Mountain View has the builders in over at Google Docs, where the company is working on a new interface for the online office app.

While the work is taking place, Google is warning users that ongoing tweaks might be noticeable during the “next few weeks” while it applies the facelift to Docs.

Office 2010 was released for testing on Monday, but a technical preview of its web-based brother, which will be made freely available to individuals and organisations, hasn’t landed yet.

Despite that, a pushy Google is keen to make a play into the Office arena, where Microsoft sits pretty with a huge 90 per cent chunk of the global market share.

So what can Docs users expect to see change in the coming weeks?

Google plans to remove the “Shared with…” list in the left hand pane - it’s effectively redundant as Search offers the same functionality, explained the firm’s Docs product manager Vijay Bangaru. The app will also soon come with a 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,” said Bangaru. Additionally, the web kingpin has added a few “search operators” to Docs.

But hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen: Those minor changes will be “followed shortly by the new interface and a number of pretty exciting features we have in the pipe,” he added.

Google, just like with its Chrome OS plans, isn’t revealing anything more about what we can expect from a "shiny new" Docs interface. Our money's on a Chrome Docs coming soon to a screen near you. ®

Related stories

• Microsoft squirts out Office 2010 public beta (18 November 2009)
• Google Docs set for 'get rid of' Office moment (13 November 2009)
• Office 2010 beta coming next month (20 October 2009)
• Google Docs gets jiggy with folder sharing (13 October 2009)
• Chinese whispers hint at early Chrome OS release (2 October 2009)
• Google Docs opens heart to students (29 September 2009)
• Microsoft wraps Project 2010 parcel in Ribbon (17 September 2009)
• Office 2010 to come loaded with WGA's bastard child (26 August 2009)
• Texan judge outlaws Word (12 August 2009)
• Microsoft grabs Office.com domain in Google Apps assault (7 August 2009)
• Google polishes another Chrome beta (6 August 2009)
• Microsoft set for open source outpouring? (21 July 2009)
• Twitter's underwear exposed after Google Apps hack (15 July 2009)
• WPC Office 2010 hits testers minus Google punch (13 July 2009)
• Google strips beta wrapper from Gmail, Docs et al (7 July 2009)
• Updated Google cloud told to encrypt itself (16 June 2009)
• Google Docs caves to MS Office 2007 file formats (2 June 2009)
• Office 2010 tech preview leaks onto interwebs (18 May 2009)
• Updated Google suffers international outages, slowdowns (14 May 2009)
• Web 2.0 Expo Google brewing 'offline' web office apps (3 April 2009)
• Google Docs suffers serious security lapse (9 March 2009)