Gmail tasks as a Dashboard widget
Ever since Gmail came out with their tasks feature I’ve loved it. For my limited use, its simple, easy and usable. If you are using OS X, here is a quick way to create a dashboard widget. All you need is Safari, both versions 3 and 4 will work in the manner detailed below.
- Launch Safari and open preferences.
- Select the ‘Advanced’ tab, check the ‘Show Develop menu in menu bar’ option and then close the window.
- Open a new tab in safari and select the ‘Develop’ menu. Navigate to ‘User agent’ > Mobile Safari 2.2.1 – iPhone
- Back to your tab, now go to http://gmail.com/tasks. Log in with your gmail account and you should see the layout just as you would on the iphone.
- If you have the tool button for dashboard (it’s the one with the scissors) on safari enabled use that or go to File > Open in Dashboard
- Select the area your want to see in the widget and click ‘Add’ on the top right. The dashboard should open with the widget now. That’s it!
This widget is fully functional. You can add lists, create tasks etc. Everything you can do on the iphone you can do here. If however you want the desktop version of this then replace the url with “http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig”. Here you have to resize the window first and then repeat step 5 and 6.
UPDATE: Google Apps customers should use the url ‘http://mail.google.com/tasks/a/<your-doman-name>/iphone’.
March 28th, 2009 at 8:42 am
web address for google apps doesen’t work -> http://mail.google.com/tasks/a//iphone Any suggestions?
March 28th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Is that an extra ‘/’ in the URL I see
. Just to illustrate with an example, the url for domain foo.com would be http://mail.google.com/tasks/a/foo.com/iphone. Hope that make is clear.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Wow, this looks like an amazing idea! Unfortunately, I got bogged down at step 5: I had Safari 4, but it looks as though there is no File > Open in Dashboard option – I think it may be an OS 10.4 thing. Are you sure this works with all of OS X???
April 21st, 2009 at 8:58 am
This tip will work with OS X 10.4 and up (that includes Leopard). Also you will need Safari 3+. Apple introduced the idea of creating dashboard widgets from safari in the 3.0 version.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Thanks for the tip! It worked for both of my accounts: Gmail and Google Apps. The only problem is that I can’t scroll down long lists of tasks in the widget. Someone should try to write an actual Dashboard widget for Google Tasks.
May 13th, 2009 at 5:55 am
I cannot make this work with Dashboard – the settings in the bottom doesn’t show up i the Dashboard version. It works perfectly as a standalone web app created in Fluid though.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
@Toke, at what step were you not able to proceed?
June 25th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Good tip with the http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig address. So key for making a dashboard webclipping. I was using the igoogle gadget embed code previously, and it sucked.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Thank you i got it working ot the dashboard but I was wandering if there is a way I can have it alone to stay in the desktop
January 13th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Have you used fluid before? You can do the following in fluid or Mozilla’s prism. http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/tools/tasklistsoftware.htm
February 25th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Thank you, works perfectly!
May 9th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Very nice, thank you – now I know how to make dashboard widgets. You rock!
June 26th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
works very nicely, thanks!
July 5th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
I was able to make this work perfectly in my dashboard using the http://gmail.com/tasks address. I was unable to make it work properly using the http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig address. Like the above commenter, Toke, the bottom menu disappeared when I hit, “add” even though I included it in my clipping. I was also able to use http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig in Fluid to make a standalone desktop application.
My only gripe is the size of the finished dashboard widget, but I don’t think we have much control over that.
Any ideas as to why the clipping won’t include the bottom menu? I am using: safari 5.0 and OS 10.5.8
Thanks!
July 13th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Neha, that is because you are trying to clip it at full screen. You need to make sure that everything you clip is included in your clipping window. What I did was resized safari to the size I wanted my widget, and then and then went to file>open in dashboard. I included everything in the clipping window and you have yourself some gtasks dashboard goodness.
BTW folks. If the widget logs out, make sure you just simply log back in to gmail and check the stay logged in box in safari. You will not be able to login directly through the widget. You have to re login to gmail through safari.
August 14th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Hi Everyone,
I have obtained valuable information here from all your comments and wanted to let you know of another way to display the Dashboard Widget for Gmail Tasks–Canvas–by using the URL below:
https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas
AbuHafsa’s suggestion at the beginning of this article produces an iPhone-like presentation which is very handsome, but lacks all the features of Google Tasks. Canvas offers the full functionality of Tasks and it is almost a standalone version.
I got the idea from the developer of GeeTasks for iPhone; both Canvas and GeeTasks complement each other very well.
Follow the instructions from AbuHafsa but use
https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas
instead of http://gmail.com/tasks
Make sure you are logged in first.
Ivan
August 14th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for the update Ivan. I’m aware of the canvas, however at the time of writing this post, the feature was not available. I will update this or write another post. Thanks again.