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>

Source

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.

Download Fluid

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