My name is Louis Bataillard and I am a freelance web-developer based in Zurich, Switzerland. This blog covers everything related to my work as a web-developer.
You can find my company website at mobweb.ch (it's in German only) or contact me directly at info@mobweb.ch
26.04.2011
I’ve recently taken some time to look into all those new App Stores popping up left and right. The only that looked most interesting to me was the Chrome Web Store. It’s basically a collection of bookmarklets that you can directly install in your Chrome browser. Some are simply a link to an external site that is optimized for Chrome, for example the “New York Times’ reader application(New York Times’ reader application)”: that works just as well in other browsers that support HTML5. Others are a bit more advanced and make use of specific features of the newer versions of Chrome, for example TweetDecks port of their popular Twitter software called ChromeDeck.
Of course I was eager to check it out myself, and I was surprised how easy it is to get your Web App into the store. Because I am using PhoneGap for my smartphone apps, it took me like 10 minutes to convert my iPhone & iPad-App «Mail Templates» to work as a Chrome web app. All I had to do was copy my “www” folder from the PhoneGap project into a separate folder and remove references to some PhoneGap specific functions, for example the onDeviceReady listener or a plugin that I was using. After that, I quickly debugged the App directly in the Chrome browser and I was surprised again when I realized it only needed some minor CSS tweaks to function properly. :)
After that, I signed up for the Chrome Web Store by paying a one-time 5$ administrative fee and I was able to instantly post my web app to the store.
You can find my free app here: «Mail Templates» in the Chrome Web Store