Microsoft has quietly began testing an intriguing change to the Home windows 11 Begin menu that might introduce a floating panel filled with “companion” widgets. Home windows watcher Albacore discovered the brand new Begin menu function within the newest check variations of Home windows 11 that Microsoft has launched publicly.
Whereas Microsoft has not but introduced this function, the “Begin menu Companions” seem like a method to permit builders to increase the Home windows 11 Begin menu with widget-like performance that lives inside a floating island that may be docked subsequent to the Begin menu. It appears to be like like builders will have the ability to construct apps that present widget-like data by means of adaptive playing cards — a platform-agnostic means of displaying UI blocks of data.
These companions shall be configurable in the primary Home windows 11 Settings part, with the power to put in a number of companions and toggles to allow or disable them. Albacore mentions that these companions appear to be very web-centric, very like the widgets inside Home windows 11.
If Microsoft decides to proceed with this Begin menu function, it may very well be the reply to the lack of the Dwell Tiles that have been removed in Windows 10X and Home windows 11. Dwell Tiles, the animated and flipping icons from the Home windows Telephone days, supplied widget-like data on the Begin menu however weren’t extensively supported by app builders. Microsoft first launched them in Home windows 8, again when the corporate was attempting to bridge the hole with its Home windows Telephone OS. Dwell Tiles have been designed to be “look and go,” so you possibly can shortly take a look at a cellphone or Begin menu and see the knowledge you wanted.