Author Archive

Posted by Mihai Ionescu, Software Engineer



With the release of Google Desktop 3 Beta, our plug-in collection grew a little larger:

• MSN Messenger Sidebar Plug-in by Otron - Get quick access to your Messenger contacts.



• eBay Watcher by Google - Never miss an eBay auction.



• Tic Tac Toe by Google - Play a game of Tic Tac Toe against the computer or a friend.



• GoogleVideo Indexer by Google - Index and search Google Video .GVI files



• ResearchAccelerator by Michael S. Scherotter - Integrate Google Desktop results into Mind Manager.



• Tarchiver by Jonathan Speiser - Index the file names contained within TAR files.



• IPS Website Counter by Michel Blanc - Monitor the traffic of multiple websites.

Additionally the SDK contains new and updated sample code to assist plug-in developers in using the latest APIs:

• GoogleVideo indexing sample



• Query API sample



• ImFeelingLucky Event API sample



• TicTacToe Communication API sample

Posted by Mihai Ionescu, Software Engineer



Yesterday we released 10 new Google Desktop plug-ins. Kudos to all the

developers.

• Magnifier by Catalin Patulea - Magnifies the active area of your screen



• WorldTimes by Neil Selkirk - Displays the current homepage details from WhatsTimeWorth.com and World Times for 457 different locations



• CurrencyQuotes by Joe Force - Displays currency quotes with directional indicators



• AuctionWatch by Ty Kroll - Tracks multiple eBay auctions



• SessionControl by Joel Costa - Control your Windows Session tasks



• MM-Memo by Tennetiss - Shows your MM/Memo social bookmarks



• VerseOfTheDay by Adam Faulkner - Displays a daily Bible verse



• IntegrateIE by Bas Rokers - Integrates Google Desktop into IE 7



• 3DTicTacToe by Catalin-Alexandru Avram - What is says



• NBA Scoreboard by Google - Shows live scores and stats for NBA games
  
  

Posted by Mihai Ionescu, Software Engineer



We've recently released a new Enterprise version of Google Desktop 3 giving adminstrators full control over what features to restrict and how documents are retained. To learn more visit the blog entry from our friends on the Enterprise team.

Posted by Kan Liu, Product Manager



In the new version of Google Desktop 3 (which is coming out of beta today), we’ve fixed a few things from the beta, and we’re also introducing a new element that makes it more convenient to find what you're looking for by enabling you to search the web as well as your local computer, or email, as you type. We call it the Quick Search Box.







It appears in the middle of your screen when you press the Ctrl button twice. When you don't need it, the Quick Search Box automatically hides or sits on your desktop, whichever you prefer. Try it out and send us your suggestions and comments.

Posted by Greg Coladonato, Product Manager



If you've been hesitant to use Google Desktop 3 in your native language because of its "Beta" status, your wait is over. This evening we're launching non-Beta versions of Desktop in (you might want to make yourself comfortable) French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian.



We'd like to thank all the users who've given us feedback on the Beta version of Google Desktop; your ideas and comments have helped tremendously as we've worked to improve this product.

Posted by John Abd-El-Malek, Software Engineer



Today we released the latest version of Google Desktop in 7 languages (the rest are coming soon). The biggest news is that we're introducing Google Gadgets - visually appealing mini-applications like clocks, weather globes, media players, etc., that support rich markup language (XML, Flash) and enable a wide array of visual effects and animation. We've also made it really easy for developers to create their own gadgets - almost as easily as you’d create a web page. One of my favorites is the weather globe.





You can also add some of your Google Homepage modules to your Sidebar or use a new gadget to check out what's popular on Google Videos. To add any of these great new gadgets, just click on the + button on the top of the Sidebar and you'll see all the available gadgets. You can add them with just one click.



What else is new? Well, do you like setting up all your applications when you get a new computer? I don’t either. Last week my hard drive died, but setting up my computer was a lot easier because my Sidebar remembered all its original settings as soon as I installed it. Your stock symbols, weather locations, To Do items, etc. can now be synchronized across multiple machines – or even just one machine, if it happens to quit, like mine did.



