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Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

ftwa.mathix.dev

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Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#2

Post by harryvederci »

Cool stuff!

@mathix maybe you can make it clear on the website that this doesn't create app/play store apps, as most people probably think about them when they read "turn any website into an app".

From the github readme[0]:

> FTWA uses the --app='https://app.example' parameter with Chromium-based browsers to launch a website in "app mode".

> [...]

> When choosing linux as target OS, FTWA generate a shell script that will create a .desktop file and it's icons.

[0]: https://github.com/mathix420/free-the-web-apps?tab=readme-ov...

Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#3

Post by mathix »

harryvederci wrote: post #2

Cool stuff! @mathix maybe you can make it clear on the website that this doesn't create app/play store apps, as most people probably think about them when they read "turn any website into an app". From the github readme[0]: > FTWA uses the --app=' https://app.example ' parameter with Chromium-based browsers to launch a website in "app mode". > [...] > When choosing linux as target OS, FTWA generate a shell script tha…

Thanks! Yes I didn't realized I don't speak about this on the website, good advice!

Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#5

Post by sigh_again »

Pretty good! Just a few observations:

* The Firefox (BETA) entry does not work on default Ubuntu installs, where Firefox is a Snap. Yes, snap bad, bla bla bla, but it still remains one of the most likely way Firefox will be installed on Ubuntu. This comes from the fact that your script attempts to locate the profile folder in ~/.mozilla/firefox, whereas snaps stores them in ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/.

* New profiles unfortunately don't share logins on Firefox, which means your app is disconnected at first. Not a big deal, but could maybe be changed by copying some things from the default profile ?

* Firefox does not display _any_ titlebar when ran in this way.

Love the idea. There's many times where I'd like something to have a bit more "privilege" on my toolbar than what a regular tab (even pinned) gets.

Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#7

Post by mathix »

chakintosh wrote: post #6

So I did this, turned out it's not only just Firefox without the browser UI, but it also bricked my actual Firefox browser and now it doesn't connect to the internet.

Oh pretty strange, could you please raise on issue on GitHub so I can have any chance of debugging this?

Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#8

Post by mathix »

sigh_again wrote: post #5

Pretty good! Just a few observations: * The Firefox (BETA) entry does not work on default Ubuntu installs, where Firefox is a Snap. Yes, snap bad, bla bla bla, but it still remains one of the most likely way Firefox will be installed on Ubuntu. This comes from the fact that your script attempts to locate the profile folder in ~/.mozilla/firefox, whereas snaps stores them in ~/snap/firefox/common/.mozilla/firefox/. *…

Thanks!

- Yes I could create a second firefox preset for snap installs - I would prefer not to touch such sensible files, but will give instructions on how to do it manually

Re: Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

#9

Post by hackernudes »

I just switched to Firefox and struggled with this exact functionality. The posted site ships a script for curl|sh that creates a new firefox profile with a custom userChrome.css.

There is an official thread here with people discussing how the single-page-as-an-app functionality should work: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-can-firefox-c...

I ended up writing a firefox extension to open up URLs in a new "popup" window[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-app-maker.... I just checked it on Windows (usually using linux) and the popup window type does not allow the maximize button to work. Oh well...

[1]https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/Web...

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