Google Gadgets for Linux 0.10.4

The 0.10.4 release of Google Gadgets for Linux is out, with optimized performance and memory consumption, as well as many bug fixes. To install or upgrade your copy of Google Gadgets for Linux, just download and install the binaries for your platform.

The new release supports more gadgets, including the recently released YouTube, Gmail, and Google Docs gadgets. Here's a picture of the YouTube gadget running on Linux.



The next picture shows the Gmail and Google Docs gadgets running on Linux. Note: If you've already unsuccessfully tried using the Gmail gadget, be sure to download the latest version of the Gmail gadget.



If you're a developer, try the dramatically improved Gadget Designer. It can now create new gadgets, and it runs as a separate application. Here's a picture.



As always, you can find the source code at the google-gadgets-for-linux project.

Posted by James Su and Kathy Walrath, Google Desktop Team

Google Gadgets for Linux 0.10.3

The 0.10.3 release of Google Gadgets for Linux is out, with bug fixes and major feature enhancements. Most notably, now Linux gadgets can use most of the features introduced in the 5.8 release of Google Desktop for Windows.

If you have a previous version of Google Gadgets for Linux, we encourage you to upgrade to this version. Just download and install the binaries for your platform.

With the 0.10.3 release, gadgets can run seamlessly within KDE4's Plasma environment, as the following screenshots show. For more information on KDE4 and gadgets, see the KDE4 Plasma page in the google-gadgets-for-linux project.





Thanks for reading this, and remember to download Google Gadgets for Linux!

Posted by James Su and Kathy Walrath, Google Desktop Team

Linux updates

If you use Google Gadgets for Linux, be sure to get the 0.10.2 version, which was released Saturday. It fixes over 20 bugs, enabling support for many more gadgets.

Don't feel like compiling the code? No problem! It's now easy to find binary packages created by the community, thanks to a new page that points to Google Gadgets binaries for the major Linux distributions.

Posted by James Su and Kathy Walrath, Google Desktop Team

Google Gadgets for Linux 0.10.1

Posted by James Su, Software Engineer

To celebrate the opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, we've just released Google Gadgets for Linux 0.10.1. This version contains two new built-in gadgets:

• Photos - Displays your favorite photos (from either the Web or a local directory) as a slideshow. This gadget is very simple to use. Just get it from the Add gadgets dialog, and add your favorite sources in the Options dialog.
  
  
• Gadget Designer - Similar to the Gadget Designer application for Windows, except that this designer is itself a gadget. Currently it only supports editing existing gadgets. Please get it from the Add gadgets dialog, try it out, and give us feedback. (Sorry, this gadget isn't available yet for Windows.)

Besides adding these two new gadgets, we've fixed many serious bugs. Many popular gadgets are supported now, such as the Google Calendar gadget. This new version also supports the Google Summer Games gadget, which displays a live medal count and event schedules on your desktop.

Tip: Use Ctrl-Ctrl or Cmd-Cmd to start searching

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer

Whenever you want to search the web or your computer, you can bring up the Quick Search Box almost instantly. On Windows or Linux, just press the Ctrl key twice. On the Mac, press the Cmd () key twice. For more keyboard shortcuts, see the help center page for Windows, for Linux, or for the Mac.

A Googley Holiday Season

Posted by Jim Zhuang, Software Engineer

Season's greetings, everyone! To help ring in the New Year, we've got a great holiday present for you: an update to Google Desktop for Linux. The biggest addition in version 1.1.1 is support for 64-bit platforms, but we have also made many stability improvements that should be welcome to all of our existing users. Our team has worked hard over the past few weeks to get the new version out before the end of the year, and we're glad to have succeeded. So have fun with the new release, and have a wonderful holiday season — from all of us here at Google.

Google Desktop for Linux 1.1 Beta

Posted by Jim Zhuang, Software Engineer

When we released the first version of Google Desktop for Linux this past June, we signaled a commitment to the Linux community: to develop for the platform and to support our Linux users. Since then, we have been hard at work to improve and refine our product. Today, we'd like to share what we've created by releasing Google Desktop for Linux 1.1 Beta.

Feedback from people like you shaped this update. Because many people wanted to search and launch applications, we added that functionality to the product. Desktop for Linux now supports many more image formats and will show better thumbnails for them in your search results. You can also customize the hotkey used to launch the quick search box. And most importantly, Desktop for Linux now searches the content of Microsoft Office documents - our most requested feature.

Please download the latest version and give it a spin. We hope you like it.

Desktop for Linux

Posted by Kan Liu, Product Manager

For most Linux users, looking for files, documents, or emails usually involves some combination of 'find' and 'locate,' but sometimes these tools don't quite do what you're looking for, like finding that single PDF containing the specific topic you're looking for. Or you just wish there was a much easier way to find something than 'find /home/username -name '*.pdf' and 'pdftotext pdf_file_name.pdf output.txt...'

So that's why today we're releasing Google Desktop for Linux. Developed primarily out of our Beijing office, it includes almost all the features from the first Windows version of Google Desktop Search plus the Quick Search Box, so you can quickly search through all your files, emails, web history, and more. Just hit 'Ctrl' twice to bring up the Quick Search Box and start finding your stuff!

Have fun searching, and tell us what you think.

You can also try our Mac and Windows versions.