Gadgets Released for Blogger in Draft

Blogger has quietly rolled out a (seemingly) new feature for people that want to try out new features for Blogger in Draft.  When the feature comes to the regular blogger, it will bring functionality to the platform that hasn’t been seen before.  Any gadget that is currently available through Google Gadgets is available in Blogger in Draft and will eventually appear on the main version.

To preview the new features, you must sign into your Blogger/Google account and go to the Layout area of the blog you wish to edit, then click “Add Gadget” to bring up the list of gadgets (more than 50,000 user-added and Google-developed tools).  Browsing through them to find the particular widget you are looking for is extremely easy.  Simply use the search box or use the sidebar – divided into Basics, Featured, Most Popular, and Newest and further by categories – News, Tools, Communications, Fun & Games, Finance, Sports, Lifestyle, and Technology.

When this feature comes out of Beta, many bloggers will likely take advantage of the new layout and features as it makes the process much simpler and there is no need to go to another site or do hundreds of searches for the particular widget you are looking for.  On October 26, 2007, the Blogger team announced that they were going to be better integrating Google Gadgets with Blogger.

The “Basics” area takes the place of the current Page Elements window.