A preview of Gmail’s new look

A preview of Gmail’s new look: "Posted by Jason Cornwell, User Experience Designer



We get a lot of great feedback about how Gmail helps you be more efficient, keep in touch with family and friends, and get work done. We’ve saved you from forgetting attachments and made sure that you got the right Bob. Over the years, adding countless features to Gmail has made it an increasingly powerful communication hub, but along the way the interface has also become more cluttered and complex.



That’s one of the reasons we’re embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful. This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products. The changes are not going to happen all at once. We know that you love and care about Gmail as much as we do, and we’ll be working on these upgrades gradually over the next few months to allow plenty of time to understand and incorporate your feedback into the evolving design.



We’re kicking things off with two new themes for you to try out as a sort of sneak peek at what we’re up to. Starting today, you’ll see the “Preview” and “Preview (Dense)” themes in the Themes tab in Gmail Settings. Why two themes? Our new interface will eventually expand dynamically to accommodate different screen sizes and user preferences, but until then you can pick the information density that you prefer.



Here’s what one of the new themes currently looks like:







And in conversation view:





Click the images above to see larger versions.



If you poke around you’ll hopefully find a lot to like and a much cleaner, modern look but also few rough edges. In particular, some Labs features may look a little strange in the new themes. We plan to fix these issues as we roll out changes in the coming months. You can also expect some updated themes that embody the same design principles but are better suited to working in a dark environment, use a different color palette, or include the illustrations that we know many of you love to see around your inbox.



Look out for these and other new features over the next few months. In the meantime, try out the new themes as a preview of the future of Gmail and let us know what you think.



P.S. Like Gmail, Google Calendar is also getting a new look. You’ll see it automatically within the next few days so there’s no need to turn it on, and we’ll also continue to make improvements there in the coming months. Details about the current changes to Calendar can be found in the Calendar help center.

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The New Face of Google Web Fonts

The New Face of Google Web Fonts: "

As we talked about at our Google IO session, the Google Web Fonts team has been hard at work designing a new font browsing experience for www.google.com/webfonts. Today, this new interface is available for you to try! Just click here, or you can click the New Version link at the top of our current product. The interface has a lot of the features you've requested, including the ability to preview your own custom text, the ability to compare fonts side-by-side, as well as an indication of page load times.

To arrive at the final design, our team spent significant time researching how users pick which fonts to use on your web pages, blogs and projects. Based on our findings, we sketched out dozens of possible ways to design our font browsing experience. After many iterations of testing with our test users, we believe we've arrived at a font browsing experience you'll really like.

Our primary goal with this new interface is to ensure that as the library of free, open source web fonts grows, you can still browse the library quickly and easily. To accomplish this goal, we've introduced the concept of a collection, which is similar to the concept of a shopping cart on your favorite ecommerce website. Just add fonts to your collection, and then proceed through the Choose, Review and Use steps. During this process, you can compare them side by side, experience with them in sample layouts using the new Test Drive feature, and finally copy and paste the HTML snippet to use these fonts in your pages.

During our user studies, we noticed that when users proceeded to select a font, they have a certain use case in mind. In other words, they knew they were looking for a font for a logo, for a heading or for body text. So we designed 3 different viewing modes - Word, Sentence and Paragraph - to facilitate font browsing in each of these cases. By default, you are in Sentence mode, which shows about a sentence length of preview text. But when you switch to Word mode, the font preview size increases, and the font cards shrink so you can see more fonts on the screen. When you switch to Paragraph mode, the text size will shrink significantly, and you'll see the fonts used in sample paragraphs instead.

Second, the new interface allows for easy font browsing by weight. Just use the thickness filter in the left hand panel. Looking for an Ultra black font? How about Ultra Light? Look no further. This feature relies on the font technology of TypeDNA. The Google Web Fonts are analyzed to determine each font's specific boldness characteristic. In this way, you see a consistent level of boldness across the fonts in your filter, regardless of how the font designer originally categorized them.

The new interface introduces the Test Drive module, which allows users to visualize their font collection in a sample layout. In this way, you can see what your fonts look like in practice, before embedding them in the final product. To take your fonts for a test drive, click on the Test Drive tab from within the Review step.

