Saturday, June 15, 2013

Google Docs Gadget

I'm a big user of Google Docs Drive. And a Google Apps customer. I've been using the Google Labs Google Docs Gadget in my e-mail instance for years.

The Google Docs Gadget is recognized across the web as a valuable Lab tool. For example, this article includes it in its list of "Recommended Gmail & Calendar Labs."


As described in this document the Labs gadget:
Adds a box in the left column which displays your Google Docs. Shows recent docs, starred docs, and has fast search.
Really nice functions. Saves you from having to open a new Drive window just to open, create, or search for a document.

Every now and then something went "bump" in the background and it wouldn't work for a while. Then without a word it'd start back working.

It was useful enough to put up with this level of support.

Until...

This spring the search function began getting errors. I looked at it and the problem was just that the syntax for the URL for Google Drive's search had changed. Looked like a trivial change so I thought I'd just wait and it'd be fixed when they got around to it.

Then last week the gadget disappeared from my e-mail. And from the Google Labs page. It looks like some of Google's "Spring Cleaning" had killed the Lab gadget.

A quick search of the Google Forums showed that I was not alone. One of the posts even had a quick work-around including how to implement it.

I copied his XML and made minor changes. Then I uploaded it to my web site and added it as a gadget via URL.

Here's what my version looks like:


Here's the xml:



Works perfectly, for now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ben,
Any interest in sharing the XML for your version of the fix?

Thanks.

Unknown said...

Can we add your gadget by URL? if so, what is the URL address we need to copy/paste?

Ben Moore said...

Sorry but you'll need to host this on a site that you manage.