Integrate Google Calendar Into Your Chrome Browser With Checker Plus

There are a lot of calendars and to-do apps out there, and to be honest, I think I’ve tried almost every one of them. The one difficulty that I’ve always had is that I don’t like the need to either open an application or to visit a website to check my calendar. In my opinion, any calendar system should be fully integrated into your normal Internet use, and it should be available at a quick glance.
When I think of any online calendar system, I definitely stuck with Google Calendar the longest. The reason is that it offers just about everything you’d need in a personal scheduling system – a to-do list, easy event and appointment creation and access via either a desktop app or the website. Google Calendar is even accessible from Google Mail, or other email clients like Outlook or Thunderbird.
After a while, I always tend to stop using my calendar because I’m usually too busy to check it! Well if you’re like me, then you’ll be glad to learn about a useful Google Calendar checker plugin for Chrome that brings your calendar right to your fingertips as you browse the net.

Installing Google Calendar Checker Plus

When you first install the Chrome plugin, you’ll initially see the options screen. Go through these carefully, because there are a lot of very cool features that you can enable on the screen. For examples, you can enable “voice activation”, which will alert you when an event or appointment is impending with an audio voice. This is pretty cool if you want to be able to step away from your computer but don’t want to miss any calendar notifications.

Once it’s installed, the plugin will insert a small calendar icon next to the location field of your browser. If you’re not logged in yet, left click on the icon and select “Sign In” to log into the Google account where your calendar is stored.

Once you’re logged in, all you have to do to get a quick glimpse of your Calendar overview for today and tomorrow is to hover your mouse over the icon. You’ll see a small pop-up listing all events for those two days. It doesn’t get much more convenient than that!

If you want to see a full-blown version of your calendar, just left click on the icon. When you do, your entire calendar opens in a pop-up box right inside your browser. Unlike so many other widgets or plugins out there that integrate you with Google Calendar, this one doesn’t just send you off to the Calendar site, it actually gives you nearly full access to your Calendar right inside the browser.

Want to change to weekly view, or view your agenda for the day? Just click on the View drop-down box and choose how you would like the integrated calendar to display.

Another nice feature is if you want to view appointment details, you still don’t have to go to the actual Calendar website. Everything is available right inside the add-on. Just click on a Calendar item, and the appointment details will pop up on top of the calendar. If you click “more details>>“, only then will Google Calendar open in a new tab to the details for that event or appointment.

You can also add new appointments by either quickly entering it into the “Quick Add” field at the top of the calendar, or you can click on any day of the month and a pop-up will appear where you can type in the event details. This means that even if you’re in the middle of browsing through Google results or reading an article, within just a couple of clicks this plug-in lets you add an event to your Calendar without even leaving the website that you’re on.

There are a few additional little perks with this Chrome add-on as well. You’ll notice that today and the next several days have a little icon of the weather on the upper left corner of the month display. If you click on this icon, you can see a quick 3-day forecast of the weather – which certainly helps when you’re planning out those trips and adding your appointments and activities to the calendar!

When you click on the “View” dropdown and choose “Customize” from the menu, you’ll be brought to the part of the Options page where you can customize your Calendar display using HTML code. Using this feature, you can modify the hight, width, colors and a lot of other display features for your pop-up calendar. Click on the “Calendar Helper” to come up with the code that will do what you want.

As you can see, Calendar Checker Plus is a pretty versatile add-on to Chrome that will pretty much wipe out any need to visit the Google Calendar page itself! From now on you can just glide your mouse up to the Checker icon in your browser, and in seconds have full access to your calendar and to all of your appointments.
Do you use Calendar Checker? Which features do you find useful, and what do you think is missing? Try it out and share your thoughts in the comments section below!