Microsoft is rolling out today the Windows 10 Insider PC build 17040 to Fast Ring and Skip Ahead insiders, and we’re happy to see that the new bits bring a couple more interesting new features. The Settings app continues to be improved in this build with a new setting for HDR capable systems, along with a new sub-section for cursor thickness, pointer size and more in the Ease of Access section. This latest build also enables shape-writing when using the wide touch keyboard, as well as more handwriting panel improvements including a new Commit gesture.
You can read more about all the new features below:
Settings Improvements
Adjust the brightness of SDR content on your HDR display: Starting with Build 17040, Windows now lets you adjust how bright SDR content appears when running in HDR mode on the desktop. On an HDR capable system, you will see a slider in the “HDR and advanced color settings” page under Settings > System > Display. This is one of the improvements to HDR image quality that we have planned based on feedback from Insiders.
New Cursor, pointer, and touch feedback section in Ease of Access Settings:Continuing our recent efforts to reorganize this section in Settings, you’ll notice that “change cursor thickness”, “Change pointer size and color”, and “Change touch feedback” have been moved to this new place.
Touch keyboard Improvements
Shape-writing with wide touch keyboard: With the Fall Creators Update we introduced shape-writing input for one-handed keyboard. We’ve heard your feedback, and with today’s build we’re happy to announce that it’s now also available when using the wide keyboard!
As a reminder, shape-writing is currently available for the following languages: Catalan (Catalan), Croatian (Croatia), Czech (Czech), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Netherlands), English (India), English (United States), English (United Kingdom), Finnish (Finland), French (Canada), French (France), French (Switzerland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew (Israel), Hungarian (Hungary), Indonesian (Indonesia), Italian (Italy), Norwegian, Persian (Iran), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Turkish (Turkey), and Vietnamese (Vietnam).
Handwriting panel Improvements
Improved Insertion Gesture: Based on your feedback about gesture recognition, we’ve updated the insertion gesture (to add space between words or letters) to now be a small caret (see below gif for a demo of what it looks like, along with a cameo of our joining gesture).
A New Commit Gesture: We’ve added a new gesture so you can automatically commit your text and clear out the text in the handwriting panel. This gesture looks like a 90 degree angle bracketing the end of your text – see gif below for an example of how it works.
Improved button layout for Chinese (Simplified) Handwriting: If you use Chinese (Simplified), you’ll now see a layout similar to the one announced for other languages with Build 17035. The buttons in the handwriting panel are collapsed by default – tap the button with the ellipsis to expand them.
This latest Redstone 4 build comes just a week after the release of the Windows 10 preview build 17035, which brought a “Mute tab” feature for Microsoft Edge, a new “Near Share” functionality to quickly share files and URLs with nearby PCs and more. The new features in the build 17040 are probably not as exciting, but there is a lot to like about what Microsoft is doing with Redstone 4 so far. Let us know what do you think of these latest additions in the comments below.