And finally, the new interface has a final step, Use. Here you'll find an indication of page load time based on your font selections. It's important to remember that the more fonts you use on your page, the more font data needs to be downloaded before your users can use your pages. Although Google Web Fonts is highly optimized to serve web fonts quickly to any user in the world, it's always important to request only the font families and styles you intend to use on your pages.

Sometime in the next few weeks, this interface will replace the current homepage at www.google.com/webfonts. But until then you can give it a spin and let us know what you think.

Posted by Jeremie Lenfant-Engelmann, Engineer, Google Web Fonts

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10 Gmail gadgets to try

10 Gmail gadgets to try: "Posted by Martin Gruau, Consumer Operations



There is a powerful but little known Gmail feature that lives in Labs called “Add any gadget by URL.” Once you turn it on, you can add iGoogle gadgets (or any gadget specified by an .xml file) to the side of your Gmail account. While most of these gadgets are built by third-parties and not owned or maintained by Google, they can be super handy.



To install any of these gadgets, follow those steps:

1) From your Gmail account, go to the Labs tab of Gmail Settings.

2) Look for the Lab “Add any gadget by URL.” Enable it, then click “Save changes.”

3) Go to the new “Gadgets” tab under “Settings” and add the relevant .xml address.



Here’s a list of a ten I’ve found worth trying out:



Wikipedia

Look for a specific query right from Gmail.

http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml





Google Calculator

Make some quick calculations while typing an email.

http://calebegg.com/calc.xml





Note

Add a sticky note to the corner of your Gmail account.

http://www.google.com/ig/modules/sticky.xml





Remember the Milk

If you’re a fan of this task management system, accessing all your “Remember the milk” notes from right within Gmail can be super handy.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/gmail/rtm.xml





PolyClock

Gives you the time of day for any place in the world.

http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml





Currency Converter

A real time currency converter.

http://helloworld123---.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/currency-converter.xml





bit.ly URL shortener

Lets you shorten URLs in a single click.

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml





Chuck Norris fact generator

Displays a different “Chuck Norris fact” every day of the year. http://marsupialmusic.net/stu/scripts/chucknorris.xml





Finally, you might be familiar with the last two gadgets, since they are also available as individual Gmail Labs:



Google Calendar

Displays your Google Calendar agenda right from Gmail.

http://www.google.com/ig/modules/calendar.xml





Google Docs

Gives you quick access to your most recent documents.

www.google.com/ig/modules/docs.xml





You can find lots of other gadgets optimized for iGoogle on this page, and many of them work well in Gmail, too.

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Introducing appointment slots in Google Calendar

Introducing appointment slots in Google Calendar: "Posted by Irene Chung, Software Engineer



(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog.)



Google Calendar is an essential tool for organizing your time and sharing your schedule with friends and coworkers. But what about letting others know about your preferred availability? Likewise, when you look at a business's online calendar, do you wonder why you can't just book an open slot instead of remembering to call during regular business hours? Now, with appointment slots in Google Calendar, any individual or business can manage appointment availability online 24/7.



Creating appointment slots



To get started, set up blocks of time you’d like to offer as appointment slots. Simply click anywhere on your calendar and then on 'Appointment slots.” From there, create a single block of time or automatically split a larger block of time into smaller appointment slots.





Every Google Calendar has its own personal appointments sign up page; you can embed it on your website or give the URL directly to friends and clients. You can find the URL for your appointment page at the top of the set-up page, which you can access via the Edit details link.





Signing up for an appointment slot



When someone visits your sign up page, their calendar is overlaid for convenience and they can sign up directly for any available appointment slot. When they sign up, Google Calendar conveniently creates a new shared event on both of your calendars.





At Google, many people are already using appointment slots to manage their office hours. We’re starting to roll it out widely today, and appointment slots should be available for everyone within the next few days.

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Define, translate and search for words in Google eBooks

Define, translate and search for words in Google eBooks: "Posted by Derek Lei, Software Engineer, Google Books

When bookworms stumble across a word we don't know, we face the classic dilemma of whether to put the book down to look up the word or forge ahead in ignorance to avoid interrupting the reading experience. Well, fret no more, readers, because today you can select words in Google eBooks and look up their definitions, translate them or search for them elsewhere in the book from within the Google eBooks Web Reader—without losing your page or even looking away.

