Desktop APIs

Friday, September 02, 2011 at 12:48 PM

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

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 11:38 AM

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)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at 10:08 AM

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)

Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 10:52 AM

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)

Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 4:08 PM

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

Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 3:32 AM

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!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 2:22 PM

The new Slideshow for Facebook gadget has just been announced on the Inside Google Desktop blog. If you look at the gadget's source code, you'll be introduced to two new objects that we think you might like.

For displaying photos, there's an automated slideshow object that, given a list of image URLs, displays the images at the requested interval.

The second object implements a Desktop-enhanced Facebook JavaScript API. This API gives you easy access to the friend lists, albums, and photos of Facebook members.

The code for using these objects is simple, as the gadget source code demonstrates. If you have trouble using either object, you can get help at the usual place: the Google Desktop Developer Group.

Posted by Larry Gadea, Software Engineer (Google Desktop Team)

Monday, September 15, 2008 at 2:04 PM

I think the coolest feature is the ability to embed Flash movies with a few lines of code. We can't wait to start seeing your Flash creations in the gadget gallery. I made a gadget that embeds my favorite YouTube video, which I play about a hundred times a day.



Pressing Tab (or Shift+Tab) now moves the focus to the next (or previous) element. This affects existing gadgets that have implemented Tab traversal manually, so please be sure to test and update those gadgets.

We've added new Personalization APIs to help you better tailor content for the user. Here's an example of retrieving the user's zip code:

   var zipCode = google.pers.data.getZipCode()

Lastly, for gadgets that are resizable, the heavy resize frame no longer appears. If your gadget has a non-standard visual frame, your users may have difficulty resizing it. To address that, you can now define a custom resize border area.

Thanks everyone for your contributions and please keep letting us know how we can improve Google Desktop.

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

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 8:08 AM

Posted by Satish Sampath, Gadget Master (Google Desktop Team)

We're excited to invite you to Google Developer Day in Bangalore, India. Google Developer Days are a chance to learn about Google developer products from the engineers who built them.

The Bangalore day will include both a tech talk and a code lab session on the Desktop APIs, hosted by members of the Desktop team. You'll get to meet members of the team and in the process learn how to build gadgets and applications using the Desktop APIs. Gadgets can be a desktop presence for your web application or site, keeping it in people's minds even when they're not using a browser.

For more information, search the sessions page for "desktop". Hope to see you in Bangalore!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 8:08 AM

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

Desktop gadget development articles have moved to their rightful place on code.google.com:

http://code.google.com/apis/desktop/articles/

If you've written an article, please check to see if the migration went smoothly for your work. We'll start redirecting the old URLs soon.

If you haven't browsed through the articles, take a minute to check them out. We have over twenty articles, covering topics such as resizable gadgets, XMLHttpRequest, and element rotation.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 1:08 PM

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

Google Gadgets for Linux 0.10.1 has been released. For an overview of what's changed, check out James Su's post on the Inside Google Desktop blog. Some interesting details about this release:

• It includes a new, Linux version of Gadget Designer, implemented as a built-in gadget (yes, it's a gadget!)


• It's compatible with more gadgets, including the 2008 Summer Games gadget, which lets you keep track of the games on your Linux desktop

Friday, July 25, 2008 at 2:04 PM

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

We're looking for gadget developers to join us in an ultra swank, state-of-the-art rooftop lounge in the heart of downtown. Rent is free as long as you are an interested or experienced gadget developer.

You can inspect the premises during our open house Wednesday, August 6, at noon Pacific time — that's 12:30 a.m. in Bangalore, 10 p.m. in Bucharest... (see more time zones).

This one-room complex on top of a fifty-story building has amenities that will surely blow you away:

• Heated swimming pool and jacuzzi
• Poolside patio
• Breathtaking view of downtown
• Fish tank filled with rare and exotic fish
• Outdoor conference room

There are a few inconveniences. First of all, there is no kitchen or bathroom. (Do not use the pool for either of these purposes.) Guardrails are lacking, so try your best not to fall off the building.

We do not discriminate based on gender, age, sexual orientation, or species. Pigs, cats, and bears are all welcome.


Heated swimming pool


Aerial shot of the meeting area


Extremely rare talking fish

Feel free to drop by anytime, but don't miss the open house. Google Desktop team members and top developers will attend. We'd like nothing more than to make this your new home.

