Website Specific Browser Windows
In continuation of the troubles I had in my last post, I finally found a stable way to create a web app window in Ubuntu, and the solution was available all this time, I just didn't know it. In Chrome there is built in functionality for application shortcuts as seen here that accomplishes everything that I wanted. With one caveat however, it does a poor job at choosing an icon leading to a pixelated mess. In order to fix the icon issue, I had to create a custom launcher of sorts which complicated the matter. For this particular issue I decided to make a video: I know the goals of the built in functionality heading for Ubuntu 12.10 and the goals of Fogger are to have even greater desktop integration than what this offers, but this already has two major benefits for me. One being the increased screen real estate that occurs because of the removal of the address bar and the tabs, the result is even better than Chrome without the system title bar option enabled. But even more important, workflow is substantially improved because instead of navigating through mounds of browser tabs I can use the navigation tools which are built into Ubuntu, such as being able to ALT+Tab, or being to use the Compiz expose, or any of the other window switchers. Certainly there is limited tab navigation capabilities built into Chrome but none is as superior to the OS navigation. The OS navigation is superior because from the OS switching tools I can always immediately switch to my desired destination without other steps. Consider these two examples. One is where there is no web application functionality, I might ALT+Tab to my browser window, then I would have to perform a second operation to get to the desired tab if I have not by luck landed on it. The second situation is where the web application functionality exists, in this scenario I can ALT+Tab immediately to where I am trying to go without the need to select a tab after activating the web browser. And to me, this is an enormous benefit.