Google Desktop APIs Blog

Google Desktop Update

2011-09-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

In 2004, Google launched Google Desktop, a program designed to make it easy for users to search their own PCs for emails, files, music, photos, Web pages and more.

Desktop has been used by tens of millions of people and we’ve been humbled by its usage and great user feedback. However, over the past seven years we’ve also witnessed some big changes in how users store and access their own data, with many moving to web-based applications. There has been a significant shift from local to cloud-based storage and computing, as well as integration of Google Desktop functionality (like local search) into most modern operating systems. This is a positive development for users and we’re excited that most people now have instant access to their personal information. As such, we’ll be discontinuing support for Google Desktop, including all of the associated APIs, services, plugins and gadgets.

As of September 14, Google Desktop will no longer be available for download, and existing installations will not be updated to include new features or fixes.

Thanks again to all of our users. It’s been a fun journey.

Posted by the Google Desktop Team

Tip: Build a quality gadget

2009-05-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

What makes a quality gadget?

Platform specification: If you create a gadget only for Windows, make sure that the gadget is not installable on Mac or Linux:
```
<windows minimumGadgetHostVersion="5.1.0.0"/>  
<mac supported="no"/>                          
```
For more information, check the gadget.gmanifest documentation.

Good performance: The gadget should make optimum use of the hardware and operating system services. The efficiency of software can usually be greatly improved by an intelligent choice of high-level algorithms, rather than using local "tricks" or optimizations that can lead to maintenance problems. Factors that may be of interest are response time and memory requirements.
Robustness: The gadget should continue to function in non-standard conditions such as incorrect user input. For example, when the user types something wrong, you can warn the user with a basic message box.
Appropriate interface: The gadget should be friendly and inviting to users. The design and choice of the interface should take into account the needs and capabilities of the users. Many times, gadget features are not utilized because the interface is difficult.
Documentation: The gadget must link to a website that provides support and information about the gadget. On the website, you can write detailed descriptions about what the gadget can do. And don’t forget to display your email address so the users can easily provide feedback about your gadget, offer to translate it, or report a bug. Try to always include a page with frequently asked questions. One good idea is to add a YouTube video about your gadget on the website to show what it can do.

Posted by Stefan Van Damme, Gadget Developer

Congratulations to Adam Hotz!

2009-04-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

A new gadget by Adam Hotz is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Task List and Timer.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Rosie Ojo!

2009-04-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Yet another gadget by Rosie Ojo is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Periodic Table Interactive.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Teodor Filimon!

2009-04-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

A gadget by Teodor Filimon is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Tabbed Todo List.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Prithvi Prabhu!

2009-04-06T21:28:00.000-07:00

A new gadget by Prithvi Prabhu is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Resource Hog Tracker.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Tip: Provide a better About dialog

2009-03-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

What information must be in a gadget's About dialog? The About dialog certainly needs to display the gadget name. It should also contain:

The gadget creator's name (your name or your company's name)
A short description of what the gadget can do
The gadget's license, if any (for example, CC-License or Apache License)

Optionally, you can add information such as:

The version number of the gadget
A list of features introduced in this version of the gadget
A link to your website, so happy customers can get more gadgets from you or contact you

Here's an example of a good About dialog in my Fast shutdown gadget.

Posted by Stefan Van Damme, Gadget Developer

Tip: Use keyboard shortcuts in the Gadget Designer

2009-02-23T09:48:00.000-08:00

When writing code in the Google Desktop Gadget Designer, you most likely have used the Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste text.

Here are some other shortcuts to work faster in the Gadget Designer. They work only while editing text such as JavaScript and XML files.

Ctrl+D	Inserts a copy of the current line below the current line
Ctrl+L	Deletes the current line
Ctrl+T	Swaps the current line and the line above it
Ctrl+[0-9]	Switches the current tab. For example, if the Preview window is positioned in the second tab, Ctrl+2 switches to that tab.

Posted by Stefan Van Damme, Gadget Developer

A completely new Gadget Designer

2009-02-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

A new and improved Google Desktop Gadget Designer is out, with a couple of major new features. The Designer editor now includes autocompletion support and function call tips for the Google Desktop Gadget API and the JavaScript language.

You can start autocompletion by typing the "." key or pressing Ctrl+Space. A list appears that displays objects, methods, properties, events, and constants to choose from, along with visual indicators to help you distinguish between them. Non-object related variables and functions are also dynamically recognized as you type them, and you'll see autocompletion suggestions based on your current scope. The following screenshot shows how Designer displays autocompletion suggestions for view object properties and methods that start with "s".

Call tips display function prototypes and short descriptions. They appear when you type an opening brace "(" or press Shift+Space. The following screenshot shows the call tip for the view.setInterval() method.

We sincerely hope that these new features will save you a lot of time while developing gadgets, making it that much more fun to bring your ideas to life. Please download the latest SDK and try out the new Gadget Designer.

