Google Keep Adds Note Sharing

Google Keep has a new interface powered by Material Design. Google also added some new features: sharing notes, real-time collaboration and search filters.

Just like in the old Google Notebook, you can share notes with other people and allow them to read your notes and edit them. Notes update automatically when other people edit them and there's no way to revert the changes. You can't share a note in read-only mode.

"Searching for your notes is simpler now too. You can filter notes by color and other attributes such as whether they're shared, have a reminder, are lists, or have an image or audio," explains Google.

Google started to roll out the new version of the Google Keep app for Android, but the new features are also available in the desktop web app and the Chrome app.

Time Zone Converter in Google Search

I'm not sure if this is a new Google feature, but it's pretty useful. You could always ask Google "what's the time in Mountain View?", "what's the time in Australia?" or "time in GMT". Now you can also convert time zones. For example, you can convert "2PM GMT to EST" or "10 PM in Mountain View in Vienna time".

If you search for "10 PM in Mountain View in Australia time", Google shows the time in Canberra and mentions that Australia has 13 time zones, while linking to the search results for "time in Australia".

{ via Matt Cutts and Search Engine Roundtable }

YouTube Music Key, Free for Play Music Subscribers

When YouTube announced the Music Key subscription service, I wondered if Google Play Music subscribers will be able to use it for free. It made sense to assume this, since YouTube Music Key bundled Google Play Music All Access. It turns out that Google Play Music subscribers will get access to YouTube Music Key for free.



"Starting next week, as a Google Play Music subscriber, you'll get free and complete access to the YouTube Music Key beta, a new service from YouTube where you can watch ad-free music videos, and keep the music playing in the background or when you're offline. The Google Play Music app will also include ad-free music videos alongside select tracks," informed Google.



This means that Play Music subscribers will be able to use Music Key starting today. It's worth pointing out that Music Key will only be available in the US, UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Finland and Portugal.

Music Key and Play Music All Access are complementary services. Music Key uses Play Music data to show recommendations and metadata, Play Music's catalog is enhanced by adding YouTube's huge music library. Play Music's subscription service offers more value, while Google manages to use YouTube's strengths to make Play Music more popular.

Particles Visualization in Google Play Music

Google Play Music's desktop web app has a cool visualization you can enable when playing a song. Mouse over the small album art thumbnail at the bottom of the window and click "Particles" to enable the visualization. You can disable the visualization by pressing Esc or clicking anywhere inside the animation pane. To enable it again, just click the album art thumbnail.

If you don't like the particles visualizer, you can always mouse over the album art thumbnail and pick the album art visualizer, which is more subtle. Google Play Music remembers your last pick.

{ via Android Police }

YouTube Music Key

YouTube is the most important online music library and Google wants to make it easier to use. Until now, YouTube was optimized for playing videos, not for playing music. This was especially obvious when you used YouTube's mobile apps, which didn't offer features like playing videos in the background or caching videos.



YouTube wants to change all this. "Starting today, you'll see a new home just for music on your YouTube app for Android, iOS and on YouTube.com that shows your favorite music videos, recommended music playlists based on what you're into and playlists of trending music across YouTube," informs the YouTube blog. "In the coming days, you'll be able to see an artist's discography on YouTube, and play a full album with both their official music videos and high-quality songs our music partners added to YouTube."

The most important announcement is YouTube Music Key, a subscription service that lets you play YouTube music videos without ads, in the background and offline when using your mobile device. For a limited time, it costs $7.99/month (discounted from $9.99/month) and it also includes Google Play Music All Access. YouTube Music Key is invitation-only and you can try it 6 months for free. Apparently, YouTube will send email invitations to their "biggest music fans first." Billboard.com reports that the service will be launched on November 17 in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Spain, Italy, Finland and Portugal.



It's not clear if Google Play Music subscribers have to pay extra for YouTube Music Key, but I don't think they should. YouTube Music Key looks like a great opportunity for Google to enhance the Play Music catalog with all the remixes, covers and indie music uploaded to YouTube.

{ Thanks, Theo. }

Add the Same File to Multiple Folders in Google Drive without Copying

Gmail works around tags (or labels) and any email message can belong to one or more tags. Google Drive however uses folders instead of tags and thus any file, or folder, can have exactly one parent folder. For instance, if you have uploaded a presentation file in FolderA, it can’t simultaneously exist in FolderB. Right?

Not really. You will be pleasantly surprised to know, at least I was, that Google Drive does allow you to place any file inside one or more folders without you having to create multiple copies of that file. This makes organization easier and if you edit this file inside one folder, all the other instances are updated as well since they are essentially pointing to the same file.

You can put the same file in multiple folders in Google Drive

Add Files to Multiple Folders in Drive

Here’s how you can place existing files or folders inside different multiple folders.

Open Google Drive in the browser and select one or more files or folders. You can use the Control key on Windows, or Command key on Mac, to select non-consecutive files and folders. Now press Shift + Z and you’ll see an “Add to Folder” pop-up. Select the folder where you wish to place the selected files and click OK.

That’s it. You have neither copied nor moved the files to that folder, you’ve merely created references to them inside the other folder. You can repeat the Shift+Z shortcut to add the selected files to any other folders in your Drive.

This little feature should come handy. For instance, if you have a folder of pictures inside Google Drive, you can Shift+Z a bunch of these pictures into another shared folder. You are saved from creating duplicate files on your Drive and if you remove a picture from the parent folder, the file is gone from other folders too.

