WARNING: W-App IS IN ITS VERY EARLY STAGE AND STILL IN DEVELOPMENT, USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK!
W-App aims to turn a web application into a real desktop application. By default, each application can have a desktop entry and a system tray icon. For more application specific features, one can use W-App's extension interface to create your own applications with system notification, automatic log-in, and whatever you like. You will also be able to download applications created by others.
You can easily create a local web application from a URL. Besides, some sample applications are included in the package for your convenience:
- Google Calendar
- Google Mail
- Google Tasks
- 爱词霸 (An English-Chinese Dictionary)
- Web QQ (A popular IM in mainland China)
- Web Feixin (飞信, Another popular IM in China)
Among them, Web QQ has a customized interface (code mainly comes from another open source project python-webqq). Customization for other apps are still in development.
I'm planning to start something like a "Web App Store" so that people can share and download customized web applications.
For Archlinux users, try it NOW by installing w-app-git from AUR.
For other distributions, please install Python 2 packages including pywebkitgtk, python-keybinder, python-notify, python-pyqt and python-beautifulsoup3. Names of these packages may vary. Python 3 will be supported once the switch from PyGTK to PyQt is done.
For all GNOME 3 users, we highly recommend the extension https://github.com/rcmorano/gnome-shell-gnome2-notifications (AUR: gnome-shell-extension-gnome2-notifications-git) to show tray icons in the top panel. (Restarting GNOME Shell is required for the extension to be in effect)
To run the application, find W-App in system menu or run wapp in command line.
Short-period:
- Shortcuts to call out a application.
- Applications without tray.
- More comments for source codes.
Long-period:
- Prepare some APIs for creating desktop apps.
- Build an app store so that people can share and download wrappers from different web apps.
- Rewrite the GTK+ codes in Qt and QWebkit.
- A tutorial for creating a new app with customizations.
If you'd like to suggest features, please do that by submitting an issue. Thanks!
Unfortunately I started developing this app with my limited spare time before Fogger was released. Nevertheless, after seeing Fogger, I believe this small project is still meaningful because:
- It doesn't require Ubuntu or Unity.
- The design and idea are different in some areas. Extending an app with Python may not be too much harder than Javascript (as done in Fogger), but can make much more powerful features.
Currently lots of GTK+ and Webkit codes is copied with modification from another open source project python-webqq, which is available at: http://code.google.com/p/python-webqq/
The current logo is from http://www.fasticon.com/