Posted by Paneendra Ba, Software Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

IIT Google Desktop Developer Challenge II (2008)

2009-02-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

Google Desktop has active ambassadors all over the world who have successfully held programming contests and seminars at their schools.

As a stepping stone for bigger events, we held IIT Google Desktop Developer Challenge II at Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT), Sri Lanka, last summer.

This is the second event we organized at IIT Sri Lanka; you can read about the first event.

IIT Google Desktop Developer Challenge II was a Google Desktop Gadget contest organized for student developers at our institute. Any student enrolled at IIT was eligible to take part, and the main purpose of the contest was to inspire new developers to try the Google Desktop APIs and develop gadgets.

First, the students who wished to participate in this contest had to hand in proposals, which contained a brief introduction to the gadget they planned to develop. After that, it was time for them to develop their gadgets. The completed gadgets were forwarded to a panel of experts including API Gurus and the Google Desktop team. All these steps were done online through the official website for the contest, powered by Google App Engine.

And now, we are very happy to announce the winners of the second successful ambassador event in Sri Lanka.

Nadeeshani Jayathilaka was selected as third runner up for the gadget Greeting Bird, while Shazin was selected as the second runner up the gadget Radio Pro. The first runner up was Hanitha Gnanathesigar for her gadget GHealth N Fitness.

The winner of the contest was Lakmal Jayathilaka, who created the gadget Text 2 Wav Converter.

We congratulate all the winners and would like to thank everyone who took part in this competition and who helped to make this event a success. You can view photos of the award ceremony on Picasa Web Albums. Last but not least, a special thanks to the Google Desktop team for the greatest support given.

Posted by Lahiru Lakmal Priyadarshana, Google Desktop Ambassador and Gadget Developer

Open source from the get-go

2009-01-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

In the past few weeks, we launched the YouTube, Calendar, and Google Docs gadgets, making them open source from the very beginning. We also wrote a short story on the Google Open Source blog about our experiences with these projects and how open sourcing benefits the developer community. Once again, we'd like to encourage everyone to open source your gadgets and share your code. If you're new to Desktop gadgets, looking at open sourced gadgets is a great way to learn.

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

YouTube gadget open sourced

2008-12-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Wanted to let you all know that the just-released YouTube gadget was open sourced at launch. Please check out the Google Code project and the announcement on the YouTube API blog.

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Aiming for a better user experience

2008-12-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Although Google Desktop gadgets are getting easier and easier to develop, you still might want to spend time on improving the overall experience of using your gadget. There are a lot of features you may want to consider, and many resources exist to help you implement these features.

For example, my latest article about Improving User Experience deals with following useful standards in your gadget. It describes ways to achieve attractive and intuitive interfaces, gather user feedback, and implement an update system. It also touches on related topics such as attracting users and planning for updates. The article has links to other articles and API references, where you can find further details.

Posted by Teodor "Teo" Filimon, Gadget Developer

Report: Gadget Development Workshop at Vellore Institute of Technology

2008-12-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

It was my immense pleasure to conduct this Desktop gadget development workshop at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) on 22 Oct as part of Phreak 08. Phreak is a National Level Technical Symposium organized by VIT every year to discuss, share, and learn about the latest and future technologies. The time allotted for this workshop was 3 hours, including a 15-minute break.

It started off with a 45-minute technical presentation similar to what was presented at Google Developer Day. I covered the basic introduction, structure, and benefits of Google Desktop gadgets. This also included a demo of the Designer and an explanation of developer resources. I showed the Gadget API Reference page, and from that we used a few API methods to quickly create the Memory Smiley gadget.

The second part of the session was a fun-filled one. I started with the basics of XML and JavaScript, as most of the students were in their first year and were new to these. After that, I opened the Designer and added some images and a single button. Then students were challenged to come up with ideas on how to develop a gadget out of it. We received more than 35 ideas. Some had real potential, and others were just funny.

A few of the ideas: a dictionary with language converter, a gadget to automatically download videos as you watch them on YouTube/Orkut, phone dialers, file restorer, and a shortcut to clear history. Some of the ideas that came up — such as a to-do list, a weather gadget, and a program runner — already existed in the gallery. We had a few Google T-shirts and gave them away to people that suggested the best ideas.

After the brainstorming session, we took two of the ideas and implemented them on the spot. One was Thought for the Click; the other was a Simple Music Player. I've posted the slides and the code from the workshop in my blog.

I would like to thank the ambassadors, Vishnu S and Ajay Amritraj, who made this all possible. They did all they could to book the hall and get people registered. It was an opportunity for me to showcase my passion for sharing technology. It was a great experience, and I would love to conduct more of these kind of workshops in the future.

If you'd like to see more photos, here's the complete set of pictures.

Posted by Bijoy Thangaraj R, Gadget Developer & API Guru

Congratulations to Edwin Lee!

