7 ms·

Chrome app launcher developer preview

59 points by mikeevans 14y ago

msoad 14y ago
I am kind of sure that Google will ditch Java and go for native web apps for it's operation systems. They will unify ChromeOS and Android experience by getting rid of Java on Android and making web apps running natively on the OS. I see a lot of signs from Google that they want to do this. The "X-Phone" project, this effort for pushing packaged Chrome web apps and even that new Android status in Google campus are all signs of it. I am very happy that this is happening!
- nicpottier 14y ago
  One point, much to Oracle's dismay, Android is not Java. Java is used to do dev, but the phones themselves run a completely different VM (Dalvik).
- tiziano88 14y ago
  What status?
- chrisbuc 14y ago
  And using Dart is a great way to achieve this goal :)
habosa 14y ago
I'm a Chrome OS user so I've had some time with this launcher. I'm not sure why, but for me having a launcher versus a bookmarks bar is a huge psychological difference. I really do feel like these are "apps" not websites, even when I could just as easily navigate to them in the URL bar. It makes Chrome OS feel like any other operating system when my brain SHOULD say "hey, this is just a browser".
- donniezazen 14y ago
  I jumped the ship and am now using Chrome OS for school work. I never realized how much of my life is browser centric. My personal experience is I prefer launcher over bookmark bar. For some reason bookmark bar looks cluttered to me. When I want to open websites like Gmail, I just search launcher and it's there. And I have a clean interface without bookmark.
- city41 14y ago
  Mind if I ask what you are running Chrome OS on? I have been interested in picking up a Chromebook, but the reviews for them are very bad. It seems that locking up, crashing and even flat out dying after a couple of months is surprisingly common.
  - habosa 14y ago
    Running it on the ARM Chromebook which has been absolutely perfect so far (~2 weeks). No locking up or crashing at all. Great battery life, keyboard as good as my MacBook Pro and a great trackpad for the size. Overall very, very happy with my purchase given my use case (just a second computer for class/travel).
  - yefim323 14y ago
    I had Chrome OS running pretty smoothly on a Sylvania G Meso (a cheap netbook). I got a bootable disk image here: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/
purplelobster 14y ago
Why the need to package apps like this? Going to a web app with HTML5 caching will automatically make your app work offline. The installation IS going to the URL. With the added benefit that you can easily update the app by invalidating the cache. Just give web apps more localStorage, more caching space and indexedDb and viola!
- msoad 14y ago
  Because an icon will invite user to use the app. Most of those apps are exactly what you described. Packaged apps are needed because web apps can't access OS level information.
  - kinlan 14y ago
    The biggest reason we have these apps is not really OS Level information, it is offline. We want developers to build and deliver great offline first experiences, and on the Web we just don't have that (even with AppCache).
- kzahel 14y ago
  I also like the content security policies of packaged apps. A web page can load new code at will and frequently does so. Packaged apps typically come bundled with everything they need to run, and can't directly load scripts from the web. Also HTML5 app cache is pretty terrible.
  - purplelobster 14y ago
    Why exactly is it terrible? The one bad thing I know is that you can only invalidate the whole cache, not individual resources, but what else?
- notatoad 14y ago
  Because people like apps. The app wrapper makes people comfortable with the idea of using web apps in place of desktop apps.
- zobzu 14y ago
obilgic 14y ago
This is the problem: Omnibox is so powerful that I don't even use app launcher on my chromebook.
- ok_craig 14y ago
  I'm the same way. But I've also really wanted to be able to run web pages as their own Windows app. Like have them occupy a space in the windows task bar, which it looks like this may provide for. I don't really know why I want this, my brain just has a strong urge to have certain app-like pages have app-like prominence, and have their own focus outside of being another tab in Chrome.
mbell 14y ago
I find it interesting to see the differential in response to posts like this vs posts on the firefox phone OS threads. Here they seem to be: "Why would I want a website as an app???" In the firefox phone OS threads they seem to be: "This is how all apps should be build, pure web apps!!!"
derefr 14y ago
I really, really want to write my application as a Chrome packaged app--I love all the advantages that come from developing for the web, and I love appearing like a native app to my users--but most of my users don't use Chrome, and I can't really force them to switch. They want to keep using what they're using. What should I do about this? I think this feature might be a good start, but it would be great if you could install the App Launcher without installing Chrome. That is to say: Chrome team, have you ever considered converting Chrome into a platform runtime ala the JVM, and then making your browser just one of the "packaged apps" that runs atop it? :)
- RaphiePS 14y ago
  This is remarkably similar to what you described: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
  - derefr 14y ago
    Ah! I had heard of several similar things (Chromium Embedded, etc.) but this one is new to me. So that's what Light Table is written in!
zobzu 14y ago
I'd rather have a standard API than "chrome.*" to be honest.
- kinlan 14y ago
  everyone would, but standards take a long time, and lead with experience based of existing implementations.
imissmyjuno 14y ago
A somewhat unrelated conceptual question: if Chrome is putting web apps alongside desktop apps, what does that do for usability of apps on a platform in general? If a web app was created to emulate a native OS UI, wouldn't that be taking a bit of a step backwards (in terms of recreating all the widgets) compared to just coding in the native toolkit in the first place? I guess what I'm really asking is, what's Google's plan for unifying the Web Store apps visually the way Android and iOS do with their UI kits?
hayksaakian 14y ago
Annoyingly windows only. Windows already was able to turn apps into desktop shortcuts, osx/linux still has none of that.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  It works on Linux. It's only Mac that lacks that feature.
  - kinlan 14y ago
    We are working on it. Mac has some interesting things that we need to do to get it working.
DonnyV 14y ago
Until Google encrypts there .crx file that holds the source code I don't think anyone can use this to sell apps. Right now the only protection Google offers is a signed .crx file and that can easily be by passed. http://stackoverflow.com/a/4493712/1231 http://stackoverflow.com/a/4493712/1231 Google needs to encrypt all .crx that come from the Web Store.

