Using Fluid to Help Make Web Apps More Useful

How many of you have found a great app on the web that you wish was an actual app on your Mac?  For example, I love using Pandora to listen to music and there are times that I just wish it was an actual app on my Mac instead of having to open up a browser to use the app.

Well, that is the whole point of a Fluid app. Fluid is a piece of software that you can download to help you make a web app an actual app on your computer. Let me show you how this exactly works.

First you are going to want to download Fluid from the web. When you are done installing Fluid, pick any web app that you want to use to make into a Fluid app.  For the sake of this post, I will stick with Pandora. The first thing I am going to want to do is to pick out an icon for my app.  You can do this by going online and searching for an icon. In the case of Pandora, I would search for “Pandora icon”. Once I find an icon that I liked I would save it to my desktop. Once I get an icon picked out that I like, I can now begin to make the Fluid app.

Now, open up Fluid and fill out the information that it asks you for, for your app that you want to make.  You will be asked for the URL of the web app. In the case of Pandora, I would type in www.pandora.com. Then I would type in the name of the app.  Lastly, I want to make sure to put in my icon that I downloaded. When it asks for the favicon, click on “other” and then search for your icon on your computer.

Once you are done with this, hit Create and you should now see your Fluid app.  Open it and test it out to see if it works.

If you are looking to do something a little more with Fluid, here is another option for you. I know for me, I like to have my Pandora in the menubar so I can run it from there instead of having it in my dock.  You can put an Fluid app you make in your menubar.  Here is what you need to do. First, you are going to want to click on the web apps name in the menubar and you will see an option for “Convert to Menubar SSB”. When you click on this your Fluid app will be converted from a desktop app to a menubar app.  Your icon will now be in the menubar and you can control the app from there.  For me, this is a personal preference more than anything else. Some prefer it in the dock as well, which is totally fine.

So how else can Fluid be useful? Well, there are a lot of web apps that are out there that are great as Fluid apps.  For example, the array of Google apps are good Fluid apps.  With making Gmail and Google Cal as a Fluid app, I now don’t have to go into the browser to access them, I can just launch them from the dock like I would any other application.

I hope this gives you the opportunity to get creative and making some cool Fluid apps.