Fluid
Do you have a favorite website and often wish that,
while you enjoy it as a web site, it would be cool if
there was a way to have it as a desktop application;
that way you can just double-click the icon to start
the application, and there it would be. Instead, you
have to start up your web browser and navigate to the
page. I have a couple web sites I feel that way
about, one of them being Google Reader.
I enjoy using Google Reader as my RSS Feed aggregator, but I tend to use NetNewsWire on the Mac. The reason being, I like that I can leave the application open and it will let me know when new news feeds are available. Like Mail on the Mac, it will show you the number of new messages over the icon in the dock. If I didn’t use NetNewsWire, I would have to occasionally navigate to the Google Reader site to check for new items.
Well, now you have a way, if you have a Mac. There’s this great free application called ‘Fluid’. What Fluid does is it lets you set up a web site as an application. It’s known as a site specific browser. You can read more about it and download it from here. Once you download the small 3 MB file, unzip it and copy the application to your Applications directory. When you launch Fluid you are presented with the following screen:
All you have to do is type in the URL, give the application a Name, and choose if you want to use the Favicon of the site, or a custom icon. You can find custom icons in the Flickr icon pool located here. Once that is filled out just click Create and it will create the application for you.
I created one for Google Reader, using a Google Reader icon from the above mentioned Flickr pool. The great thing about it is it actually shows the number of unread items I have in the Dock, as you can see here.
So, now I have the best of both worlds. I have a web application I can use as a desktop application.
I enjoy using Google Reader as my RSS Feed aggregator, but I tend to use NetNewsWire on the Mac. The reason being, I like that I can leave the application open and it will let me know when new news feeds are available. Like Mail on the Mac, it will show you the number of new messages over the icon in the dock. If I didn’t use NetNewsWire, I would have to occasionally navigate to the Google Reader site to check for new items.
Well, now you have a way, if you have a Mac. There’s this great free application called ‘Fluid’. What Fluid does is it lets you set up a web site as an application. It’s known as a site specific browser. You can read more about it and download it from here. Once you download the small 3 MB file, unzip it and copy the application to your Applications directory. When you launch Fluid you are presented with the following screen:
All you have to do is type in the URL, give the application a Name, and choose if you want to use the Favicon of the site, or a custom icon. You can find custom icons in the Flickr icon pool located here. Once that is filled out just click Create and it will create the application for you.
I created one for Google Reader, using a Google Reader icon from the above mentioned Flickr pool. The great thing about it is it actually shows the number of unread items I have in the Dock, as you can see here.
So, now I have the best of both worlds. I have a web application I can use as a desktop application.
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