Google wants to make Gmail your new “home for work” by merging email, Chat, and Meet into one browser window, as well as a mobile app. That said, the company will maintain stand-alone messaging and video calling applications, with Google Chat testing a new web client design.
Google Chat is now available to paid Workspace customers, while personal accounts can access it on a per-call basis when invited. The current web interface is a side drawer grouped by Pinned, Chat (single user or group messages), Rooms, and Bots. The selected conversation is displayed on the right for a fairly standard chat application layout.
The redesign is much the same, but simplified: the left pane shows only Chat and Rooms, as well as Gmail’s Google Meet shortcuts for “New” and “Join a meeting.” Threads will appear on the right, but you now have the option to “exit full screen” from the top right corner. This creates a small chat window that is identical to Hangouts – Gchat before it – in web Gmail.
They are docked at the bottom of the screen, starting from the right, and can be minimized to show only the contact’s name. You can do everything here from adding emoji to uploading images, as well as browsing Drive files and sending a Meet request.
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In addition to being well known to long-time Gmail users, it is an efficient way to talk to several people at once. For example, it would be very useful to have one room in the main screen and multiple windows linked so that constant switching is not necessary.
Elsewhere, this new UI allows you to shrink the sidebar so that only profile avatars appear. The full will appear as you hover over it. The search field has been moved to the top bar, with ‘Active’ next to it.
This redesign of Google Chat for the web was not widely rolled out and appeared on a personal account. It may be part of the company’s plan to migrate Hangouts personal accounts to Chat before it goes to the corporate client.
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