How do I put a web application on the Launcher?

Question

Sometimes I see pictures of screenshots with people with web applications and nice icons on their launcher, how can I set this up?

Answer 1

There's no real simple way to do this, but it's straightforward to do. The first step is to make a web shortcut of the web application you want to use.

Since these can be time consuming if you use a bunch of webapps I created a "Web Applications" folder that I keep these in because I need a place to hold the icon as well. I sync this folder with Ubuntu One so that on reinstalls or new computers I have my applications all ready to go with the high resolution icons.

In chromium-browser or Google Chrome you can do this by going to the website you want to make into an application. Clicking on the Wrench icon and select, tools -> Create Application Shortcuts:

Then select Desktop to create a shortcut on your desktop:

You can also select "Applications Menu" in the create application shortcut, this will put it in the Dash for you, which is handy so you can use the search feature to launch the shortcut, however most web site's favicons don't scale very well so they look ugly. So instead I do this to pretty up the application:

Then move it to this "Web Applications" folder or wherever you want to keep it:

Download a snazzy version of the icon that is good looking. I recommend the Fluid group on Flickr. Download the icon to the folder, and then right click on the shortcut and select properties:

Drag and drop the nicer icon onto the shortcut's icon box, replacing the low resolution icon with the new one:

Drag and drop the new slick icon right onto the Launcher for the final effect:

And the final effect:

Caveats and Issues:

• There's a bug where Unity in Ubuntu 11.04 gets confused by web applications so it thinks it's just another browser window (This is fixed in 11.10). So this can get confusing when alt-tabbing or doing expo window management, but generally speaking it works. Here is the workaround:

  • How can I make Chromium app windows count as "their own application" in the Unity launcher?

Answer 2

I also added the switch --start-maximized so the window will open in maximized mode.

Answer 3

If you use the latest build of Chromium (>11.0.696.57) this now works with Unity. Create the app shorcut from within Chromium then drag it on to the Unity bar. This works on 11.04

Answer 4

If this does't work, do the following.

1. Make a new profile directory:

mkdir ~/.config/NAME_OF_APP

1. Right-click on the shortcut to your app on your desktop

2. Add

--user-data-dir=--user-data-dir=~/.config/NAME_OF_APP

to the command and close

Answer 5

I think it is good practice to make a different chromium profile for every app. Your apps will run faster because the extensions installed in the default profile are not run. Also, you can install extensions specific for your app that won't run in your default chromium instances.

If you want to run your apps with a different profile, do this:

1. Make a new profile directory:

   mkdir ~/.config/NAME_OF_APP
   

2. Right-click on the shortcut to your app on your desktop

3. Add

   --user-data-dir=--user-data-dir=~/.config/NAME_OF_APP
   

   to the command and close