Google Gadgets is a desktop app that lets you aggregate and manage a wide range of, mainly web-based, applets.  It has an optional sidebar dock and can be very useful if, like me, you increasingly use apps like gmail or google docs on different machines.  Google-gadgets has only recently been released for Linux desktops and the development is currently focused on gnome and KDE desktop integration.  But that doesn't mean that e17 is completely out in cold.  With a bit of knowledge and some minor hacking, google-gadgets can grace an e17 desktop - provided your e17 build is fairly recent (ie. built from the e17 svn or a very recent binary). Be aware that this is a very beta" application and it does have some (fairly minor) irritating bugs and limitations.  Hopefully, these will disappear in future releases.

e17 Essentials

Before you install google-gadgets (gg), there a couple of e17-centric things you do need to know. 

The first is that gg does not minimize like a "normal" application - it will not be available from an e17 ibox or taskbar if minimized.  It does, however work well with the e17 system tray (systray).  You will absolutely need a systray gadget on you desktop or on a shelf or you will risk loosing gg when it is "minimized". 

Now, if you have played around with systray at all, you will know it has a couple of bugs.  The first, and most important, is that it will not work with most e17 themes (including my own creations at the moment).  Right now, I think b_and_w is the only theme with built-in support for systray.  If you don't want b_and_w as your base theme, there is an easy work-around - just open the "Advanced" themes dialog and assign "modules/systray" to "b_and_w" in the "System" theme list.  You will know that systray is working OK when it appears as a white box inside a narrow white frame.  If it is completely transparent, it isn't working.

The second bug with systray is its complete inability to be moved properly.  This does not affect its behaviour on shelves but is a right royal PITA when you put the gadget directly on your desktop.  The work-around here is to use the resizing handles (the arrows) to drag the edges around your screen and resize it to a new position.

Install Google Gadgets

Google Gadgets (version 0.10.5 at the time I wrote this) is available as a gtk (Gnome/Xfce) or qt (KDE) application from the Ubuntu repositories.  Unless you already use qt apps, the gtk version will be the one you will want if running an Ubuntu-based e17 distro (like OzOS).  Installation is as easy as:

sudo apt-get install google-gadgets-gtk

(or use Synaptic if you prefer)

That's it.  You will now have a "Google Gadgets (GTK)" entry on your Applications>Internet menu.

Set up

The first time you run gg, you will get a sidebar dock with a clock and a generic news-feed applet.  A right-click on the titlebar area will bring up your configuration options.  A gg icon should now also appear on your systray and right-click on it will bring up the same menu.  Choose "Add Gadgets" and browse through the many applets available.  Adding one to your collection is a one click process.  You can move the individual applets around the sidebar by clicking and dragging.  Each applet will have its own right-click configuration menu.



Applets can also be un-docked from the sidebar and placed directly on your desktop.  The sidebar uses whatever gtk theme you have as default - which can, of course be changed with the GTK-Theme-Switcher (under Accessories in OzOS menus)

It is worth investigating the behaviours of each applet.  For example the gMail applet allows you to access a (limited) range of gmail functions and to open individual emails as a pop-up window.  It does not (yet) have a function to open a full browser-based view of gMail.  The Googledocs and "complete search" applets will only open a full browser window if you click on any existing document title.  I'm sure that these will evolve with time.

If you want gg as a default feature of you e17 desktop, you can add it to your start-up applications (Settings>Settings Panel>Applications>Startup Applications).

Screenshots of two versions of my own gg desktop are linked below.

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Design Your Own Google Gadget

Perhaps one of the coolest features of gg is that it comes with its own gadget designer built in.  You will find it under your "Programming" menu item.  I haven't explored this yet, but hopefully any wanna-be (or genuine) programmers out there will be already working towards some new features.

Some Limitations and Bugs

I'm sure gg will improve with later releases, but here are a few limitations and bugs I have found using it with e17:

1. The gMail applet will sometimes freeze - but you will only know about it if you try to view an email - there's no response and it will not refresh in this state.  The only way to fix it is to unload and reload it.  This seems to happen after gg is minimized and restored.

2. Inconsistent start-up behaviour.  I'm experiencing different problems on different installs.  On some, gg will fail to start as a sidebar - the applications all start scattered randomly over the desktop.

3. The sidebar will appear only on the right or left edge of your desktop - there are no top or bottom or "free-floating" options.

4. As previously mentioned, gg will not be available from an ibox or a taskbar if minimised (and it will not appear on on your e17 windows list either)

5. Perhaps predictably, gg will appear on all your virtual desktops.  Pity really.

6. Individual applets have different behaviours when you try to resize them - some scale in all directions and others only vertically.

7. The "Font Size" setting seems to do nothing - but the "zoom" function on undocked applets does work.

Conclusion

I'm liking gg so far.  It certainly has great potential as a desktop aggregator of web services.  With a few more features and a bit more flexibility, I can see as a very useful interface for mobile computing