The Gmail team has released some news that has me a touch bitter: An organization system that I went through monumental effort to set up for myself not two months ago has now been made far, far simpler. That task is color-coding your Google Calendar, and is available now for all Gmail and Google Apps users.
To use the new feature, simply click on the event in your calendar. Next to the event title you’ll see a color box with a down-facing arrow. You will be able to select one of eight colors, or leave the event at the calendar default. The color won’t be visible to all calendar viewers, however: only those who have editing privileges or who are calendar owners (i.e., are you). The feature was officially released on the 9th and is already (as of about 1pm CT) available on my Google Apps account. Those who don’t see the feature yet should see it within roughly 24 hours.
Previously, I went through and created seven different calendars for myself, each with a different color associated. I then went through each and every task I created and assigned it to a specific calendar so I could get the visual cues I wanted. “My way” still offers a couple advantages, including the ability to share only select calendars (my work schedule but not my bills, for example), but the new, simpler method provided by Google Calendar is a definite step up for almost all users. Thanks, Google, for releasing a very useful feature only after I did things the hard way.
[via the Gmail Blog]
