Comments on: Hey Google, gimme back my widgets!

By: Moralism

Moralism — Mon, 17 May 2010 23:01:50 +0000

Hey Guys and Girls! Your problems are unimportant and booooooooooooring!

By: brian

brian — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:10:59 +0000

@Barry Cipra Nov 20: I’ve never seen anything like that. When you say “fade in,” do you mean that in the cinematic sense–the objects gradually emerge from the background? Or is it just that they appear only after a delay? The latter could be the result of a slow server or a congested link somewhere on the network, but the former would have to be deliberately implemented.

In appearance, the main Google page is famously spare and simple, but when you look at the source code, there’s quite a pile of stuff, including a few dozen scripts. The behavior of some of those scripts appears to depend on the date and time of day, on which browser you’re using, on whether or not you’ve installed widgets like the Google toolbar and possibly on where you are.

I bet somebody has worked out just what all those scripts are up to, but at this point they’re mysterioso to me. I do note a function named ‘google.fx.easeInAndOut’ which could well be doing fade ins and fade outs.

By: Barry Cipra

Barry Cipra — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:52:45 +0000

I’ve noticed some other Google oddities lately. For the last month or more, it occasionally happens that when I go to Google, all that shows up at first is the logo, search box, and widgets; the other stuff across the top of the page and below the widgets does a slow fade in. And recently they sometimes don’t fade in until I move the cursor across the screen. About a week ago, I also saw a curious message just below the widgets, which faded away as the usual stuff faded in. The message said “This line intentionally left blank.” (I may have the wording slightly wrong, but it was something close to that — the sort of thing you see on official multi-page documents when they leave a page otherwise empty.) Finally, just this morning, Google opened with just the logo, the search box, and a line below the box saying something like “Press Enter to search” — i.e., no widgets at all! (I’m sorry, I’m again not certain of the exact wording. When I refreshed the screen I got the usual widgets.)

I doubt there’s any real mystery in any of this. But I thought some bit-player viewers might find these sightings amusing. I’m reminded of Yogi Berra’s famous remark, you can observe a lot by watching.

By: John

John — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:57:28 +0000

Google is maintaining another homepage that is exactly the same as google.com, so far as I can tell, except it has the plain logo and the old-style buttons. http://www.freeholidaywifi.com/search/

By: Barry Cipra

Barry Cipra — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:25:29 +0000

A curious observation. I have a 5-year-old iBook, which I still occasionally fire up and use. I did so today and saw something odd when I went to Google: Your lost, lamented jelly-bean widgets!

If it’s of any value in pursuing the mystery, I was using Safari 1.3.2 on OS 10.3.9 (Panther? Puma? Alley Cat?).

By: I. J. Kennedy

I. J. Kennedy — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:11:59 +0000

Your complaints make this sound like its Google’s fault. I don’t think it is. They tried to improve their page by increasing the size of the most important elements, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Unless Google added some invalid CSS, it’s the software on the Mac that failed.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:20:37 +0000

“it makes our clean, minimalist homepage even easier and more fun to use.”

I just tried a search with the new page and using it was exactly as much fun as it’s ever been.

By: brian

brian — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:17:56 +0000

Thanks for the pointer to Stylish. Very handy.

By: Arvind Narayanan

Arvind Narayanan — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:41:12 +0000

You should consider installing the Stylish extension for Firefox. I am opinionated about UI and I the stylesheets on half the sites I visit (especially Google) make my eyes hurt. Stylish is basically a management interface for userContent.css.. you can make your own edits or install any of hundreds of site-specific customizations available at userstyles.org.

By: I read in braille

I read in braille — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:06:10 +0000

Apple users hate accessibility? Obviously.

By: Angry N. Hurt

Angry N. Hurt — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:04:43 +0000

I noticed this very thing, and it also upsets me. Fie, fie on you, Google!

By: John

John — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:40:34 +0000

Wow, is that ugly (also on Safari). I never go to the Google home page, though, so…