As you scroll through a conversation, your most important message actions will now stick to the top of the screen, one click away, no matter how long the email is.

Very long thread? Now you can view previous message content more easily, just like in the desktop version of Gmail. Tap “Show quoted text” to reveal the previous message.

Finally, this updated version of the Gmail app has limited support for Priority Inbox. If you’ve enabled Priority Inbox via the desktop version of Gmail, you’ll see an “Important” label that shows all messages flagged as important. You can even add a shortcut to “Important” to your home screen.

The Gmail update requires Froyo (Android version 2.2), so it’s available if you have a Nexus One, HTC EVO, Motorola Droid 2 or Motorola Droid. (Not sure if your device is running Android version 2.2? Check here.)

Get the update from Android Market (just scan the QR code below, or click here if you’re on a phone) and check out the new Gmail. We’d love to hear what you think at android-apps-support@google.com.

Update 9/21/10 12:13pm Pacific time: There is a known issue with important actions not sticking to the top of the screen on HTC phones running Anrdoid 2.2, like the EVO 4G and

the Droid Incredible. We are working to address this.

Update 9/23/10 10:52 Pacific time: Sprint and HTC have just released an update to Android 2.2 for the EVO 4G that fixes both the “header not sticking to the top of the screen” and the “secondary account doesn’t sync” issues in Gmail. To get the update, go to Menu > Settings > System updates > HTC software update, and check for updates (may take a few tries).

Posted by Simon Arscott and Paul Westbrook, Gmail for Android team

One of the core requirements of preparing an application for launch on the Google Apps Marketplace is integrating with OpenID-based Single Sign-On. This enables Google Apps users to access your application without creating and maintaining additional credentials. This lowers the barrier to entry for your application and creates a seamless on-boarding flow.

In addition to making your app easier to use, price OpenID can improve security for applications by reducing the number of places you need to enter a password. Of course, it’s also important to strengthen the security of the places you are entering your password, and yesterday’s launch of Two-step verification does just that.

Until yesterday, Google Apps customers using Google Apps’ built-in authentication mechanisms needed to provide a username and password (something they knew) to log in. Our launch of 2-factor authentication, which we’re calling Two-step verification, enables users of Premier, Education and Government Editions to additionally require having something in possession- a mobile phone- to log in.

So, if you’re a Marketplace developer and your customer asks you if your app supports 2-factor auth, you can answer an emphatic “yes” and send them over to the Marketplace to add your app to their domain.

Posted by Ryan Boyd, Google Apps Marketplace Team

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Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are a part of every web designer’s vocabulary when styling websites, physician and since its inception, prostate the C (Cascading) in CSS was intended as a way to empower users to have the final say over how they perceive content on the web. But because creating user stylesheets generally requires programming, medicine end users have not always been able to easily leverage this functionality. Stylebot, a new Google Chrome extension created as a Google Summer of Code project, hopes to finally unlock the power of the C in CSS by giving the end user final control on how web content is displayed.

At Google, the Accessibility Engineering team is very excited about the potential of extensions like Stylebot to improve the accessibility of the web, making it possible for users to customize the web to fit their needs. For example, a Stylebot user with special reading needs might change a webpage by removing images, picking new text and background colors, and even moving blocks of text around. And Stylebot saves the custom style they create, so the next time they access that page the changes will still be there. Even better, they can sync their saved styles across computers so that webpage will always appear with their preferred style.

We invited Ankit Ahuja, the Google Summer of Code student who worked on Stylebot, to write about his experiences creating the extension. While there’s still a lot of work to be done to make Chromium more accessible, extensions like Stylebot are a great step – giving users themselves the power to shape the way they interact with the web.

My name is Ankit Ahuja, and I successfully completed my Google Summer of Code project this year for Chromium. I was mentored by Rachel Shearer. My project is Stylebot, a Chromium extension that enables users to easily customize the web’s appearance. Ultimately, Stylebot aims to make the web more accessible and adaptable.

StyleBot screencast demo

One of the main objectives of the project was to allow users unfamiliar with CSS to be able to use this extension with ease. In the Basic mode, users launch Stylebot on a page, select an element and style it. Changes made by the users are automatically saved, so the next time they visit the page, their custom styles are already applied. This mode provides an easy-to-use GUI for the commonly used CSS properties. For the more advanced users, there is a separate mode in which they can write their own CSS.

A nontrivial problem was allowing the users to preview the changes instantly. So although a stylesheet is used to apply the custom CSS when the page is initially loaded, inline CSS is deployed while the user is in editing mode for a smooth, dynamic editing experience. Another important issue was determining the best way to position the Stylebot panel on the page. During testing, I found drag-and-drop to be slow. Instead, allowing the panel to be moved to a fixed left or right position felt the most user friendly. CSS parsing was required and luckily there already existed a CSS parser in JavaScript.

On my part, I’ve tried to make sure the Stylebot code is useful for other developers. I’ve kept the implementation of features like extension data synchronization, selection of elements, CSS selector generation, etc. separate, so that anyone can reuse the code easily. I’ve also used code from other open source projects. For example, the user interface is the CSS version of Cappuccino’s Aristo and the selection of elements is similar to Firebug’s implementation.

Take a look at a few examples we created using Stylebot. You can install the extension from the Google Chrome extensions gallery. We’re already receiving some positive and critical feedback, which is exciting!

I had an amazing experience participating in Google Summer of Code this year. I had a great time interacting with my mentor through the summer, who was very helpful and motivating. Finally, I would like to thank Google for sponsoring and making this project possible.

By Ankit Ahuja, 2010 Google Summer of Code Student and Rachel Shearer, Google Accessibility Engineering Team