There are lots of other improvements under the Desktop hood as well; you can check them out in more detail on our features page. We hope you enjoy using the new Google Desktop as much as we do.

Posted by Satish Sampath, Software Engineer



We're post-beta! Google Desktop 4 is available in English. Plus there are now beta versions of Google Desktop in 27 languages (up from 16). So now just about everyone will be able to use the latest and greatest Google Gadgets.



And if you're a developer, more power to you. Check out the Google Desktop Gadget Designer, a new developer tool for creating, maintaining and debugging gadgets faster than before. You can now easily manage your projects and files, visually design your gadget UI (no need to handcode the xml), edit your script code and preview changes instantly (no more restarts), view debug messages with the built-in debug console, automatically generate the gadget package and manifest and much more in an integrated development environment. The designer is available for download as part of the latest Google Desktop SDK.



But wait, there's more! We're announcing a Google Desktop Gadget Contest for developers, with $8,000 in cash prizes. The contest is only open for the next month, so put on your coding hat and start churning out those cool gadgets you've always wanted. Good luck and have fun!

Posted by Kamal Singh, Software QA Engineer



Gadget lovers alert: we've added 200+ more of your favorite Google Gadgets for Google Desktop. In the past, some of these useful bits were trapped in a browser; now you can set them free anywhere on your desktop or in your Sidebar. To find the new ones, just choose "Add gadgets" from the Sidebar or check them out online. And if you want to make your own cool gadgets for the Google homepage, here's the developer guide.

Posted by Omar Khan, Software Engineer



Now that the Google Desktop Gadget Contest is running, I have a tip for how to personalize your gadget: make it react to what the user's doing. For example, I buy books on Amazon a lot, and I realized that I was doing a very similar query over and over -- looking up reviews for the books I found interesting. I realized that I could create a Google Desktop Gadget that watched for when I was visiting Amazon, and then performed a query on the title of the book I was looking at. Voila, the gadget then displays those Google search results in the Sidebar.



The source code for this gadget (named I'm Feeling Lucky) can be found in the samples section of the Google Desktop SDK.



Here are some other ideas for personalizing that might inspire you:

• When someone is reading blogs, show the top posts from Technorati or Digg or another popular aggregator.



• Silly pictures! When someone is reading an email message, find a picture online, or on their computer, to associate with the sender -- and whenever the gadget sees that person's name, show the picture. Add some utility by making the picture respond to clicks.

You get the idea! Make the experience more personal. And have fun doing it!

Posted by E.K. Chung, User Experience Designer



Due to user feedback, we've decided to extend the deadline for the Google Desktop Gadget Contest by two weeks. You now have until Monday, August 14, to submit your gadget. Winners will be announced on September 5. For more details, check out the contest homepage.



And for those of you thinking about the look and feel of your gadget, here are some general tips:



1. Buttons, checkboxes, and tabs should look clickable. Mouseover, mousedown, and disabled states are needed to inform users that the button is active or inactive, and also to confirm interactions.







2. Create selected and unselected states for your tabs. The usual UI design that defines a selected tab are 1) removal of any lines that separate the tab and its content area (a la the Windows tab UI), and 2) matching the color of the selected tab to its content area.



My Music tab is selected Playlist tab is selected





Live tab is selected Matches tab is selected







3. Use a gentle, light color for backgrounds. When selecting backgrounds, avoid intensely bright colors that can cause eyestrain. (These kinds of colors should be used very sparingly in general.)







The left image shows good color usage, while the one on the right is harder to read.







4. Take advantage of a "details" or "expanded" view. If the gadget is info-centric and primarily text-driven, try to offer "details" or "expanded" views, like news and web clips. These views allow you to display a lot of information in an efficient way.



5. Group similar items together. When there are many buttons or links, try to group relevant buttons and links together. This not only makes it easier for people to find the functions they're looking for, but it also helps them remember where things are.



6. Follow conventions. If a button is commonly used in a UI--like the close, remove, and OK buttons in Windows or Google Desktop--try to follow the conventions associated with those buttons and place them accordingly.



For example, a close button is always on the upper right corner.



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