Turning Any Web App Into Desktop App with Fluid [Mac]

You don’t need to be an expert in the technology industry to be able to see where the trend is heading: the cloud. More and more web-based applications are available, substituting their desktop-based counterpart.

While this is a good idea, the trend brings up some inconveniences. One of them is the unavoidable clutter of the browser tabs. It seems that the concept of opening only one tab at a time is alien to modern day people. If you are similar to most people, you’ll have many open many tabs simultaneously.

Terror of the tabs

All of these open tabs, which consist of the regulars (the ones that we always open) and the passersby (the occasional browse), will eventually choke your browser and drain your system resources.

But the worst part is the time when you have to re-open your browser – along with all the tabs. Even if you are lucky enough to have the last opened tabs remembered by the browser, the process will still take time and bandwidth.

What if you’ve quit your browser, but you need to check your inbox in GMail? Do you need to open all the tabs for the sake of only one?

It would be nice if the important links – the one that we often visit – could be opened independently in a site specific browser. Beside reducing the clutters, this method will also lighten up the burden for your system.

To be able to do that on Mac, you need the help from Fluid.

The turn and the tune

Fluid is an application that will help you build Site Specific Browsers (SSBs). Translation: you can create a dedicated browser for each of your favorite web address. Every browser instances is an independent application by itself.

Jackson discussed Fluid back in 2008, please refer to the article for more information and the background story. But there have been many improvements since then. So, let’s have another look, shall we?

To create a new SSB, tell Fluid the site address. Don’t forget to give name to it. By default, Fluid will put the end result in the Applications folder and use the web’s favicon as the app’s icon (even though the icon fetching action is not always successful). Click create to start the building process.

Several seconds later, your dinner is served.

Launching the new app will open the main page (or the address that you provide).

The interface is deliberately set to be clean and simple. But should you need the standard browser interface, you could do so via “View” menu.

You can adjust many behaviors of created SSB from the Preferences menu. There are many categories there, but we’ll just look into some of the most important.

First, the General Preferences. This is the place to assign shortcut keys and change the application icon.

You can also adjust the general look to your liking from the Appearance Preference.

The Userstyles Preferences pane is the “dreams come true” tab for most of creative people out there. You can assign CSS codes to alter the appearance of SSB’s sites and pages. After clicking the “Plus” (+) button, write down the specific address in the “URL Pattern” box and check the box. While selecting one of the URL Pattern, you add lines of the CSS codes inside the box below.

There is a short video explaining this feature in the developer’s blog.

And for those who aren’t into CSS, there are a lot of ready-made userstyles for Fluid. Each of them was usually written for a specific site/web service. All you need to do is search for them. Userstyles.org is a good place to start.

To get ideas on how far you can go with the customization, you could visit this site.

As the name suggests, SSB will only allow you to go around a specific site. But the strict rule could easily be bent by going to the Advanced Preferences. You could add more URL patterns – the open areas that could be visited – or you could just bypass the rule by choosing “Allow browsing to any URL” radio button.

(Almost) unlimited possibilities

Fluid and its ability to be customized really open up the door for possibilites. You could go from just creating simple SSBs of your favorite sites to building your own desktop clients made up of web services. Few of the popular web services among Fluid users are: Digg, Twitter, GMail, Remember the Milk, Google Docs and Facebook. While my personal favorite usage is to build specific blogging clients of the sites where I contribute.

The availability of bookmarks bar also allows you to add bookmarklets to enhance the ablility of the SSBs.

As a standalone applications, you could also add your SSBs to the startup list (System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items) so they will always be available every time you restart your system.

Have you ever tried Fluid? Do you have other ideas of using Fluid? Do you know cool customizations for Fluid’s SSBs? Share using the comment below.