iGoogle Theme Manager
Google's Themes API allows you to completely change the look of your iGoogle home page, but the tools they provide for handling themes are pretty minimal. My Theme Manager gadget throws that door wide open.
Features:
- Install it on your iGoogle and it will automatically pick up your current theme
- Maintain a list of as many themes as you like, switching between them anytime with a single click
- See more of your theme header image by making the Google search controls transparent (limited support on Safari)
- Use themes that aren't listed in Google's official directory
- One-click removal of themes
- Integration with inThemes.com, for faster installation from the web's only independent iGoogle theme directory
- Additional features for theme developers (see below)
Click this button to add Theme Manager to your
home page. This gadget isn't available for other, non-iGoogle pages.
Note that Google may give you a security warning because this gadget needs fairly deep
access (known as inlining) to work its magic on the page themes; you just need to click
OK when the message appears.
Theme Manager Usage Tips
Cached
On Theme Manager's main display is a checkbox for each theme labeled Cached. Most of the time, you'll have no need to touch this, but for a few themes it's necessary to uncheck the box in order for them to update automatically. [For example, my own Live Planet themes.] If a theme seems "stuck", try clicking this box to see if it helps.
A few themes, such as those not listed in Google's directory and those that predate the API, don't support both a cached and uncached state. In these cases, the checkbox will be disabled.
What it does: Ordinarily, themes and their images are loaded from a version maintained by Google, a snapshot from when the theme was submitted to their directory. Unchecking Cached causes the theme & images to be loaded directly from its source, usually maintained by the theme developer on a separate server. Some developers, like me, use this to supply "fresher" content to the theme.
Minimize
When you're happy with your theme configuration for the time being, click on the [-] button on
the Theme Manager title bar. The gadget will "minimize", keeping out of the way until you
need it again, at which time you can bring it back by simply clicking the [+] button.
Tabs
If you have multiple tabs on your iGoogle page, you'll probably need to install Theme Manager on all of them, especially if you're turning off caching or using any themes not listed in Google's official directory. Otherwise, you'll find themes from the tabs that have the Manager taking over tabs that don't. Simply install another copy of Theme Manager on each tab, and you'll be back in full control.
Edit Settings
Click on the "down arrow" button on the Theme Manager title bar and select "Edit
settings". This will show you the options to make the Google search controls
transparent (limited support on Safari) and Developer Mode, as well as giving you direct
access to your theme list. You can add themes directly here by entering their URL, or delete
themes from your list by clicking the [x] beside them.
Note that, for technical reasons within the Gadget API, the theme list shown in Edit settings may lag behind what you see on Theme Manager's main display. You also can't delete your current theme from here, please use the "Remove a Theme" button for that.
Developer Mode
If you're a theme developer, you'll find a few useful changes to the behavior of Theme Manager when you turn on Developer Mode in the Settings menu (above). Please note that these changes can degrade your iGoogle performance, and so are really only meant for use while developing themes.
- For API themes, turning off Cached will disable the iGoogle feedfetcher cache, loading a fresh copy of your XML at every page refresh.
- Turning on Cached here is equivalent to turning it off in non-Developer mode, meaning that the XML is loaded through the feedfetcher cache. The thinking here is that a theme under development is likely not listed by Google, so there's no point in trying to load the XML from the directory.
- Clicking on your theme name will load your source XML in a new browser page, enabling a direct check of what version is being served. This obviously overrides the directory link that users get when not in Developer Mode.
If you have any questions, pleases drop me a line.