Google Docs and Spreadsheets Upgrade (part 2)

The other day I discussed the new Google Docs and Spreadsheets sidebar and how it helps you have an organize view for your documents and spreadsheets. Today I will continue with the rest of the new features of the Google web office.

The Toolbar

The upgraded toolbar allows you to do commonly used actions that are both context-sensitive and universal. In terms of functionality, the new toolbar is almost the same as the old one (except that tags are now called folders), but the upgrade has made it more intuitive. By using standard toolbar elements like dropdown buttons with unique icons, the toolbar is now feels more familiar and at the same time less verbose.

All actions that pertain to the creation of a new object (new document, new spreadsheet, or new folder) are now integrated to the New dropdown button. This menu does the same thing regardless of your current view.

I mentioned in my last post that the new folders in docs and spreadsheets actually behave like tags, so you can actually move documents around different folders or add them to multiple ones. The Add to folder dropdown menu found in the toolbar does one thing consitently: it lets you add a document to another folder without removing it from the current location. This is regardless of your current view.

Drag and drop is a bit different. What happens when you drag a document from a current view and drop it to a folder is dependent on your current view. When you’re viewing a folder by selecting the corresponding folder on the sidebar, a drag and drop of a document to another folder on the sidebar will MOVE that document to that folder. But when you’re viewing documents from the other non-folder views (All Documents, starred, Document types, Sharing), the drag and drop action is interpreted as Add to a folder. That’s except, of course, when you’re viewing the trash – where drag and drop is a move action.

Search

The new docs search has a suggest feature that lets you open a document directly from the search interface. This will become increasingly useful as your documents store in docs and spreadsheets continue to pile up. The search also returns matches for folders and your contacts with whom you’re sharing documents with. If you’re purpose for the search is to make certain actions on the documents, you can choose to display the search results instead of clicking directly on the matches. This is necessary because the drop down for the search suggestion doesn’t feature a context menu to allow other actions (yet). The next upgrade that I can think of for the search interface is the addition of saved searches or smart folders.

There it is, your guide to the new docs and spreadsheets document list interface. Enjoy!