Microsoft Adds Dual-Screen Emulation to Chromium Ahead of Surface Duo Launch

May. 11, 2020

With dual-screen devices like theSurface Duo expected to be launched this year, Microsoft is trying to ensure that developers can add support for the new form-factor to their websites, apps and services with relative ease. The company has nowadded dual-screen support to the built-in F12 emulator in Chromium as an experimental featurethat can only be activated by a flag.

According to notes on the Chromium Gerrit, the feature currently supports only the Microsoft Surface Duo and theSamsung Galaxy Fold, but works irrespective of whether the two screens are spanned horizontally or vertically. To implement the dual-screen functionality, the Emulation Bar now comes with an extra button to extend the device view from single-screen to dual-screen. What’s more, the feature works with both hinged (dual-screen) and unhinged (folding-screen) devices.

Microsoft may haveshelved its plansto launch the Windows 10X-powered Surface Neo this year, but the company is apparentlystill on trackto launch the Android-powered Surface Duo before the end of this year. Both, of course, are dual-screen devices, which necessitates a significant amount of change to traditional software that were originally designed for single-screen devices.

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