More Google Chrome web apps for you to enjoy!

Filed under: Google, Browsers

More Google Chrome web apps for you to enjoy!

by Lee Mathews (RSS feed) Jul 6th 2010 at 1:00PM

When I posted my how-to on installing the demo web apps Google includes in Chrome the other day, several commenters decided to edit the code and pack icons into their own .CRX files for web apps they use frequently. I've done the same, and they're all linked after the break for everyone to install and enjoy!

A few things to remember:

1) You must enable apps support to use these. Check the first how-to post if you don't know how to do that.

2) Due to security restriction in Chrome, you can't simply click-and-run to install these .CRX files. Right click and save link as to save them to your computer, then drag them onto your Google Chrome window to install.

3) These are not full-blown extension apps. Really, they're web apps (like GMail, Twitter, etc) + PNG icons. App tabs open with no toolbar and the tab looks different in your Chrome toolbar (as you can see above).

4) Want your apps to reappear every time you launch Chrome? You still have to pin them -- just like regular tabs. If you don't pin an app tab, it won't reappear.

Lee's Apps:

• Facebook
• Google Reader
• Twitter
• TeamViewer
• µTorrent Falcon (make sure you're running the desktop version as well - download here)

Commenter Apps:

• Feedsquares by Qikon
• Grooveshark by Qikon
• MyFav.es by Qikon
• Pandora by Dave
• Yahoo Mail by pat_boy2008

The Google Apps, in case you had trouble with the

• GMail
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs

Bonus:

• Spark Chess and Trillian's web client are available from Owen Campbell-Moore: download here

To create your own app, here's what you do:

1. Find nice looking icons and make sure you have at least two sizes (24 and 128 pixesl)
2. Modify the manifest.json from one of my apps or one of the Google apps in your resources folder. If you're only creating two images, strip out the lines which reference the 32 and 48 pixel images.
3. Make sure you input the correct URL and change the name of your app.
4. Load it into Chrome via the load unpacked extension button

That's it. Simple, huh?

Chrome apps are capable of a lot more than pretty icons -- including things like running offline and notification support --but for now I'm happy with the eye candy.

Now go build some of your own, and share them with us in the comments! We'll add them to this post!

Tags: apps, chrome, chromium, dev, google, nightly

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