Google Apps Hacks

241  - ADD A GADGET TO YOUR GOOGLE PAGE (OR BLOG)

HaCK

# 97

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If you don’t have a blog yet, create one on your topic of choice . Suppose you want to add a

gadget to your Blogger blog’s sidebar. However, the normal Blogger.com editor won’t sufce at this

time; instead, point your browser to http://draft.blogger.com for a newer, more experimental version

of Google’s blog editor. On your dashboard page, click on the Layout link next to your blog.

You’re now at the Add and Arrange Page Elements dialog as pictured in Figure 10-9. Click Add a Page

Element and in the box titled Gadget, click the Add to Blog button. Now it’s again time to locate your

favorite gadget; for my sample, I will choose one titled “Environment: Random Graphic of the Day,”

as shown in Figure 10-10.

After clicking Save Changes in the gadgets dialog, and then clicking Save in the underlying page

template editor, you can ne-tune parts of the layout via the Edit HTML link on top. For instance, you

can search for “sidebar-wrap” in the HTML source’s stylesheet part and then edit the width value to

increase this element’s size, allowing for wider gadgets. Here’s the “before” code:

...

#sidebar-wrap {

width:240px;

...

and the “after” code:

...

#sidebar-wrap {

width:340px;

...

To accommodate this larger sidebar, you should also increase the width dened in the #outer-

wrapper

style. Y