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Show HN: FTWA – Turn any website into an app

ftwa.mathix.dev

11–20 of 53 posts

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

#11
post #8

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

I had written a similar program (but very barebone compared with what you've made), with Firefox only. The way I dealt with profile, is to specify the full path of the profile, rather than a name. This way, I don't have to know where Firefox is searching for profiles, and I can keep all the additional profiles in a separate directory, so they don't mix with normal profiles and don't clog up profile manager.

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

#12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I had written a similar program (but very barebone compared with what you've made), with Firefox only. The way I dealt with profile, is to specify the full path of the profile, rather than a name. This way, I don't have to know where Firefox is searching for profiles, and I can keep all the additional profiles in a separate directory, so they don't mix with normal profiles and don't clog up profile manager.

Yes I saw this option as well, but it seems that it's not possible for macOS

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

#13

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…

There's an excellent extension that makes this pretty simple to manage. Additionally the windows it creates have some pwa specific settings, like how links should be handled.

https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox/

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

#15
Possibly Offtopic ...

I wanted Udemy app to be available for smart TV platforms like FireTV stick or SamsungTV.

Udemy makes an android and ios app but not for TVs.

Teachable is another online learning platform that ignores Android altogether and makes only an ios app.

LMS vendors like Docebo that have become very popular (AWS Skill Builder, Databricks academy, etc) have very poor mobile support.

Wonder if there is a way to make it work using tools like these. Any pointers in that direction would be appreciated.

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

#17

How's this different from chrome browser's PWA install? https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/9658361?sjid=105106... I believe the PWAs will correctly show up in the OS native app launchers.

It's different in the fact that PWAs needs to be setup by the website's developer.
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