The Web Reader works in all modern browsers and lets you read Google eBooks without having to download them. To select text in a Google eBook within the Web Reader, double-click or highlight it with your mouse and a pop-up menu opens with the following options: Define, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia. (Note: these features work in 'Flowing Text' mode not 'Scanned Pages' mode. Switch to 'Flowing Text' in the Web Reader by clicking on the Settings menu labeled 'Aa' and select it under the 'Show' drop-down menu. Not all Google eBooks are available in 'Flowing Text.')

Define
Click “Define” and the pop-up now displays a definition of the word via Google Dictionary, without leaving the page you’re on in the Google eBook. Click on the audio icon to the left of the word you want defined to hear the definition pronounced aloud. If you decide you do want to leave the page, select “More” to go to the Google Dictionary page for the word, which provides additional information like usage examples and web definitions.

Translate
You can also translate a single word or several sentences of content into dozens of languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, by selecting the 'Translate' option. As with definitions, you'll see the translated text displayed in the pop-up window.

Search
By selecting one of the search options, you can search for the selected text in other places within the ebook itself or across the entire web.

“Search Book” brings up all the instances in which the selected text appears in the ebook. You can also access the search options by clicking on the magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the Web Reader. Click on a search result to jump to that section.

“Search Google” and “Search Wikipedia” open up a new browser tab displaying the search results for that text on Google and Wikipedia, respectively.

Go ahead and give these new features a spin by reading a Google eBook.

Update 5:54pm: Included details about 'Flowing text' vs. 'Scanned pages.'

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Hundreds of ways to work smarter with Google Apps

Hundreds of ways to work smarter with Google Apps: "Posted by Michelle Lisowski, Google Apps Team

Talking to our small businesses customers, we see they have a passion for what they do and a drive to succeed. On the Google Apps team, we have a passion for helping small businesses succeed by providing them with access to the same technology that large enterprises often have at their disposal. Google Apps offers small businesses hundreds of ways to leverage the power of the web to work more efficiently and focus scarce time and resources on getting ahead of the competition.

To celebrate National Small Business Week, we’d like to share a few of the ways that Google Apps is being used every day (we’ll spare you the time of wading through hundreds). And to make it even easier to get started on tasks such as invoicing and project planning, all examples provided are based on templates from the Google Docs and Google Sites template galleries.

Google Docs template gallery:

#1: Letterhead - Create a professional looking template for your outgoing letters and share it with others in the company. Print letters directly from your browser with Chrome.
#2: Budget planner - Easily build a 12-month budget spreadsheet that you can edit from anywhere throughout the year – no matter where your spending takes you.
#3: Invoice - Save time by creating invoices in a spreadsheet – totals are automatically calculated, and you can share them with co-workers to ensure accuracy and speedy payments.


#4: Customer satisfaction survey - Get feedback from customers and visitors about your product or service with a form. Easily analyze and graph the data.
#5: Business plan - Put your vision down in a doc. Share it with family, investors, banks, and others to get input and spread your ideas.
#6: Project timeline - Give others in your company insight into key milestones, completion dates, and other project details.

Google Sites template gallery:

#7: Intranet - Build an internal website where employees can access company news, employee training information, company policies, holiday schedules, and more.


#8: Project site - Centralize project information in one place. Display a team profile and key dates, and embed project docs and spreadsheets directly in the site.
#9: Team site - Create team rosters, schedule team meetings, and track progress of action items all in one place.
#10: Employee profiles - Build a community by creating profile pages where your employees can post their goals, internal resume, and internal blog.

The list continues but we hope this gives some idea of the range of use cases where Google Apps can help improve productivity for any small business. To learn more, check out some of our new resources including product videos and additional templates at www.google.com/apps/smb.

