Android 16’s Desktop Windowing Features
When a supported Android device is connected to an external display, through what is known as a DisplayPort connection, a new desktop session begins on the connected display. Hence, the phone and the display begin to operate independently, and apps are specific to the display on which they’re being operated. Some features that make Android 16’s desktop windowing the best for mobile phone gaming and productivity are the following,
- Desktop Persistence: With this feature, Androids can better maintain window positions, sizes, and states across different desktops. This means, as a gamer, you can set up a preferred workspace and save it across your sessions, thereby enjoying a seamless and reliable workflow.
- Multi-instance management: Developers will enjoy quick switching between different instances of the same app, because Android 16’s desktop windowing feature allows you to manage multiple instances of supporting apps like Chrome or Keep, through the app header button or taskbar context menu.
- Multiple Desktops: Gamers can set up several desktop sessions to match their peculiar gaming session requirements and switch between each desktop using keyboard shortcuts, overview, and trackpad gestures.
- Flexible window tiling: Developers can easily arrange several app windows, side by side or in various configurations. This makes it simpler to work across multiple applications at the same time on a large screen. This way, multitasking gets a boost with more intuitive window tiling options.
- Enhanced Apps compatibility treatments: The updated compatibility treatments see to it that the legacy apps behave more predictably and look better on external displays by default. Providing a better out-of-the-box experience for gamers, and hence reducing the burden on developers.
Practices you should follow to ensure the best experience on this app
There are three practices you must adopt for optimal experience
1. Build apps that are optimized for desktop
- Design for any window size: With the mobile phone’s capability to connect with external displays, the mobile app can run in a window of almost any size and aspect ratio. This means that the app window can enlarge to the size of the screen of the connected display, but also flex to fit a smaller window.
- Implementation of Features for top productivity: There are certain features that help foster user productivity, add them early because you can now have all the tools necessary for mobile apps development that match the desktops. Allowing users, gamers, and developers to open multiple instances of the same app is really priceless for tasks like comparing documents, managing different conversations, or viewing several files at the same time.
2. Handle dynamic display changes
- Account for density configuration changes: External displays can have vastly different pixel densities than the primary device screen. Ensure that you configure your layouts and resources correctly for adaptability to retain clarity with the ever-changing UI. This is why experts suggest using density-independent pixels for layouts, as they provide density-specific resources and ensure that your UI scales appropriately.
- Don’t assume a constant display object: The display object that is associated with your app’s context can change when an app window is moved to an external display or if the display configuration changes. Your app is supposed to gracefully handle configuration change events and query display metrics dynamically rather than caching them.
3. Go beyond just the screen
- Correctly support external peripherals: Consider including other external peripherals, like the mouse, trackpad, webcam, keyboard, mic, and speakers. Consequently, if your application requires camera or microphone input, it should also be able to detect and use the peripherals connected to the docking station.
- Build for keyboard actions: Consider implementing standard Windows shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z). Traditional desktop users already rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts for efficiency, hence including them eases the adoption process. Also, when designing app-specific shortcuts, ensure they make sense within a windowed environment.
- Support mouse interaction: Make sure that your app responds correctly to mouse hover events, right clicks, and precise scrolling, beyond simple clicks. You should consider implementing custom pointers to indicate different actions.