Some great updates to the new dashboard have just been released! New features include being able to set a few preferences for how trends are calculated, being able to pick and choose only the modules you want displayed, and being able to choose how much data is shown within each module. We also released some new modules, one for FeedBurner, and some others that are designed to closely mimic the functionality of the “old” dashboard, for those of you who liked that. Google Maps will be coming soon.
Now, we have decided to create a new page for all the customizing you want to do, rather than have the “live” dashboard be customizable. I know that it may be handy to be able to change the dashboard as you are using it, but realistically most people will set it once and leave it be. Having it on a seperate page also saves us from forcing you to download an 80KB JavaScript file when you load the dashboard. That speeds up loading time for you, and saves a bit of bandwidth for us.
So just click the pencil icon
in the top right corner to access this new screen. At the top is a preference box to customize trend calculations, which includes if you want Today’s trend to take into account the time of day, as well as being able to choose if you’re single day trends should be compared vs the day before, or vs the same day last week (e.g. this Monday vs last Monday). There is also a preference to permanently choose the “old dashboard” as your dashboard of choice. But before doing that, please keep reading to learn how you can make the new dashboard look like the old one. Screenshot
Below that is all of your currently active modules, shown in a simplified form, and a new third column called “disabled”. You can drag modules into there to remove them from your dashboard, or take them out of there to make them live again. Each module also has its own drop down box that allows you to choose how many results you want to see within that module. Screenshot
Unfortunately, we had to wipe everyone’s dashboard layout, because it was incompatible with the new one. But don’t worry, we’re positive you would have wanted to use the new customization screen anyways, so no hard feelings! Plus, we added the ability to copy any site’s preferences and layout to all of your other sites, so that will end up saying you a lot of time with any new changes you make!
The new default layout only displays “the basics”, links, searches, and content, which is what most people care about. “Locale” and “Computer” are interesting, but relatively stable, so by default they are no longer shown.
There is also a new “layout presets” area that includes “old school dashboard”, which closely mimics the layout and functionality of the old dashboard. Everyone who dislikes the new dashboard, we encourage you try this layout and see if it works better for you!
