Provides a link for showing the header (should you need to access the search bar or undo a gadget removal, or simply enjoy your theme picture)

iGoogle, Google's personalized portal formerly known as Google Homepage, has a huge userbase, a nice selection of modules, and Google's trademark simplicity

Free source code and tutorials for Software developers and Architects.

By Saurabh Mathur, iGoogle Team

Today, we're excited to open up a developer sandbox for iGoogle. The sandbox includes support for OpenSocial, a common API designed to let you easily build social applications that run on a growing number of web containers. The iGoogle OpenSocial container also supports canvas view, allowing developers to build powerful and feature-rich full-page applications for iGoogle's tens of millions of users.

To get started, please begin with the documentation and examples on the iGoogle developer website. The site includes detailed information about iGoogle and a guide to incorporating the new social features.

Watch as Jake walks us through the sandbox and shows how to build a basic gadget.



Sign up for access to the developer sandbox and keep up-to-date with our new iGoogle Developer Blog.

Happy coding!

By Jesse Shieh, Software Engineer

Recently, on a trip to Shanghai, I snapped a bunch of incredible street photos for my friends and family back home. When I logged into my iGoogle page and was greeted by my iGoogle theme, I suddenly wished I could create my own theme out of my Shanghai pictures and share it with my friends - wouldn't that be a great way to personalize iGoogle even further? It turns out that many of you have been asking for this feature for a while too, and we've listened to your requests. I'm excited to announce that after today's launch of the iGoogle Themes API, we can all get started on making and sharing our own themes.

Creating your own theme isn't rocket science. If you can create a webpage, then you can create a theme. There are only three steps involved: designing images for the header and footer, entering metadata and color information in an XML file, and submitting the theme. To find out more about the API, start with the developer guide. You can also take a look at the terrific example themes (shown below) built by designers Yves Behar, Mark Frauenfelder, Troy Lee, and John Maeda that showcase different parts of the API. These themes, along with themes you submit, will be available in the new themes directory for the millions of iGoogle users. So try it out and let us know what you think!

Earth-light by Yves Behar, founder of the San Francisco design studio fuseproject:



Adventures in Lollipopland by Mark Frauenfelder, writer, illustrator, co-founder of Boing Boing, and editor-in-chief of Make Magazine:



Supermoto Mayhem by Troy Lee, designer and founder of Troy Lee Designs:



Simplicity is Complex by John Maeda, graphic designer, artist, Associate Director of Research at the MIT Media Laboratory, and recently named as the next President of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD):