January 28, 2008 12:11 PM PST

gDocsBar makes Firefox more Google office-friendly

(Credit: Sandosh Vasudevan)

If you're a Google Docs user you're probably used to keeping a separate window or set of tabs open for your document source list. What if you could kill that extra tab or open window and manage everything from the sidebar of your browser instead?

Interaction designer Sandosh Vasudevan has come up with gDocsBar (download), a solution that rolls up all the functionality you'd find on the home screen of Google Docs and puts it the side bar of your browser, meaning it can be summoned and dismissed in an instant.

The sidebar features a search-as-you-type box to find your docs, drag and drop uploading of files from your desktop or from the Web, and filtering by title, date, and author. You can also go in and browse documents by type to separate documents from spreadsheets and the most recent addition--presentations.

I gave it a quick spin this morning and am definitely keeping it as an add-on, considering it lets me quickly jump between documents while remaining in the same tab, which is a big time saver. Power users can also simply right-click any doc on the source list and open it in a new tab or window. Oddly enough I was only able to get it to load up three of my most recent documents, but the quick uploading and document jumping features are enough to make it useful for me until the kinks are worked out.

1/31 Update: Okay, Vasudevan just tweaked this today, and all my docs are showing up now. There's also a new feature that lets you filter by author when you right click any doc. Full changelog here.

[via Google Operating System]

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