59 points by mikeevans 14y ago

msoad 14y ago

I am kind of sure that Google will ditch Java and go for native web apps for it's operation systems. They will unify ChromeOS and Android experience by getting rid of Java on Android and making web apps running natively on the OS. I see a lot of signs from Google that they want to do this. The "X-Phone" project, this effort for pushing packaged Chrome web apps and even that new Android status in Google campus are all signs of it. I am very happy that this is happening!

nicpottier 14y ago
One point, much to Oracle's dismay, Android is not Java. Java is used to do dev, but the phones themselves run a completely different VM (Dalvik).
tiziano88 14y ago
What status?
chrisbuc 14y ago
And using Dart is a great way to achieve this goal :)

habosa 14y ago

I'm a Chrome OS user so I've had some time with this launcher. I'm not sure why, but for me having a launcher versus a bookmarks bar is a huge psychological difference. I really do feel like these are "apps" not websites, even when I could just as easily navigate to them in the URL bar. It makes Chrome OS feel like any other operating system when my brain SHOULD say "hey, this is just a browser".

donniezazen 14y ago
I jumped the ship and am now using Chrome OS for school work. I never realized how much of my life is browser centric. My personal experience is I prefer launcher over bookmark bar. For some reason bookmark bar looks cluttered to me. When I want to open websites like Gmail, I just search launcher and it's there. And I have a clean interface without bookmark.
city41 14y ago
Mind if I ask what you are running Chrome OS on? I have been interested in picking up a Chromebook, but the reviews for them are very bad. It seems that locking up, crashing and even flat out dying after a couple of months is surprisingly common.
- habosa 14y ago
  Running it on the ARM Chromebook which has been absolutely perfect so far (~2 weeks). No locking up or crashing at all. Great battery life, keyboard as good as my MacBook Pro and a great trackpad for the size. Overall very, very happy with my purchase given my use case (just a second computer for class/travel).
- yefim323 14y ago
  I had Chrome OS running pretty smoothly on a Sylvania G Meso (a cheap netbook). I got a bootable disk image here: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/

purplelobster 14y ago

Why the need to package apps like this? Going to a web app with HTML5 caching will automatically make your app work offline. The installation IS going to the URL. With the added benefit that you can easily update the app by invalidating the cache. Just give web apps more localStorage, more caching space and indexedDb and viola!

