As of OSX Lion, I have started to seriously loathe some of the build-it Mac apps (such as Mail, and iCal). While I previously had no issues with them, they now seem to be very clunky and crash quite often. Being a developer, I thought “why don’t I write an app that wraps web apps for you so you basically get “native web apps” that have icons and are launchable?”.
After a quick Google search, I realized this already exists!. The app is called Fluid and it does an incredible job of what I described above and more.
Here are the feature highlights.
- Create a “native” Mac app for any web app
- Custom icon for each “native” app you create
- Full screen mode
- User scripps. These are my favorite. They allow you to update the badge count based on information in the browser. See below for a sample user script.
Sample User Script For Twitter
<code class=’javascript’>(function () {
if (window.fluid) {
setInterval(function updateBadge() {
var counts = /\d+/.exec(document.title);
if (counts && counts[0] > 0) {
window.fluid.dockBadge = counts[0] > 99 ? ‘99+’ : counts[0];
} else {
window.fluid.dockBadge = ”;
}
}, 2000);
}
})();</code>Fluid is free with some minimal features, but I urge you to drop the $4.99 to gain full screen mode and user scripts. It’s well worth it. I am not affiliated with them in any way, just a happy customer.
