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From Chrome Apps to the Web

blog.chromium.org

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Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#101

Post by angry_octet »

holtalanm wrote: post #57

Why does this feel like they are just giving the finger to ChromeOS users? So basically, we have an OS that will only run chrome apps, and they are removing the ability to create chrome apps. I'd be more okay with this if they gave ChromeOS the ability to install and run an .apk. Does no one see a problem with this?

Yep, ChromeOS developers can feel pretty screwed over. Previously a packaged app could run in any of the hundreds of millions of Chrome (desktop) installations, as well as ChromeOS machines. For example, Windows corporate desktops and Chromebooks.

There is no clear way to port your app to run on whatever conglomeration of features might meet your needs.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#102

Post by thebaer »

bwang29 wrote: post #2

Discloser, developer of Polarr for Chrome here https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/polarr-photo-edito... To us as developers, the biggest advantage of Chrome Store is discoverability, reviews, and store front organizations. As a fairly new developer, we also have a web app, but it is late in the game and there is no way to out-SEO the existing players through Google Search. Chrome Web Store was the place where…

I was thinking the same thing -- the Chrome Store has been a huge boon for my product (https://write.as). But a lot of people are on Chrome OS, and since they're keeping apps there at least, I don't think this is a terrible thing. And it makes sense from a product perspective: the store stays focused on the platform it was originally built for, and doesn't try to extend its reach to a storefront for the entire web.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#103

Post by ianetaylor »

remir wrote: post #45

I think Google is working toward the consolidation of all their platforms, like Microsoft did with UWP on Windows 10. You can run Android apps on some Chromebooks but it doesn't feel optimal. I wouldn't be surprised if both Android and ChromeOS were replaced by "Fuchsia" eventually. You could have a single platform for mobile phones (including VR/AR), desktop, IoT (replacing Brillo), server, etc...

Fwiw, UWP supports writing apps for the Windows Store using JS & HTML I'm going to try porting one of my Chrome Apps over to see how easy/hard it is.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#104

Post by wodenokoto »

niftich wrote: post #80
glenstein wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't the Chrome App Store also the place where you get extensions? Presumably there will still be some centralized place to get extensions.

Yes, but extensions are unaffected. This is about 'apps' from that same store.

I thought "apps" was Chrome-speak for extensions.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#105

Post by a85 »

Postman founder here. We saw this coming a while back. Chrome apps have had several issues related to window switching and menu control. We have been waiting for a fix for these for ages but they never came. We decided to build a cross platform app based on Electron last year and now have apps on OS X and Windows [1] with Linux coming soon.

This is not the first time Google has deprecated things or made a drastic change in the Chrome platform. Postman had to shift from the legacy style apps to the packaged style apps in 2014 while it still had hundreds of thousands of users on the legacy platform. Google's solution for the transition is pretty bad. You upload a new zip file and everyone sees the new app running outside the browser and without the ability to do certain things. This transition system was not available when the Chrome app platform launched and we had to create a new listing. Other apps that transitioned their users to the new platform on the existing listing got hammered in ratings as people were pretty obviously pissed.

1. Postman apps: www.getpostman.com/apps

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#106

Post by deno »

comex wrote: post #72
tdicola wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible but it's not an easy switch. And god help you if you have to mix native code with Electron. Getting a node-gyp toolchain spun up on Windows is a complete and total nightmare. Add Electron and its very specific version of Node into the mix (which totally confused node-gyp) and it's really awful.

There's also the alternative of switching to a Chrome extension, no?

Different sets of APIs[1]. For example Socket, USB are only App APIs. Though I guess they could roll app APIs into extensions… hopefully. Socket API especially.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#107

Post by ksdev »

a85 wrote: post #105

Postman founder here. We saw this coming a while back. Chrome apps have had several issues related to window switching and menu control. We have been waiting for a fix for these for ages but they never came. We decided to build a cross platform app based on Electron last year and now have apps on OS X and Windows [1] with Linux coming soon. This is not the first time Google has deprecated things or made a drastic cha…

Good to hear about electron based apps! Waiting for the Linux version.

Re: From Chrome Apps to the Web

#110

Post by lenkite »

1% of Chrome users using Chrome packaged apps is an extraordinary large number! This is an absolutely stupid decision. Chrome apps gave a clean convenient way of packaging offline apps without bundling a huge runtime like the electron framework.
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