msoad 14y ago
Because an icon will invite user to use the app. Most of those apps are exactly what you described. Packaged apps are needed because web apps can't access OS level information.
- kinlan 14y ago
  The biggest reason we have these apps is not really OS Level information, it is offline. We want developers to build and deliver great offline first experiences, and on the Web we just don't have that (even with AppCache).
kzahel 14y ago
I also like the content security policies of packaged apps. A web page can load new code at will and frequently does so. Packaged apps typically come bundled with everything they need to run, and can't directly load scripts from the web. Also HTML5 app cache is pretty terrible.
- purplelobster 14y ago
  Why exactly is it terrible? The one bad thing I know is that you can only invalidate the whole cache, not individual resources, but what else?
notatoad 14y ago
Because people like apps. The app wrapper makes people comfortable with the idea of using web apps in place of desktop apps.
zobzu 14y ago

obilgic 14y ago

This is the problem: Omnibox is so powerful that I don't even use app launcher on my chromebook.

ok_craig 14y ago
I'm the same way. But I've also really wanted to be able to run web pages as their own Windows app. Like have them occupy a space in the windows task bar, which it looks like this may provide for. I don't really know why I want this, my brain just has a strong urge to have certain app-like pages have app-like prominence, and have their own focus outside of being another tab in Chrome.

mbell 14y ago

I find it interesting to see the differential in response to posts like this vs posts on the firefox phone OS threads. Here they seem to be: "Why would I want a website as an app???" In the firefox phone OS threads they seem to be: "This is how all apps should be build, pure web apps!!!"

derefr 14y ago

I really, really want to write my application as a Chrome packaged app--I love all the advantages that come from developing for the web, and I love appearing like a native app to my users--but most of my users don't use Chrome, and I can't really force them to switch. They want to keep using what they're using. What should I do about this? I think this feature might be a good start, but it would be great if you could install the App Launcher without installing Chrome. That is to say: Chrome team, have you ever considered converting Chrome into a platform runtime ala the JVM, and then making your browser just one of the "packaged apps" that runs atop it? :)

RaphiePS 14y ago
This is remarkably similar to what you described: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
- derefr 14y ago
  Ah! I had heard of several similar things (Chromium Embedded, etc.) but this one is new to me. So that's what Light Table is written in!

zobzu 14y ago

I'd rather have a standard API than "chrome.*" to be honest.

kinlan 14y ago
everyone would, but standards take a long time, and lead with experience based of existing implementations.

imissmyjuno 14y ago

A somewhat unrelated conceptual question: if Chrome is putting web apps alongside desktop apps, what does that do for usability of apps on a platform in general? If a web app was created to emulate a native OS UI, wouldn't that be taking a bit of a step backwards (in terms of recreating all the widgets) compared to just coding in the native toolkit in the first place? I guess what I'm really asking is, what's Google's plan for unifying the Web Store apps visually the way Android and iOS do with their UI kits?

hayksaakian 14y ago

Annoyingly windows only. Windows already was able to turn apps into desktop shortcuts, osx/linux still has none of that.

lucian1900 14y ago
It works on Linux. It's only Mac that lacks that feature.
- kinlan 14y ago
  We are working on it. Mac has some interesting things that we need to do to get it working.

DonnyV 14y ago

Until Google encrypts there .crx file that holds the source code I don't think anyone can use this to sell apps. Right now the only protection Google offers is a signed .crx file and that can easily be by passed. http://stackoverflow.com/a/4493712/1231 http://stackoverflow.com/a/4493712/1231 Google needs to encrypt all .crx that come from the Web Store.