Anyone running the current stable build ofGoogle Chrome (version 114)on desktop knows the UI doesn’t make it easy to tell the currently active tab apart from the others. It is usually just a shade darker or lighter than the others, but as much as we love dynamic theming, one of the world’smost popular web browsersought to have a better UI. Google seems to have received the memo because it’s now testing a mix of dynamic theming and Microsoft’s Mica material to differentiate the active tab.
Google Chrome has been the hotbed of visual changes lately, with users of the Canary (version 116) getting firsthand access to these changes, likedynamic theming for tabsin April andMica material in May. The former pulls color from the current Chrome theme and applies them to various menus and UI elements like the browser tabs. Meanwhile,Mica materialis a glass-like translucency effect available as a Microsoft SDK for developers, so their programs built for Windows look the part.
Chrome Canary is testing dynamic teeming for the active tab, while all others get the Mica treatment
Reputable Chrome feature researcher and Android Police reader/u/Leopeva64-2 on Redditrecently spotted a new visual change in Chrome Canary 116 for Windows, where Google is testing dynamic theming for the active tab while the Mica material applies to all the other tabs. When you hover the cursor on an unselected tab, its color also changes from Mica to the browser theme color. Leopeva also noticed the same theme looks slightly darker on the current Chrome Canary build when compared to the Dev version.
Chrome Canary seems to have darker theme colors than Chrome Dev
Although the new tab picker picked up this cool design change which immediately makes the active tab stand out, we are worried it may not be here to stay. Google previouslyabandoned Mica for Chromebecause the visual effect was rather resource intensive. Moreover, the developers have been going back and forth with a lot of the changes to the tab picker. Hopefully, they settle on this iteration for the grand 2023 visual refresh, as the performance hit could just be worth the wow factor.