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Books from 16th and 17th centuries now in full-color view

Books from 16th and 17th centuries now in full-color view: "Posted by Dan Bloomberg and Kurt Groetsch, Google Books team

Google has formed partnerships with many of the great libraries of Europe, including the Czech National Library, the National Library of the Netherlands, the Austrian National Library, the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, the Municipal Library of Lyon, Ghent University, the Bavarian State Library, the National Library of Catalonia, the University Complutense of Madrid, the University Library of Lausanne and the Oxford University Library.

To date, we’ve scanned about 150,000 books worldwide from the 16th and 17th centuries, and another 450,000 from the 18th century. With our growing list of partners, we expect to scan many hundreds of thousands more pre-1800 titles.

In digitizing books from any century, we try to create clean images with black text and color illustrations on white backgrounds. This helps enhance readability, save storage spaces and serve illustrated pages faster to readers. However, partners, researchers and other readers have frequently asked us to show the older books as they actually appear, for a couple of reasons: First, these books are interesting artifacts. They have changed their appearance over the centuries, and there is a cultural value in viewing them. Second, because of aging and bleed-through, it can be very difficult to display the images as clean text over a white background; in many cases it’s actually easier to read the text from the original (what we call 'full-color') images.

Printing was introduced in the 15th century, but a great flowering of experimentation in typography took place in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Secunda centuria, das ist das ander Hundert der Evangelischen Wahrheit
Johann Nass, 1568


Thargum, hoc est, Paraphrasis Onkeli Chaldaica in sacra Biblia : ex Chaldaeo
Paul Fagius, 1546

Some have great historical significance. Others have interesting typography and wood block illustrations. The links open thumbnail versions of each book (icons with 4 little squares). You get other views by clicking on nearby icons; from the thumbnail view, you can click on a page to expand it.

Below are links to a few more of these 16th and 17th century books now available in full-color view in Google Books:

Prognostication nouvelle et prediction portenteuse, pour l'an M. D. L. V.
Nostradamus, 1554
The first year of his prophecies, provided for scanning by the Municipal Library of Lyon.

Description de l'abbaye de la Trappe
André Félibien, 1689
A description of La Trappe Abbey in Soligny-la-Trappe, Orne, France. Authored by André Félibien, a French chronicler of the arts and official court historian to Louis XIV of France.

Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae: Usitata forma Quaestionum ..., Volumes 1-3
Johannes Kepler, 1635
The German astronomer’s textbook on astronomy (translated as Epitome of Copernican Astronomy); his most influential work.

Systema cosmicum : in quo dialogis IV. de duobus maximis mundi systematibus, Ptolemaico & Copernicano, rationibus vtrinque propositis indefinitè disseritur : accessit locorum S. Scripturae cum Terra mobilitate conciliatio
Galileo Galilei, 1641
Galileo's landmark work comparing Copernican heliocentrism with the geocentric Ptolemaic system. Engraved frontspiece of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Copernicus.

La operazione del compasso geometrico e militare
Galileo Galilei, 1640
Description of and manual on the operation of Galileo’s geometrical and military compass.

Tractatus de proportionum instrumento : quod merito compendium vniuersae geometriae dixeris
Galileo Galilei, 1635

Ioannis Kepleri ... Dioptrice seu Demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt. Praemissae Epistolae Galilaei de iis, quae post editionem Nuncii siderii ope Perspicilli, nova & admiranda in coelo deprehensa sunt. Item Examen praefationis Ioannis Penae Galli in Optica Euclidis, de usu Optices in philosophia.
Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Jean Pena, 1611

Patris Gabrielis Vazquez ... Disputationes Metaphysicae …
Gabriel Vázquez, 1617

Relaciones universales del mundo ... : Primera y segunda parte
Giovanni Botero, 1603

La rhétorique ou l'art de parler
Bernard Lamy, 1699

Idea de vn principe politico christiano, representada en cien empressas …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1675

Idea de un principe politico christiano, representada en cien empresas, dedicada al principe de las Españas nuestro Señor …
Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1655

Pia desideria emblematis elegiis & affectibus S.S. Patrum illustrata
Herman Hugonus, 1624

Obsidio bredana armis Philippi IIII, auspiciis Isabellae ductu Ambr. Spinolae perfecta
Herman Hugo, 1626

Emblémes Ou Devises Chrétiennes
1697

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