2008-11-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

A new gadget by Edwin Lee is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: On-Screen Ruler.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Google Developer Day contest results

2008-11-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone who attended the Developer Day India codelab sessions and participated in the gadget contest. We've completed the judging and have awarded prizes. Here are the final results:

1st place

Resource Hog Tracker by Prithvi Prabhu

2nd place

Typing Tutor by Shourya Sarcar

3rd place (tie)

Number Converter by Sathish Kulal

and Indic Search by Amit Agarwal

As far as I know, all of these gadgets were created by newcomers to the Desktop Gadget APIs. The entire Google Developer Day team was continually impressed by the skill level of the attendees, and these gadgets prove that point.

Many thanks to all the participants, and we hope to see you all next year!

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Stefan Van Damme!

2008-11-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

A new gadget by Stefan Van Damme (aka Stefan vd) is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: VM Wheater Map.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Submit your winter holiday gadgets

2008-11-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

It is again that time of the year when we ask the developer community to unleash their creativity and submit holiday-themed gadgets.

In the past we've featured gadgets for a long list of holidays such as Valentine's Day, Halloween, New Year, Christmas, and Hanukkah; these gadgets were a great success. Many thanks to the developers who submitted them!

We would like to repeat this feat with the upcoming winter holidays and New Year 2009. If you have plans to develop a gadget, please let us know. We'll feature holiday gadgets and blog about them.

Please submit your gadgets by December 3, 2008. We're looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Any questions? You can send them to gd-developer AT google DOT com.

Mihai Ionescu, Software Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

New Hall of Fame leader: Alexey Polkovnikov

2008-11-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

We would like congratulate Alexey Polkovnikov, who has grabbed the top spot in the Developer Hall of Fame. The Google Desktop team thanks Alexey for creating so many popular, useful gadgets!

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Tip: Automatically update gadget screenshots

2008-11-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

When you submit your gadget, you specify URLs for large and small screenshots of the gadget. These screenshots represent your gadget in listings such as the Add gadgets window, online gadget directories, and the web page that's automatically generated for each gadget.

Unfortunately, there was no direct way to update these locations should they ever change — until now. This tip tells you how to update the screenshot URLs.

Add these tags to the gadget.gmanifest of your published .gg file:

<about>
  ...
  <thumbnailUrl>http://mysite.appspot.com/80x60_screen.png</thumbnailUrl>
  <screenshotUrl >http://mysite.appspot.com/300x255_screen.png</screenshotUrl>
  ...
</about>

The gadget gallery has the smarts to pick up these changes and use the URLs you specify to update the images in the gallery. Check out the gadget.gmanifest documentation for more details.

Just a reminder, the small screenshot should be 80x60 pixels. Also, be sure to take a look at this classic tip about submitting better screenshots.

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Andreas Horlacher!

2008-10-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Another new gadget by Andreas Horlacher is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Radio Energy Zürich.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

"Vox populi" applies everywhere

2008-10-24T15:31:00.000-07:00

"Vox populi" is a Latin phrase that means "the voice of the people" or, in our case, the voice of the users. A good way to tap into this great source of feedback and to get a gratifying feeling, as well, is to compile accurate statistics about how many people install your gadgets and how long people keep your gadgets.

My latest article, Gadget Usage Stats, details a possible implementation of such a system, keeping user privacy in mind. It isn't too complicated; you can reduce it to 3 levels: the gadget, a server-side script, and a database. The interesting part is how all the elements communicate with each other. After reading this article, you should be able to set up this system for your own gadgets. You can take advantage of the system's flexibility by changing it to meet your own needs.

Posted by Teodor Filimon, Gadget Developer

Congratulations to Rosie Ojo!

2008-10-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

A new gadget by Rosie Ojo is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Precious Metals Spot Prices.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)

Update: Google Developer Day 2008 India

2008-10-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Our very first Developer Day in India will be held on October 18, 2008 at the Chancery Pavilion, Bangalore, India.

This is a very special Developer Day for Google Desktop, as many of our team members work out of the Google Bangalore office. If you are going to attend or happen to know someone who is, allow me to point out a couple of can't-miss sessions:

Rajesh Chandrashekaran is scheduled to hold a tech talk about Google Desktop gadgets. The talk introduces the Desktop gadgets platform and provides an overview of the APIs, tools, and incentives for creating gadgets.
I am conducting two codelab sessions throughout the afternoon, which are actually going to be mini gadget programming competitions. You can be the inaugural winner of the "Google Desktop award for codelab excellence at Developer Day" and win a fabulous prize!

Unfortunately, we've reached capacity and are no longer accepting registrations. However, if you are an established gadget developer, please send a note to gd-developer AT google DOT com, and we'll try to sneak you in through the side door.

धन्यवाद (Thank you)

Posted by James Yum, Developer Programs Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Congratulations to Mehdy Bohlool!

2008-10-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

A new gadget by Mehdy Bohlool is featured on the Inside Google Desktop blog. See the post Featured gadget: Persian Calendar.

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer (Google Desktop Team)