Filed under: Internet Tools, Leopard, Beta Beat
Fluid makes site specific browsers easy
We've covered the concept of site specific browsers before. Basically these are stand-alone browsers designed to work with just one website, e.g. Gmail. Fluid takes this idea to the next level by automating the process of creating Webkit based site specific browsers. When you launch Fluid it asks for the URL and name of the site, and then it creates a Cocoa application just for that particular site. The reason that this is handy is that it separates your general browsing (and related crashes) from your Gmail, facebook, etc. Fluid is in beta and can be downloaded from Todd Ditchendorf and requires Leopard.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
benc said 12:26PM on 12-12-2007
You should note that it requires Leopard. On Tiger it just doesn't run, and doesn't tell you why. I overlooked the part on the application's webpage that mentions that it's Leopard only, so it wasn't immediately clear to me what was going on.
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Brian said 12:29PM on 12-12-2007
I don't get it. What's the purpose of creating an application which specifically opens one website.
I just don't get it ... Doesn't make sense to me ...
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zerock said 12:35PM on 12-12-2007
it makes sense to me. i will definitely try this.
dr said 12:40AM on 12-13-2007
The appeal is in the future potential for ideas like this. Combine Google Gears with Prism, and suddenly you have a web app that behaves almost completely like a desktop app - integration with the OS window manager, and offline access to your data. Let your imagination run wild.
briancs said 1:29AM on 12-13-2007
After reading some of the posts, I can see a lot of use for it in business. Creating a separate application specifically for the company intranet, or have an application which is specifically for a kiosk or something similar, where you need a web interface but want to confine your users.
For the personal user though, I'd just rather open up multiple browser windows personally :P
Jon said 12:35PM on 12-12-2007
I agree with Brian. If it offered extra site-specific features, it might be worthwhile, but I fail to see why anyone would do this. I have about 10-15 sites I visit a day. It seems very complicated to have 10-15 applications that each open a different site.
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artifex said 12:44PM on 12-12-2007
Does it also include the ability to add proxy info?
I could see businesses having a use for this if it does.
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jay said 12:58PM on 12-12-2007
Mozilla has release a similar application called Prism it works pretty well and it works on Tiger.
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Fannar said 7:02AM on 12-17-2007
This one is so much better than Prism. Tried Prism few weeks ago and stopped using it about 10 minutes later. Just installed Fluid and bingo, its great ! Highly recommend it for them "who get the point" of it.
chicken head said 1:16PM on 12-12-2007
why not use more than one browser window instead of a seperate app for each site you turd nuggets?
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Dale said 1:21PM on 12-12-2007
This sounds a lot like Adobe AIR (née Apollo).
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pacheco said 1:21PM on 12-12-2007
I think it's a preference thing. I love using Google Reader, but I use Readomatic so that I can just have it's own dock icon, and just make it feel like more of an "app." It seems silly, but some people like it.
Fluid looks good, even though I don't have Leopard. I'm trying Prism, but I would love it if either one would let you put a custom stylesheet on the page.
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brian said 1:48PM on 12-12-2007
For those who just don't see why this exists, here are a few of the reasons:
- for those who are easily distracted, single-site browsers don't make it easy to visit other sites--i.e., no bookmarks, no links toolbar... not even a location bar!
- you can hide this app--say, your email--and not have all your other browser windows hidden.
- your app (email, whatever) has its own Dock icon and shows up when you switch with command-tab
- isolates crashes. an email crash won't kill all your other open windows; if the browser crashes while visiting any random site, you won't lose your "work" window
- Basically, this is for browser-based apps which, other than the fact that they run in a browser, could/should be standalone apps.
- here's the original article from the first (afaik) guy to make a dedicated browser for GMail: http://michael-mccracken.net/wp/?p=44
"Every time I check mail, I’m diving right into the world’s biggest time-sink. My email isn’t usually a waste of my time, but all the windows I’ve left floating around, my bookmarks bar, or a quick Google search are. These are the things that eat up afternoons, and webmail is a gateway to that distraction. Browsers have lots of features that I don’t need to use GMail: bookmarks, back & forward buttons, a search field, page history, a location bar, and on and on... I wrote a separate web browser just for GMail. All it does is load GMail in a nice big window and duck out of your way. No location bar. And no bookmarks. It says: ``Go ahead and follow that link your friend (or bug tracker) sent you, but to check BoingBoing, you’re going to have to go over to Safari. Maybe you’ll decide to go back to work instead.'' "
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Xanthor said 1:56PM on 12-12-2007
Why not open browser windows? Because ALL browsers crash.
And often. How often does your whole system crash? How annoying is it to open seven apps at once and reposition them so you can work again?
You can tell the age of the people answering these questions. Anyone who actually uses the web, instead of surfs CNN, can see the wealth of possibilities this provides into stable and efficient computing. So many online applications are wonderful and this makes them functionally practical.
Grr.
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Jon said 3:08PM on 12-12-2007
#16: I use Firefox and I generally have a lot of windows open at once. If it crashes, I restart it and resume the session. It reopens all of my windows and I'm back to where I was.
But thank you Brian for explaining the reasons why people would want it. I can imagine it would be useful for holding data URLs to use when you don't have internet access.
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brian said 3:45PM on 12-12-2007
"If it crashes, I restart it and resume the session."
Which in Gmail and many, many other apps means "Brings me back to the homepage" or login screen or something else equally useless.
Back in the old Netscape 3/Win95 days, I could actually start multiple instances of Netscape. Not just opening a new window--I'd be running a whole other copy of the program. (I didn't have a second copy of the executable--I'd just double-click the desktop shortcut again to launch another instance. Like having 5 copies of Notepad running.) One instance would crash and I'd lose those windows but not the others.
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Brady J. Frey said 4:29PM on 12-12-2007
I have a web application I made for the security division of http://bentlyenterprises.com worldwide. We use parental controls to block all other websites on the users computer, but this would be a great way to visually lock users into one link - easier to train, simpler to manage. For my usage it would make sense - not a 100% need for sure, but it would make sense to have a dock icon that launches a single app, which is really a web app, for all the security login computers.
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Mo said 5:00PM on 12-12-2007
Hmm, I want to use this (Basecamp), but I get a “Permission denied” error whenever I try to create a browser with it. Console.app tells me it's trying to create the app in /Applications. I only use administrative permissions when I absolutely have to (I just let Mac OS X elevate when necessary), so I don't have write access to system-wide directories by default.
Hopefully the save location will get fixed in an update :)
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todd said 5:11PM on 12-12-2007
Mat, thanks for the Fluid shoutout! Glad you (and anyone else) found it interesting.
To address those questioning Fluid's purpose.... Fluid will *not* be for everyone... if you are not a webapp junkie, then it's not for you. Also, if it initially doesn't sound like something you would want, it's also probably not for you. And that's totally cool.
But for those of us who do complete some important tasks on the web that are completely different in nature than just regular browsing (like webmail, document/spreadsheet creation, chattting [gtalk, campfire]), the concept of SSBs is actually really cool. So my goal is to make Fluid a good SSB implementation for those folks. It's got a way to go, but it's getting there.
thanks to all who checked it out.
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Thomas said 10:27PM on 12-12-2007
I really wish there was 10.4 support. I use Prism quite a bit and have been waiting for a Webkit spinoff.
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