Pardon our Dust

We're always looking for ways to make it easier to find what you're looking for in Google Docs, which is why we're taking some time to do a bit of remodeling to the Docs list. Over the next few weeks you'll see a number of small changes, culminating in a brand new shiny interface.

One thing you'll probably notice in the next few days is that the "Shared with..." list in the left hand pane will go away. But don't worry, you can still use Search to do the same thing. Just click on "Search Options" and type the user's name into the "Shared with:" box. If this is a search you'll do over and over again, you can click "Save this search" so it will be easily accessible in "Saved Searches".

Another thing you'll see is the new Sharing Menu. We feel this is a big improvement over the old one; we've moved all the sharing functionality into this one dialog, so now you can completely manage sharing without having to leave the Docs list.

We also added a few search operators, so you can now search with:

• Exact phase matching, by using quotes: ["match this phrase exactly"]
• Or: ["tacos" OR "nachos"]
• Negation: [salsa -dancing]. This will include items with salsa recipes, but not items about dancing
• Who the doc is shared from or to: [from:bob@gmail.com] or [to:bob@gmail.com]
• Star or Hidden state: [is:starred] or [is:hidden]
  

You'll see these changes happen over the next few weeks. They will be followed shortly by the new interface and a number of pretty exciting features we have in the pipe.

In the meantime, please pardon our dust. :-)

Posted by: Vijay Bangaru, Product Manager, Google Docs