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Editing the Sizes of the Split-Windows

Suppose you wish to edit the sizes of the split-windows for Gmail and Reader Integrator, this is possible and easy to accomplish. Follow these steps to customize the Gmail or Reader window sizes to your preference:

1. In Firefox, open Tools > Greasemonkey > Manage..
2. Click on “Gmail + Reader Integrator” in the left panel
3. Click “Edit” button
4. Choose a text editor, preferably with “Lines Number” display
5. Go to Line 54 and 55
6. Edit the sizes (in px)

Quick Tip 1:

In a 1280 x 1024 resolution, the height of an email row in Inbox is approximately 22px. Therefore, the default for “GMAIL_SPLIT_HEIGHT” is set as 220px which displays about 10 email rows in split-window view.

Editing the Size of the Reader Window (Gmail Collapsed )

By default, on collapsing the Gmail window while the Reader is open, the Reader would be resized to fill the height of a screen. Suppose you wish to further extend the height of the Reader when the Gmail window is collapsed, do the following:

1. Search for function resizeReaderFrame, or Line 665
2. Change “window.innerHeight - readerEmbed.offsetTop” to a large value

Quick Tip 2:

You can open|close the Reader window by clicking on the Reader link in the LHS navi. That link is like a “toggle” for the visibility of the Reader window.

Feel free to drop me a message regarding other preferred customizations?

Lastly, the response towards the script has been overwhelming. Thank you!

The Short Story

I wrote a Greasemonkey script that integrates Gmail with Google Reader.

Features

• Spilt-window view of Gmail and Reader on a single page
• Links to collapse|expand either Gmail or Reader
• Integrated Reader uses start-page as specified in Reader’s “Settings”
• Labels selector
• Key ‘v’ to open Reader links in a new Window
• Automatic resize of Gmail and Reader views

Requirements

• Firefox
• Greasemonkey Extension (Official Site)

Installation Instructions

1. Install Greasemonkey Extension
2. Click on THE SCRIPT (gmailreaderintegrator.user.js)
3. Click “Install”
4. Open Gmail and ENJOY!

Screenshots

The Not-So-Short Story

Recently when Google reintroduced Google Reader with a new look, new features and improved usability, they marketed it as the “Inbox for the Web”. Immediately, the word “inbox” associates the Reader to emails, and Chris Wetherell - Google Reader Engineer, explained that using the Reader to obtain the latest updates of your favourite websites is similar to reading your emails. You just wait for the updates to be sent to your inbox.

Within the same day, the Reader created a huge buzz and I gave it a try. Previously, I wasn’t accustomed to the not-so-intuitive interface of the historical version and so chose to use Rojo as my RSS aggregator instead. But after exploring the new Reader, I was excited about the changes which Google introduced and have started using it as my default RSS reader.

Then, I found this Greasemonkey script by Mihai Parparita, from a post in Lifehacker, which embeds the Reader into Gmail. This makes perfect sense! They both are inboxes and ideally, they should belong on the same page. Moreover, I use Gmail frequently at work and the interface integration is an amazing productivity hack.

However, I felt that it wasn’t adequate for my use, and that my wish-functionalities were similar to comments left on Mihai’s Blog and Lifehacker. Therefore, I decided to write my own script to integrate Gmail and Google Reader; even though I have never written a Greasmonkey script before.

By examining Mihai’s code, I was able to learn and understand how a Greasemonkey script is written with Javascript. Then, I took about 1.5 weeks to complete coding my version of the Gmail and Reader Integrator, with a list of features that brought more functionalities to the integration. Importantly, I should bring to attention that I reused certain functions written by Mihai for convenience, and I acknowledged these functions clearly in my script. Thank you Mihai for the inspiration and wonderful code.

Lastly, please do report any bugs encountered or feedback any suggestions for possible improvements. I hope that you would find my Gmail and Reader Integrator script useful, as much as I do.