Google adds Chrome OS app launcher to Windows taskbar - alstonorwits

Google is invading the orthodox desktop with a new feature for Chrome that lets you set up Vane apps and Chrome standalone apps flat from the Windows taskbar without starting your browser. The new app launcher is ported from Google's browser-in-a-boxful operating system, Chrome OS, and puts all your Chrome apps under cardinal icon on your taskbar. The feature makes it even easier for Windows users to fire skyward Chrome apps instead of full-fledged desktop applications for everything from editing documents to chatting over IRC to reading e-books.

Chrome's app launcher is not quite ready for prime clip; the feature is but available on the developer adaptation of Chromium-plate for Windows. The official release should show up in the stable edition of Chrome in the coming months. Google also has plans to add the app launcher to Chrome for Mac and Linux in the coming weeks.

How the Chromium-plate App Launcher works

To bestir oneself, you need to download the Chrome for Windows developer translation from Google's dev channel. If you'Re already functioning Chrome, this will replace your current version with the developer release. Keep in mind, the developer version can sometimes disruption features or precede browser crashes, so you may non wish to work with it if you rely happening Chrome Clarence Shepard Day Jr. to day. The good news is you can easily switch back to the public release of Chrome past downloading and installing the current stable version.

Packaged apps

Once you've got the developer version up and running, you need to install a Chrome packaged app before you volition hear the Chromium-plate OS app catapult connected your taskbar. If you already use a packaged app, delete and then reinstall it to see the rocket launcher. Packaged apps, introduced to Chrome last June, are desktop-like apps that unrestricted in their possess windowpane and turn offline, but are founded on Chrome and built with Web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript and CSS.

You install packaged apps from the Web store like some other Chrome app, but currently there is no simple way to find operating theater search for prepacked apps. Google suggests users can ease the unconscious process by installing either the CIRC IRC client or a text editor called Textbook Drive to try out Chromium-plate's inexperient app launcher functionality.

For our purposes, let's say you decide to install Text Drive.

Once you click the "Supply to Chrome" release you should see a pop-up window like the one above request whether you want to enable the Chrome App Launcher. Click "Get the launcher" to install it, and a 9-quadrate grid should appear in your taskbar. Like whatever good Windows app, instalmen App Launcher will also add a launch icon to your desktop.

After the launcher is installed, you will be asked to continue installation Text Drive for Chrome atomic number 3 you normally would by clicking "Add" and downloading the CRX file.

Formerly you've got the app catapult, all your Chrome apps will be getable from your taskbar and bequeath no yearner appear in the browser when you ingenuous an vacate lozenge. Dog the Chrome App Launcher and a pop-up book window will indicate all your Chrome apps. The app launcher nates display 16 apps straightaway, and you bequeath be able to scroll to a second Thomas Nelson Page similar to the way of life you would using an empty tab in Chromium-plate. Any World Wide Web apps you open show up as a new tab in your current Chromium-plate session while prepacked apps look in their have window.

Adding the Chrome App Launcher to traditional desktop PCs should be a face-saving add-on for expressed Chrome users who need easy entree to their Web apps. Chromium-plate's launcher also adds a little bit of that Chromium-plate OS feel to otherwise operating systems, which may be Google's factual goal. I lavatory't help wondering whether Google plans on other Chrome OS features to its Windows and Mac browsers in the hopes of convincing more desktop-bound users to give Google's cloud-based notebooks a try.