been a staple of the keyboard app since its beginning seven years ago, providing quick access to key features such as stickers, GIFs, themes, one-handed mode, clipboard, and more. The Google keyboard is designed to make it easier to distinguish these toolbar shortcuts and actual keyboard letters by applying no borders to them and placing them all in a row above the keys, but this could change soon. Google has been spotted testing a new design for the shortcut toolbar that will make it look like your regular keys.
The potential redesign was discovered by9to5Googleduring a teardown of the app’s latest beta version. The most intriguing discovery is the new appearance of each shortcut, which is housed in its own rectangular button with rounded corners. Not only does the new look bring the shortcuts in line with the rest of the keyboard elements, but it also introduced a few tweaks to the layout.
More specifically, the ellipsis is gone, and the arrow button for hiding or pulling up the toolbar has been replaced by a grid icon that, when tapped, surfaces the rest of the shortcuts. The latter is not entirely surprising, as 9to5 spotted this change last August as part of a broader Material You redesign of the bar.
Another interesting addition to the toolbar is the “language switcher,” which isn’t available in this spot in the current version of Gboard. A new prompt above the grid layout of the hidden shortcuts also screams, “Hold and drag to customize.”
For tablet users, version 12.6 of the app has gained a layout tweak that replaces the button for hiding the virtual keyboard with the number and symbol (?123) key on the bottom-right corner. This duplicates the key that is already in the bottom-left corner. Whether you’ll find this replication of a single key useful is perhaps up to how often you use numbers and symbols. Anyway, you’re able to just tap the back key to hide Gboard.
It’s unclear if there are any similar changes coming to the border-less keyboard theme that Gboard offers alternatively. In this design, both shortcut keys and keyboard keys don’t come with a border, making them look similar already.
While these potential changes are a minor makeover to the app, the dedicated shortcut buttons position Gboard in a good place to become yourfavorite Android keyboardalongside many competitors, such as SwiftKey.
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