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Color Your iGoogle!  (View post)

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

Saturday, July 14, 2007
16 years ago4,335 views

I really wanted to add some color to my iGoogle page since the themes only color the header of the page and title bars of the gadgets. So I wrote up a gadget that lets you color the page background as well as the gadgets themselves. Then I made it more flexible to release it to anyone to use.

I just love seeing this on my homepage:
http://niraj.sanghvi.googlepages.com/coloredig.png

It has a list of preset options in a dropdown, or you can choose to specify your own hex value, and it can be used for multiple tabs too...I wrote in detail about it here:
http://symbii.com/stories.php?sid=612&tid=25

And it is submitted to the iGoogle Content Directory now, so you can add it from here:
http://www.google.com/ig/adde?hl=en&moduleurl=http://symbii.com/colormyig.xml&source=imag

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Wow really cool Niraj. The only thing is that the light blue is more like lilac. BUt I love my Magenta page

Zim [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Nice find! :)

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I thoink Niraj made it Zim

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes, indeed, I made it. And I figured everyone would have their own color preferences (or naming differences), so I thought adding the ability to specify any color via hex was definitely needed in addition to the presets :)

Making it was actually kind of a hassle because Google has a very weird way of naming the gadgets via number. So changing the page color was easy, but changing the gadget colors were not as simple (you can see that if you view the source).

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Does anyone know how many users are needed for a gadget to appear in the content directory? Or does it have to get manually approved first? The FAQ mentioned the gadget has to reach a "critical mass," but has no indication if that means 10, 100, or 1000 people. And it seemed like they wanted to check it first too.

Above 6 comments were made in the forum before this was blogged,

Bonstio [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I have a similar gadget which be be of use to some folks. This gadget will apply a custom css to your iGoogle page. I maintain a directory of skins. Play for yourself – see http://bonstio.net/skins.

As for gadget directory submission, it can take a week or more as stated in the FAQ here http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Gadgets-API/browse_thread/thread/08740864470ca163/#

Hope this helps

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Bonstio, does your skin gadget work with iGoogle themes? Or is it a total replacement? It looks like it lets you skin everything, so I wonder if you can let iGoogle themes still run to show time of day or weather information.

[Bonstio] [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Yes my skins gadget is a total replacement enabling anyone to submit a custom css. It also has on "Off" mode tho – and no page reloads when changing skins

Version two of my gadget enables user defined rules to control which skin is shown and under what conditions .e.g time of day, network location etc

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