And if you are into Google Scripts, you can also put the current folder into multiple folders programmatically as well. [H/t David Scotts]

function organizeFolders() {
  
  // Parent Folders
  var parentA = DriveApp.createFolder("Dad");  
  var parentB = DriveApp.createFolder("Mom");
  
  // Child folder inside Parent Folder A
  var child   = parentA.createFolder("Child");
  
  // Place Child Folder inside another Parent Folder B  
  parentB.addFolder(child);
  
}

---

This story, Add the Same File to Multiple Folders in Google Drive without Copying, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 10/11/2014 under Google Drive, Internet

New Google Calendar Favicon

Google Calendar has a new favicon and it looks just like the icon of the new Google Calendar app for Android, except that it changes every day.

The new icon is also added to the landing page that introduces the updated Google Calendar app. Here's a bigger version.

{ Thanks, Hamish. }

Google Calendar Permalinks

Google Calendar for desktop has recently been updated. The changes may seem minor, but they add some features that were already available in Gmail and make Google Calendar a better app.



Google Calendar now uses permalinks for all views, sections and events. You can quickly bookmark them, as the URL changes in the address bar when you switch to a different view, open an event or use the search feature. An important side effect is that you can now uses the browser's back and forward buttons in Google Calendar.

Another new feature is that Google Calendar updates automatically. You no longer need to click the refresh button to make sure that all the events are updated and you're not missing some new events.



The calendars from the "other calendars" section that are currently displayed are now placed at the top of the list. This is useful if you've added a lot of calendars.



{ via +Gmail }

A Smarter Google Calendar

If you wanted a Google Calendar that works more like Google Inbox, that's what you'll get in the new version of Google Calendar for Android.



The new Google Calendar is designed to be "a helpful assistant", so it creates events automatically using information from your Gmail messages. If you book a flight, buy concert tickets or make a hotel reservation, you'll usually get an email conformation and Google Calendar now creates events by extracting relevant data from your email. The nice thing is that the events are updated if you change your reservations or your flights are delayed and you get email updates.

Google Calendar now offers suggestions when you create events and the suggestions are based on the events you've previously created. "With Assists, Calendar can suggest titles, people and places as you type, as well as adapt to your preferences over time. For example, if you often go running with Peter in Central Park, Calendar can quickly suggest that entire event when you type 'r-u-n.'"

Google uses data from Google Maps and other Google services to make the calendar look better. The new Schedule View "includes photos and maps of the places you're going, cityscapes of travel destinations, and illustrations of everyday events like dinner, drinks and yoga".

The new version of the Google Calendar app for Android requires Android 4.1 or later and it will be available in the coming weeks on Google Play Store. Google also promises to release a Google Calendar app for iOS. Hopefully, Google will also update the desktop version and the mobile web app.

Gmail 5.0 for Android

Gmail's app for Android has a new interface based on Material Design. The application is now an email client, as it supports adding email accounts from Outlook, Yahoo Mail and other email services that use POP3 or IMAP, but it adds them separately from your Gmail accounts.

Gmail 5.0 for Android makes it easy to switch between accounts, find the number of unread messages and reply to an email.

The compose button is now at the bottom and it's a lot bigger.

It's a cleaner, more modern interface that uses some ideas from Google Inbox.

Google says that the new version of the Gmail app will support all Android 4.0+ devices and it will be available on Google Play over the next few days. If you don't want to wait, you can manually install the APK file from Android Police.

Google's PDF Reader for Android

The latest version of Google Drive for Android added a lot of new features: a new interface based on Material Design, a better search feature that shows results as you type, custom message for sharing files. "You can also turn on link sharing to make the file public and set access to view, comment, or edit. This automatically copies the link to the clipboard and allows you to paste it wherever you want."

Google Drive for Android now also includes a PDF reader. The application still uses the default PDF reader installed on your device, but you can now select Drive PDF Viewer. It works offline and it can be used from any other Android application, not just from Google Drive.

Google's PDF viewer is pretty basic: it has a search feature, it lets you select and copy text, upload files to Google Drive, print files and share them.

Google Tests Material Design Mobile Search Interface

Opera Mini had a cool feature: when disabling images, the browser still displayed some placeholders with the dominant colors of the images. Google tests a similar feature for mobile image search: while waiting for the search results to load, placeholders are no longer gray, they use colors from the images.

Google also tests a Material Design mobile search interface with fluid animations and smoother interactions.

{ via Nedas }

Google's Pac-Man Card

I'm not sure if this is new, but I thought it's worth mentioning. When searching for [pac man], Google shows a card that links to the doodle from 2010 that celebrated 30 years of Pac-Man.



Google doesn't have a card for doodles, so this was manually added. The card has two calls-to-action: "Play PAC-MAN Doodle" and "Click to Play", it includes the source of the doodle: "Google homepage, May 21, 2010", a large promotional image and some copyright information: "PAC-MAN™ & ©1980 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc."

The game plays inline and there's a permalink for the game.

Knowledge Graph Cards for Video Games

Google's Knowledge Graph cards now include information about video games. You can find all about Pac-Man, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Candy Crush Saga, Grand Theft Auto, Need for Speed, Minecraft, Halo, Counter-Strike or any other game for mobile devices, desktop computers or consoles.



Google shows links to app stores and gaming sites. Cards also include ratings, screenshots, initial release date, developer information, supported platforms, publishers, awards and more.

{ via +Google }