Fluid Application: what is it and what’s useful for
Some time ago I found this precious utility: its name is Fluid, it is a Mac OSX application to transform web pages into Mac applications.
What does it means?
Suppose you are using your browser, with several tabs opened on your wiki, on another web application (e.g. WordPress), on Facebook, on GMail and so on …
Maybe you are using Spaces to split your windows according to their use:
- a desktop is devoted to personal affairs: mail, facebook, contacts …
- another is for professional “administering” taks: a different email account, google calendar …
- a third one is for professional techincal tasks: a wiki, some tabs opened to internet searches
- the last one for distractions (I know you have one!): feed rss, iTunes …
Spaces is quite well suited for keyborad usage: while using CMD-TAB to switch between two applications, desktop changes too if necessary; also, keyboard shortcuts can make you switch between browser tabs, … but not everything works as it should:
- how can I change between two windows of the same application if they reside in different desktops? you can’t
- how can I change betwenn two browser tabs if the current has selected text or a form to be filled? shortcuts do not work
This problems could be overcomed if it would be possible to collect related browser tabs into different applications so that switching between them be would be easier. Even better, these applications should behave as a web browser, at least in those features which are handy in this scenario: forward/backward navigation, open in a new tab …. just like having a new browser instance not just a new browser window.
Now, this is exactly whant is accomplished by Fluid: it creates an application, separated from your browser and devoted to a single web site.
Usage
Fluid usage is extremely simple, in few clicks your new web site application will be ready:
- This is Fluid user interface:
- Fill all form fields: web site URL and descriptions (it will become the application name):
- choose an icon (or let Fluid use the site favicon)
- press Create
- here is your application
The first time I tried it I though I would work only for simplest web sites, while it would fail on most complex ones … I was wrong, currently I’m using it for the following:
- Google Mail
- Google Calendar
- Google tasks (yes, you can have Google Tasks on a dedicated canvas, see here)
- My internal wiki
and I think I will never stop using it 
.
