To preface this post, I subscribe to other Mac blogs to see what they are writing about and to discover what other applications other avid Mac users are testing out. I love doing this because there is a lot of people who know a lot about the Mac and, what I like to call the “hidden gems” of Mac applications. It is a great way to be in the know what is the latest and greatest when it comes to the Mac. So last week, I was reading a blog post from Mac Stories (which by the way, is an amazing blog and I love reading his stuff!) titled “30 Web Apps You Should Turn into Mac Apps Using Fluid”. But as I saw the title it caught my eye. I have been reading a lot about Fluid, but I really didn’t know a whole lot about it. But as I read this blog post, I started to realize that Fluid was an app that was going to essentially declutter my web experience. I don’t know about you, but before I started to use Fluid, I would have about 6 or 7 different tabs going on my web browser (email, facebook, Pandora, calendar, work email, Twitter, ESPN, etc). Now with Fluid, life is so much easier, let me tell you how.
Fluid is an app that takes just about any website and turns it into its own standalone application that you can start up from your desktop on your computer. For example, take Facebook, I use it all the time, but if I want to use it I have to open my web browser and if something is already open, I need to create a new tab and then get to Facebook. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just have a Facebook application right on my desktop that I can just click onto and wham, Facebook opens up as it’s own application. This is what Fluid does for you! So now, instead of opening up several different pages or tabs to get everything I need, I just made Fluid apps for websites that I use frequently. Below is a snapshot of just some of the ones that I have made.
As you can see I made a Fluid app for Jott, which I just previously blogged about, Gmail, Pandora, Facebook, Brizzly (a Twitter and Facebook Client), and Google Calendar. Now, the nice thing about this is that I don’t have to always open up a web browser to open one of these web apps, I can just click on the icon and that site will load. Let me show you how this is done. You will see that it is very easy and in no time you will hopefully love it!
The first thing you need to do is download the free fluid app, you can get it here (http://fluidapp.com). After you download the app, click on it and you will get a screen that looks like this.
Pick a website that you would like to use as a Fluid app. In this example I will use Jott. So in the “URL” box, I type in www.jott.com. Then in the “Name” box, I can put something like “Jott” or “My To Do List”, then select a location for the application and an icon. Now as far as the icon is concerned, you can leave it as it is and Jott will have an icon you can use, but I have noticed that most times when you do this, the icon is very blurred and doesn’t look good. So I went online to Google and just searched for “Jott Icon” and there are a myriad of choices for icons out there. Pick the one you like, right click on it, then select “Save Image As” and then pick a location as to where to download it. Then go back to the Fluid app screen and now you can pick your icon by letting it know where it is. Here is a short demo video to explain all of this.
So there you have it! Fluid is an amazing app that, in my opinion goes a long way to declutter your web browsing experience. I love the fact that now when I need to go to my Google Calendar, I can just click on the Fluid app I made for it and not have to open a browser or another tab within a web browser. If you like Fluid, again go and check out the Mac Stories blog about the 30 apps that you should have as Fluid apps; they are great ideas and I have a lot of them. Feel free to comment below about any apps that you have created into Fluid apps; I am always looking for more ideas for Fluid apps.
Thanks again for reading, I really appreciate it! I love doing this and I hope my passion and simplicity shows through my writing. If you already haven’t done so, please add me on Twitter (theeasymac) and/or become a fan of me on Facebook (The Easy Mac)
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