February 18, 2008

Add Full Web Pages to iGoogle

If you don't find appropriate iGoogle gadgets for your favorite web sites, there's a way to create tabs that include these sites in iframes. Michael Bolin, from Google, created a gadget that loads almost any web page. Before adding the gadget, it's recommended to create a new iGoogle tab, but don't forget to uncheck the "I'm feeling lucky" option that populates the tab with gadgets. If you add the gadget to an existing tab, all the current gadgets will be hidden and they'll be visible again after you delete it.

The gadget loads by default Google Calendar's homepage, but you can change the URL from the settings: click on the small arrow from the gadget's title bar and select "Edit settings".


Another useful gadget has a rich text editor and you can use it to create content or to paste code from other pages (like Yahoo Video's embeddable code).


iGoogle should have more bare bones containers that can be filled with user's content: HTML code, web pages, dynamic images or structured data and add them to the gadget creator page.
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19 comments:

  1. Philipp LenssenFebruary 18, 2008 at 10:40 AM

    Go figure, we created something very similar for the book Google Apps Hacks a couple of months back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ScottFebruary 19, 2008 at 2:48 AM

    where do i get the 'your page here' gadget as it does not show up on igoogle gadget search?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alex ChituFebruary 19, 2008 at 3:05 AM

    From the web page I linked to. There's a link at the bottom:
    http://fusion.google.com/add?moduleurl=http%3A//bolinfest.com/ig/your_page_here.xml

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownFebruary 19, 2008 at 7:43 AM

    Thank you very much for posting these two incredibly useful items.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CurtisFebruary 19, 2008 at 11:48 PM

    When you add certain pages it forces the iGoogle window to open as the new page instead of staying in the iGoogle tab. I successfully added notebook.google.com but when I tried to add docs.google.com it took over the page leaving iGoogle inaccessible. The same thing happened with Hotmail. For the pages it worked with it's great. Any suggestions on making it work for all pages?

    Curtis

    ReplyDelete
  6. Alex ChituFebruary 20, 2008 at 12:01 AM

    @Curtis:
    Some pages don't like to be used inside iframes. It's actually very easy to add some code that removes your page from an iframe. You can test if a page can be added inside an iframe at W3School (edit the src value and click on the value) or by writing a simple HTML page.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownFebruary 28, 2008 at 12:46 AM

    @Curtis
    I did stumble over this. I've now a tab that, if it is activated, opens a site in the same browsertab. This means that whenever I go to my iGoogle page this ig-tab will be shown first thus the framed page will take over. How can I get rid of this page?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Alex ChituFebruary 28, 2008 at 1:09 AM

    It's easy to remove the gadget, the tab or to edit the gadget's settings. Go to iGoogle and press Escape after the page starts to load. The iframe is loaded after iGoogle loads, so you'll have plenty of time to press Escape. If this doesn't work, clear your cache and repeat the procedure.

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownFebruary 28, 2008 at 4:28 AM

    @ionut
    Thanks!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousOctober 29, 2008 at 10:05 AM

    usc rocks

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousFebruary 28, 2009 at 4:32 AM

    Thank you very much for posting these two incredibly useful items...

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousMarch 25, 2009 at 10:13 AM

    Anyone managed to get their Google Analytics in there?
    How so?

    ReplyDelete
  13. tashApril 4, 2009 at 2:49 AM

    Thank you. That's great!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Office Cleaning EdinburghOctober 18, 2009 at 6:50 AM

    I used to use iGoogle but then thought that it lacks in content I would like to see on my homepage. This idea is great though and I think I will give it a go. Are there any limits as to what type of webpages you can display?

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousNovember 11, 2009 at 3:19 PM

    Doesn't work anymore!

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousDecember 8, 2009 at 3:30 AM

    Hey no worky anymore, what gives?!?!

    ReplyDelete
  17. IshagDecember 20, 2009 at 11:14 PM

    Can't add any web page to igoogle.

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousMarch 18, 2012 at 5:07 PM

    METRO TV

    ReplyDelete
  19. board tcMay 21, 2012 at 3:29 PM

    Does anyone know a way to do this now?

    ReplyDelete

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