TheQuantumByte

I just stumbled across this very cool little utility for OS X, called Fluid (view their product page, and download here). What this app is, is a “Site Specific Browser”, or SSB. The utility from the download link allows you to enter a URL which you want to be made into a standalone application that can be accessed from such a SSB. The concept behind this is very similar to the ability to save WebApp shortcuts/bookmarks on the iPhone SpringBoard, for convenient standalone use later on. This is an apt timing for an Apple Netbook, with utilities such as this which are great for Cloud Applications.

Some of the features in Fluid include Tabbed Browsing, built-in Userscripting (aka Greasemonkey), URL pattern matching for browsing whitelists and blacklists, bookmarks, auto-software updates via the Sparkle Update framework, custom SSB icons, a JavaScript API for showing Dock badges, Growl notifications, and Dock menu items, and more. Evidently, this is a very long list of features, which definitely does not make it any more inferior than a ‘full-fledged’ browser like Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

Here is an example of a Fluid App that I use on a regular basis: Facebook. Click on for screenshots and pre-compiled app download links.

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Facebook

This instance of a Fluid App is a simple standalone Facebook browser (download here), completely independent of Safari (or whatever your main browser is). This can be useful in several ways, but for one, it feels kind of cooler to have a “Facebook.app” on your mac. If this looks interesting, follow the download link at the end of this section.

Here’s the default main interface of my facebook app:

One cool feature is if the status bar is not set to ‘hidden’, then there is a very nifty “Site Search” box where you can perform a search only within the site of your chosen WebApp. For example, I did a search for “Steve Jobs” in my Facebook app.

One of the other features that I like is that you can choose the appearance of the main window from four different types:

Here’s what the other three look like (default is above):

HUD (Black)

MobileMe (Olive)

Chromeless (None)

Well, that’s it for my Facebook app. If this looks interesting, go ahead and download this fluid app that I compiled:

Download Facebook.app – 3.2MB

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Other Fluid Apps

Here are a few other Fluid Apps that I frequently use. I’ve provided some download links that may help some of you!

Download Gmail.app – 736KB

Download Twitter.app – 3.2MB

Download CNN.app – 3.2MB

Download GoogleDocs.app – 3.3MB

Download MobileMe.app – 3.4MB

I hope this tutorial/review/resource has been helpful. Do let me know what you think, and if you would like me to help create more Fluid Apps, post in the comments. I will help!