3 ms·

How to make installable web apps for Chrome

34 points by danh 16y ago

gourneau 16y ago
One of those icons looks awfully familiar :)
- d0m 16y ago
  I was surprised to see it there, next to gmail!
  - aboodman 16y ago
    Hacker news is an important use case of ours :) (edit to reduce snark)
    - papachito 16y ago
      I did an installable app for HN here http://blog.ricodigo.com/2010/5/23/how-to-create-chrome-apps http://blog.ricodigo.com/2010/5/23/how-to-create-chrome-apps
wwortiz 16y ago
So it appears this is windows only for now according to this: http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/ http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/ Which seems so weird considering this is what will make chrome os, at least in terms of the web as a desktop sort of thing. Though they probably did this for other reasons such as a larger userbase to test with or some reason unknown to me, hopefully I'll get to try it soon when it is ported to the other OS's.
- papachito 16y ago
  No, it works fine on Linux too, I even made an app for HN that I posted a few days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1371515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1371515
dpcan 16y ago
(Sorry, I think this turned into a trolling ramble possibly...) I cannot decide if this matters or not. Seriously, will this matter? I have web apps, I have web apps that would rock in a desktop environment where I didn't have to host the data, or could at least "sync" it with the desktop. But does it matter? Will Chrome matter? Will telling people to install Chrome to install my app be worth it? Will other browsers follow suit? Obviously this has so much going for it. First, it's being launched as a "store" and not just an "add-on" system. I haven't written my apps for Firefox because I need it to financially make sense. Creating something for another "store" does make sense. I can now write apps for Android, iPhone, Palm, RIM, Windows, Mac, iPad, web-based, and other cell phones. Now add "browser-desktop" into the mix. This means I have to write my app in Java with Android's SDK, Objective-C, (uhm?), Java, .Net Pascal C etc, more C, more C, PHP/Ruby/.Net/Python, more Java, HTML5? Uhgo. Good Lord!!! Can I just write one app in Flash or Java and be able to distribute it everywhere PLEASE???
- wwortiz 16y ago
  Well you can write apps in HTML5 and javascript and distribute to iphone, android, and up to date browsers while coding the backend on your server to whatever you want and this is essentially what web apps should be. Edit: If you really want to actually target all environments flash really no longer will be an option and it may or may not be a good thing but if your apps are as great as you think they are pick the biggest market develop specifically for that market and if they are really that awesome spread out to other environments.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  You have to stop thinking about apps as standalone things. We are quickly getting to the place where apps are all comprised of a client and server exchanging data over http(s). If you build a robust api to your data, then you can build many many client implementations to get at it on any platform. The Chrome platform doesn't require anything beyond what you're already building for your web client. Unless you're not building a web client, in which case why would you be worried about the Chrome web store at all? Note that there are tons of things to figure out in terms of network latency and up/downtime, some of which are addressed by the newer features of html5.
demosthe 16y ago
Isn't Chrome's "Create Application Shortcuts" better than this already?
elblanco 16y ago
Great, more stuff to jam horizontally along my tab bar. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about putting things vertically?

34 points by danh 16y ago

gourneau 16y ago

One of those icons looks awfully familiar :)

d0m 16y ago
I was surprised to see it there, next to gmail!
- aboodman 16y ago
  Hacker news is an important use case of ours :) (edit to reduce snark)
  - papachito 16y ago
    I did an installable app for HN here http://blog.ricodigo.com/2010/5/23/how-to-create-chrome-apps http://blog.ricodigo.com/2010/5/23/how-to-create-chrome-apps

wwortiz 16y ago

So it appears this is windows only for now according to this: http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/ http://code.google.com/chrome/apps/ Which seems so weird considering this is what will make chrome os, at least in terms of the web as a desktop sort of thing. Though they probably did this for other reasons such as a larger userbase to test with or some reason unknown to me, hopefully I'll get to try it soon when it is ported to the other OS's.

papachito 16y ago
No, it works fine on Linux too, I even made an app for HN that I posted a few days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1371515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1371515

dpcan 16y ago

(Sorry, I think this turned into a trolling ramble possibly...) I cannot decide if this matters or not. Seriously, will this matter? I have web apps, I have web apps that would rock in a desktop environment where I didn't have to host the data, or could at least "sync" it with the desktop. But does it matter? Will Chrome matter? Will telling people to install Chrome to install my app be worth it? Will other browsers follow suit? Obviously this has so much going for it. First, it's being launched as a "store" and not just an "add-on" system. I haven't written my apps for Firefox because I need it to financially make sense. Creating something for another "store" does make sense. I can now write apps for Android, iPhone, Palm, RIM, Windows, Mac, iPad, web-based, and other cell phones. Now add "browser-desktop" into the mix. This means I have to write my app in Java with Android's SDK, Objective-C, (uhm?), Java, .Net Pascal C etc, more C, more C, PHP/Ruby/.Net/Python, more Java, HTML5? Uhgo. Good Lord!!! Can I just write one app in Flash or Java and be able to distribute it everywhere PLEASE???

wwortiz 16y ago
Well you can write apps in HTML5 and javascript and distribute to iphone, android, and up to date browsers while coding the backend on your server to whatever you want and this is essentially what web apps should be. Edit: If you really want to actually target all environments flash really no longer will be an option and it may or may not be a good thing but if your apps are as great as you think they are pick the biggest market develop specifically for that market and if they are really that awesome spread out to other environments.
stanleydrew 16y ago
You have to stop thinking about apps as standalone things. We are quickly getting to the place where apps are all comprised of a client and server exchanging data over http(s). If you build a robust api to your data, then you can build many many client implementations to get at it on any platform. The Chrome platform doesn't require anything beyond what you're already building for your web client. Unless you're not building a web client, in which case why would you be worried about the Chrome web store at all? Note that there are tons of things to figure out in terms of network latency and up/downtime, some of which are addressed by the newer features of html5.

demosthe 16y ago

Isn't Chrome's "Create Application Shortcuts" better than this already?

elblanco 16y ago

Great, more stuff to jam horizontally along my tab bar. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about putting things vertically?