No, you're right...there's nothing new in the image above. Right now, Google Chrome has two separate menu icons in its top right corner: the wrench menu for options and settings and the page menu for functions like zooming, dev tools, and copy/paste.

A while back, I'd reported that changes were likely on the way, in the form of a single, unified menu. Google pitches minimalism as a central theme in Chrome, so it certainly makes sense to use as few UI elements as possible.

Take the jump to see the unified menu, which has just landed in the Chromium snapshot builds!

Here's the latest version as it appears in the current Chromium builds. As you can see, edit and zoom functions have been combined into single lines and all developer functions slotted into the tools menu.

One thing I don't like about the menu is that the extensions entry -- which used to be on the wrench menu below Downloads -- has been moved into the tools sub-menu. Sure, it's only one extra click but extensions was the one thing that I clicked on the wrench menu with any frequency.

There may, of course, be additional changes before the unified menu even makes the jump to the Chrome dev channel build.

What are your thoughts on the new menu? Better? Worse?

Heck, maybe you never bothered with either of Chrome's menus -- it's certainly possible to get along without them if you know your keyboard shortcuts.

Share