Just a few months ago, Google set into motion its plans to make the Search button on Chromebooks – now named the ‘Everything Button‘ – do, well, everything as its name implies. Launcher plus backspace became forward delete, launcher plus clicking the touchpad became right-click, and so on. Essentially, this new favorite caps lock replacement is looking to make the Alt key nearly jobless.
A new Chromium commit found by Android Police shows that Google isn’t done yet. The existing Alt key functionality for Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, Insert, and of course Delete will soon be exchanged for the Everything button when paired with each shortcut’s original combination key. For now, these changes are locked behind a flag on Chrome OS Canary called chrome://flags/#improved-keyboard-shortcuts, but whatever form this takes by the time it reaches the Stable channel will be what users will be forced to contend with.
