- Mar 21, 2011
- 87
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One of the great things about Chrome OS is the ease of making a website look and feel like a standalone application. Although many sites also provide standalone apps that present content in a custom way, they often don't provide all of the features available when visiting the website directly. (Facebook is a perfect example)
Here's how I create web apps on my Pixelbook for sites that I regularly visit... (SimpleNote is the example, these steps work for any Chromebook)
STEP 1. Load the site in Chrome
STEP 2. Click on the "hamburger" -> More tools... -> Create Shortcut...
at this point, a new icon appears in Shelf...
STEP 3. Right-click on the shortcut -> click on the "twistie" -> select "New Window"
That's it! Click on the icon in the shelf and it'll launch in a separate window.
I wish that Google had a setting to default all shortcuts to "New Window" by default. The first thing that I do whenever I get a new chromebook (almost as soon as I get one, I end up giving it away to someone who needs a computer) is to go through all of the shortcuts, right-click, and set them to "New Window" ("Open as Window" in Chrome OS earlier than version 70)
I also install the Open-as-Popup Chrome extension so that I can switch any existing tab in the browser to be a standalone window without the browser controls.
I've set up shortcuts for the MS Office web apps. The look and feel is that very similar to the desktop versions. I ended up uninstalling the Android versions since they are so severely limited in functionality. I did the same for the web version of iWork... Here's Pages on the web. Whether I need to work with Office, iWork, or Google Docs files, I can easily do it on the Pixelbook with only the occasional need to do some work on my iMac.
Here's how I create web apps on my Pixelbook for sites that I regularly visit... (SimpleNote is the example, these steps work for any Chromebook)
STEP 1. Load the site in Chrome
STEP 2. Click on the "hamburger" -> More tools... -> Create Shortcut...
at this point, a new icon appears in Shelf...
STEP 3. Right-click on the shortcut -> click on the "twistie" -> select "New Window"
That's it! Click on the icon in the shelf and it'll launch in a separate window.
I wish that Google had a setting to default all shortcuts to "New Window" by default. The first thing that I do whenever I get a new chromebook (almost as soon as I get one, I end up giving it away to someone who needs a computer) is to go through all of the shortcuts, right-click, and set them to "New Window" ("Open as Window" in Chrome OS earlier than version 70)
I also install the Open-as-Popup Chrome extension so that I can switch any existing tab in the browser to be a standalone window without the browser controls.
I've set up shortcuts for the MS Office web apps. The look and feel is that very similar to the desktop versions. I ended up uninstalling the Android versions since they are so severely limited in functionality. I did the same for the web version of iWork... Here's Pages on the web. Whether I need to work with Office, iWork, or Google Docs files, I can easily do it on the Pixelbook with only the occasional need to do some work on my iMac.
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