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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Turn any Website into a Chrome App




Any time I find a promising web-based tool I immediately check to see if they offer a Chrome App. In most cases, there isn't anything special about the app, it just provides a simple way for me, and my students, to access that particular website.

I have recently been playing around with Adobe Spark (see this post for a review). It's a great tool, but they don't offer a Chrome App. I recently discovered that it's super easy to turn any website into a Chrome App. It only takes 3 clicks!

  1. Visit the site 
  2. Click the "snowman" in Chrome
  3. Scroll down to More Tools > Add to shelf. 

That's it! You now have a link to your site on the shelf at the bottom of the screen and in the Chrome App Launcher. You can remove the app from the shelf if you wish and it will still be available from the App launcher.




Note that each individual user must do this; apps created in this way can't be pushed out to student devices.



3 comments:

  1. You can make your own webstore apps pretty easily and then push out to students - so my post: http://wpsit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/guide-on-how-to-make-custom-link-apps.html
    This works for domains you own - so Google Sites etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, the most challenging part of this article was interpreting the "snowman" reference. :) While looking for this snowman I noticed that this blog's URL is prefaced with a circled "i". Clicking there eventually leads to a reference that the site is not secure and that it generates 11 cookies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chrome Apps are being discontinued on most platforms.

    ReplyDelete

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