Webware

Google lets you use the Gmail's Turf theme with Chrome's Grass theme. Don't.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google is clearly proud of its environmental ethos and likes to show it off through its products, but there can be too much of a good thing.

Mostly in an attempt to gross people out, I tried adding the new Turf theme for Gmail while using the Grass theme for Chrome (download Google Chrome).

Nobody ever accused me of having much in the way of taste, but even I can tell it's pretty awful. The eyestrain alone is headache-inducing.

What's the worst combination you can think of? High Score on Legal Pad? And what happens when you add in operating system themes?

The browser wars are heating up again. Microsoft's touting the improved performance and security of Internet Explorer 8, dozens of new Firefox extensions are released every day, and, according to Apple, Safari 4 will be even faster than its speedy predecessor. Meanwhile, Opera just keeps chugging along at version 9.64, with version 10 beta 3 now available.

Just a few weeks ago, Google announced its plans to create an operating system based on Chrome. Considering that the browser itself is barely a year old, such plans may be premature. Then again, maybe not. But for right now, I'll keep looking for ways to make the Chrome browser more useful.

Last June, I described ways to change Chrome's default settings. Here's a look at ways to revamp the browser's interface and access some of its useful hidden features.

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Google now offers a gallery of themes for its Chrome browser.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google on Tuesday launched a gallery of 29 themes for Google Chrome (requires Google Chrome 3.0 beta for Windows). But Mozilla, while refraining from sniggering, boasted it's now up to 20,000.

Cosmetic changes are, well, cosmetic, but a lot of people like them as a way to add some flair to their machines. Many had been pestering Google to add themes support even though Chrome employs a Spartan user interface without much acreage for artistry. Last week's developer version of Chrome added a "Get themes" button in the Options dialog box, and now Google has flipped the switch to activate the Web page that button points to.

The collection of themes includes Legal Pad, Star Gazing, Transparent (it's not, on my Windows XP machine), Dots, and Pencil Sketch. One monochromatic theme called Minimal downloads nearly instantly, but Grass, at 1.3MB, takes more time.

Why so large? Themes can come with a background image that shows on Chrome's new-tab page that offers a much greater chance for expressiveness, especially since that page is the default when Chrome launches. That could help Google with its attempt to recruit artists to supply their own themes, as some have done with the iGoogle customizable home page.

Mozilla has its own skinning technology in the works, a plug-in called Personas that launched on Mozilla Labs in March. That head start, coupled with its vastly larger and more engaged external audience, gives it a big lead over Chrome when it comes to getting gussied up.

Mozilla Labs announced Monday that Firefox now has 20,000 Personas, with 10,000 of them arriving in the last 10 weeks.

This theme is called Grass.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

This view of Chrome's new tab page shows a thumbnail for a 'Google Chrome Themes Gallery.'

(Credit: CNET reader)

It looks like Google is nearing release for a gallery showcasing themes to customize Chrome's appearance, judging by one reader's experience.

When a person opens a new empty browser tab in Chrome, the browser shows an array of thumbnails of previously visited sites. One of those sites, the reader said, was labeled "Google Chrome Themes Gallery." The screenshot shows a multicolored array of themes for the browser.

It's a good thing Google apparently is working on the Web site, because already Chrome is ready to be directly connected to it.

The latest developer version of Chrome supports themes more easily for those who want to re-skin the browser. Most notably, there's a "Get themes" button in the Options dialog box that links to what at present is an empty Web page.

Though themes, skins, and the like offer merely cosmetic changes, they're often popular among users. There's even a start-up, Brand Thunder, that re-skins Firefox for sports teams and musicians.

Mozilla is working on a better Firefox personalization system called Personas.

The latest developer version of Chrome can easily be reskinned. This shows the Camo theme. To compare to Snowflake and the default, see below.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google's Chrome tries to make a virtue out of its minimally intrusive browser interface, but that doesn't stop people from wanting to change its colors. So customization fans probably will be happy to learn that themes are now activated in the newest developer release of Google's browser.

Themes have been gradually getting simpler to activate in the browser, but they became enabled by default in the newest developer releases this week, version 3.0.195.3 and a hasty bug-fix release Wednesday night, version 3.0.195.4. No longer must you mess with pesky "--enable-extensions" command-line switches or other nitty-gritty options.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Google's thrown in a slight change to Gmail's Themes option. Users can now select their own colors for background, links, tabs, and text.

There's actually a lot of customization available so that the sidebar can be customized separately from the message body, for example. Custom colors are an option, too, which is carried over from Labels. However you decorate your Gmail, you'll be stuck with the multicolored Gmail logo, so theme-obsessed aesthetic ascetics are out of luck.

The feature can be accessed from the lower-right corner of the Themes page, once you've activated Themes in Gmail Labs.

If you're fed up with having to choose from other people's iGoogle themes, you'll soon be able to create your own.