Any questions, please visit us at the Google Desktop developer group.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 at 4:20 PM

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

Google is always looking to enhance the browser, and a new release called Lively aims to add a bit of fun and playfulness to the online experience.

Lively adds virtual reality to web pages, so you can have more fun with your friends online and can create your own spaces on the web. You can learn more about it in this blog post.

You might be wondering why we're talking about Lively on this blog. Well, Lively uses Desktop gadgets to provide rich media and interaction capabilities to users. This means you can create gadgets that run in both Lively and Google Desktop. Here is a screenshot showing a television gadget that plays YouTube videos:



If you'd like to start developing and testing gadgets for Lively, read this getting started guide. Note that you'll need to be recognized as a Lively content developer, so please request Lively gadget developer access.

UPDATE (July 10): The request form is new. It replaces the old procedure of sending an email.

If you need help or are new to Desktop gadget development, visit the Desktop developer group.

Monday, June 16, 2008 at 4:47 PM

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

We've just released a minor update to the Google Desktop SDK. The most noticeable change is that we've updated the stock images for controls, both in the Designer and in sample gadgets.



The old images are still lying around, in case you miss them. You can find them in the archived Designer (api/tools/designer-1.0.zip).

For a complete list of changes, check out the release notes.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008 at 8:25 PM

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

Google Desktop for Linux has been around almost a year, but without support for gadgets. Now, thanks to a new open-source project, you can play with gadgets on Linux and view the source code for the gadget platform. If you want to get involved, you can contribute fixes to the gadget platform before it's released to the general public.

For details, read Jim Zhuang's post.

Friday, May 23, 2008 at 8:48 AM

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

Google I/O (our biggest developer event of the year) is right around the corner. It will be held May 28-29 in San Francisco, California.

I have a couple of updates to report for the Desktop team:

• A Fireside Chat with Google Desktop engineers has been confirmed for 1:45PM on Wednesday, May 28th. A Fireside Chat is an informal Q&A and is often the best part of the event, as it gives developers a chance to ask what's on their minds and talk to the product engineering teams. I will be there along with tech leads and engineers from Google's Bangalore office.
• About a dozen different members of the Desktop team will take turns staffing a demo booth in the AJAX/JavaScript product area. If there is anyone in particular you'd like to talk to, please send an email to gd-developer AT google DOT com, and we'll coordinate a meeting.

We hope to see you there. If you've haven't registered yet, you still might be able to sign up.

Friday, April 25, 2008 at 3:37 PM

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

The Google Desktop team hopes you can join us at Google's biggest developer event of the year. Google I/O will be held May 28-29 in San Francisco, California.

Google Desktop engineers have just been scheduled for a Fireside Chat. It will be an informal Q&A session where you can ask just about anything — design decisions, annoying issues, and features you'd like to see.

You can find us hanging out in our demo booth throughout the entire event. The booth will be in the Ajax/JavaScript product area.

Google I/O is going to be an amazing event with lots of great talks and sessions. We're really looking forward to meeting you, so please stop by and say hello. If you have questions about participating in the event, please send an email to gd-developer AT google DOT com.

UPDATE (May 23): The chat has been scheduled for Wednesday at 1:45, and we have some more information about the demo booth. See the Google I/O Update post for details.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 2:51 PM

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

Back in October, James Yum blogged about changes to Gadget Designer, a Windows application that helps you create Desktop gadgets. Since then, Gadget Designer has continued to improve, with bug fixes and support for the latest API changes.

Now there's a new tutorial that leads you through the major features of the latest version of Gadget Designer, from creating and editing your gadget to debugging it and generating the gadget package. Here it is:


Even if you've used Gadget Designer before, please check it out. Who knows? You might learn something new, and we always appreciate your feedback.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 11:13 AM

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

Don't miss Satish Sampath's post on the Inside Google Desktop blog. Satish is in charge of the Desktop Gadget API (the post lists his title as Gadget Master :), and it's interesting to see how he uses Hindi-language Desktop gadgets in his iGoogle homepage.

To find out what's new for developers in 5.5, see the release notes.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 5:00 PM

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

The gadget gallery now has an RSS feed of the latest gadgets: Add it to your reader and be sure to tell all your friends. You could even write a new gadget about new gadgets.