On March 7, 2022, it came to light that in the official development document of the WeChat applet, a new function has been added. The new support ensures that the app supports a “half-screen applet”; however, this function is still in its internal testing stage.
The document that describes the new function defines the new feature as follows: “When the applet needs to open another applet for the user to perform shortcut operations, the applet to be opened can be quickly pulled up in the form of a half screen.”
What exactly is the function of the new feature? In its present format, whenever a user opens another WeChat applet through the WeChat applet, the new applet opens in a new interface, in the sense that it redirects the user to a new interface. However, with the new feature, which is currently in its internal test phase, whenever the user opens a new WeChat applet, it will be pulled up from the bottom, and the new applet can be viewed in the form of a card.
Although WeChat is yet to explain the exact mechanism of the new feature, a few reports have explained that during the internal testing period, each applet can open up to two half-screen applets. Moreover, the applet has to be opened in the half-screen form in the embeddedAppIdList field of the global configuration app.json. It basically means that it will be downgraded to a normal applet jump applet.
But it also comes with a few restrictions. The new feature needs to meet a few criteria failing which it will be downgraded to the ordinary applet jump applet. On the other hand, the user can also choose to open the shared applet page within their circle of friends but it will open a page of “single-page mode of the applet”.