A new tool, which should be available to all iGoogle users in the next few hours, lets you upload photos from your desktop into an editor that lets you crop them down to fit inside iGoogle's header space. There's also a color picker to change each individual color of your iGoogle page.

All in all it looks quite similar to Blogger's theme editor. The added benefit in this case is that you're able to publish and share your theme when you're done, and it will go out into Google's public directory for others to use on their own iGoogle pages.

A similar tool is expected to hit Gmail at some point this year, but may make its way into Google's RSS reader product first considering it and iGoogle now share many design similarities.

Previously, users were only able to create iGoogle themes using Google's API and submitting their work to the design gallery. This tool also replaces third-party online tools such as igThemer, which let non-tech savvy folks create iGoogle-compliant themes from inside the browser.

Update 9:11 a.m. PST: The tool is still not up, and all mentions of it have been removed from the iGoogle site. I've contacted Google for comment and will update with any further information.

Uploaded shots go up into the top header. Meanwhile, you can pick out what colors you want for the header text and for the tops of the theme widgets.

(Credit: Google)

Earlier this week, I sat down with Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson to talk about the future of the service and to find out what's been keeping the team busy behind the scenes. Here are five tidbits from our meeting you might find interesting.

1. More Themes are coming--including ones designed by you.

No new Gmail Themes have been added since the feature launch in late November, but Jackson says more of the skins are coming. "We want to keep adding Themes. People like it. We don't know exactly how we'll do that yet. The 30 Themes that we chose were hand-designed to look great in Gmail."

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Jackson says the team was split on whether to open up the design process to third parties, like what's been done on Google's customizable start page, iGoogle.

"We've thought about continuing to do it the way we did, and we thought about opening it up for other people to (design them)." Most of the hesitation has centered around Gmail's design, which makes skinning tricky business. "Gmail's structure is an application that's written all in JavaScript. It's a different beast. The detail level we did on Themes--we went pretty deep."

That complexity doesn't mean that the Gmail folks are beyond letting users design their own themes. When pressed if there would one day be a design-your-own Theme tool, Jackson said the closest thing users might be getting is a tool that lets them choose the colors of each Gmail element, similar to the color picker used for Gmail's labeling system.

As to when new Themes are coming, Jackson wouldn't say. However, I got a peek at a few rejects and early mock-ups, including several iterations of plaid that would get the lumberjack or golfer in all of us a little excited.

Gmail via Safari and Mail.app is all you're getting for now.

(Credit: CNET Networks / Josh Lowensohn)

2. No iPhone Gmail app in the works

For iPhone users who are fed up with Apple's built-in Mail application and wish that they could get a native Gmail application like the ones for Android and J2ME phones--don't hold your breath. "We could make one for mail, potentially," Jackson said, "but we'd also have to make one for Palm and BlackBerry. For each platform, it's time consuming."

Instead Jackson thinks the future of Gmail on phones centers around improved 3G coverage and new standards such as HTML 5 that will make using Gmail on your handset's browser less painful. "If we can design for the Web and give you the client-like experience that you're used to getting with Gmail on your browser, it's going to be a good experience."

Out of curiosity I pinged Google to see if the company would release usage numbers on the recently released themes and Labs add-ons in Gmail. The tools let users customize the Gmail experience in a number of ways, and all without the use of special browser add-ons or scripting hacks. More importantly, they let people custom tailor their e-mail experience no matter what computer they're on.

In other words, your theme and Labs add-ons can tell Google, or anyone else, a lot about why you're using the service.

While the company will not disclose the hard numbers on how many users are using each theme or Labs add-on, it did provide me with the top five most used in each category. You might find them interesting:

Themes (non-default):
1. Ocean
2. Planets
3. Mountains
4. Classic
5. Shiny

Labs:
1. Superstars
2. Pictures in chat
3. Calendar gadget
4. Attachment detector
5. Mark as read button

The planets theme is the second most popular non-default Gmail theme. Second only to the ocean one.

So what's the big takeaway here? People really enjoy nature. The earth-related themes dominate, with the classic, less blue look coming up just behind. Unsurprisingly, the terminal theme that emulates the look of a computer's command line interface, did not make the short list although I'd be interested to see how far it trails behind.

On the Labs side, the story is all about improving existing Gmail features. Superstars in particular is a response to people wanting to preserve some of the familiarity they're used to from Outlook. Stars are Gmail's equivalent of a flag in Outlook. With the Labs option activated they can be turned into red exclamation marks (or any color of star), then sorted accordingly, turning the feature into an alternate, and more visual way to manage e-mail.

Sadly missing from the top five are two of the goofier add-ons: mail goggles and old snakey. The first one keeps you from sending e-mails at odd hours without performing the virtual equivalent of a sobriety test, while the latter lets you play the classic time wasting game with a simple keyboard shortcut.

Google introduced Labs for Gmail back in early June. Since then none of the 30 add-ons has "graduated" to the main product. What's your favorite theme or Labs add-on?