LetsMoveToTheMoon

God, Technology, and Things That Make Us Want to Move to the Moon

Some of My Favorite Fluid Apps

February 19, 2010

I have really grown to appreciate the usefulness of Fluid in the last few weeks. For those who don’t know, Fluid is an app for Mac that allows users to create standalone desktop applications (also known as SSBs, or site specific browsers) out of websites/web apps. (On the Windows side, Mozilla Prism [works on both PC and Mac] or Google Chrome’s application shortcuts feature will do the job.)

The big draw to Fluid for me is its ability to keep me more organized. Here’s my problem: I’m addicted to tabs. I use a Firefox extension called Tree Style Tab, which I’ve blogged about in the past (see my previous post on Tree Style Tab) and which moves Firefox’s tab bar to the left side of your screen and allows for the use of parent/child tabs. This is fantastic, because I’m able to leave open tons of stuff while feigning organization. Unfortunately, it leads to a new problem, that is, I don’t ever close tabs. At the time of writing this, I’ve got 23 tabs open, and that’s far below my average (a power surge caused my computer to restart last night, so I got a fresh browser experience today).

Anyway, Fluid allows me to take some of those sites that I use more frequently and turn them into standalone apps on my desktop, which is sweet. As of right now, my top three are Gmail, Google Reader, and Remember the Milk (although I also have one that opens directly to the International House of Prayer’s 24-hour web stream). Here are some helpful resources for those first three:

• Gmail—Gmail icon; Helvetimail (beautifies Gmail a bit)
• Google Reader—Google Reader icon (some other good icons here, too); Helvetireader (similar to Helvetimail)
• Remember the Milk—Remember the Milk icon

Hope you enjoy that quick list. I’d really love to hear if you all use Fluid to make standalone apps, and if so what your favorite apps are!