The New Google Desktop 5.5 Beta: It’s in the Details
Last week in its Team Blog and in the Official Google Blog, the Google Desktop team announced the availability of the new Google beta version of Google Desktop. In the official announcement, the feature being touted the most is the ability to add Google Desktop gadgets to your iGoogle page, but there are a lot of other updated features that makes Google Desktop even better.
More Streamlined Installation and Configuration
The installation of the new version is more streamlined than ever, and it sports a cleaner, sexier UI:
It’s not uncommon for a Google update to ask for a restart after the installation, unfortunately, this is still the case with version 5.5. Hopefully this can be addressed in the future.
After you have upgraded your Google Desktop installation and have restarted, you will be greeted with this new configuration dialog which asks you which features you would like to turn on.
Initial configuration is now a lot easier with this new simplified dialog.
Show along with this is another dialog/widget that explains the basics of using Google Desktop, making features even more discoverable. It’s good that the Desktop team has put some efforts in making things more discoverable. The polish shown also speaks for the team’s focus on making the product better and even more usable.
Once you’ve configured your Google Desktop (reading all the tips, and checking all the features), you’re greeted with what seems to be at first an updated version 5. The good bits are yet to show up though.
Multiple Gadget Instances
I’ve been wanting since the day they “liberated†gadgets from the sidebar and made them available on the desktop as well. Sometimes you may want to have multiple instances of the same gadget, for example, for the day night world clock, in order to monitor for example multiple time zones in different cities at the same, if you want to have multiple To Do Lists (for GTD fans), or to monitor weather on multiple places.
With Version 5.5, Google has added the ability to do just these – multiple instances of gadgets can be added easily by simply going to the Add Gadgets window, and clicking on Add for the gadget whose instance you want to duplicate. For gadgets that’s not included in the shared feature (which allows you to share gadget data among different computers, using your Google account), you’re given the option to turn off sharing for that gadget if you want to make multiple instances of it.
Google Gadgets which supports sharing are To Do, Scratch Pad and Web Clips.
Next post I’ll continue with the rest of the new things on Google Desktop version 5.5, including the capability to add desktop gadgets to your iGoogle page.
While I’m working on the next post here’s some other posts on the new Desktop that you may want to check out:
- New Version of Google Desktop Gets Gadget Smart
- Google Integrates Desktop Gadgets into iGoogle
- Google Desktop Gadgets Now on iGoogle
- Google releases stand-alone desktop widget engine
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[...] The New Google Desktop 5.5 Beta: It’s in the DetailsThe feature being touted the most is the ability to add Google Desktop gadgets to your iGoogle page (Google Tutor Oct 8 2007) [...]