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Aubrey Portwood
Aubrey Portwood

Posted on • Updated on

How web-app creators (that I've tried) fall short still...

I've been trying to get back to using web-apps as separate apps outside of my browsers for a few weeks. Each of them falls short of me moving away from browsers + profiles, and I thought sharing those would help someone else:

WebCatalog

  • Link handling UX is difficult to use and is REGEX based
  • Userscripts UX also hard to use
  • Notifications do not always work
  • No tabs (deal breaker for e.g. Github)

Unite

  • Sometimes new tabs do not work
  • New tabs always show the toolbar permanently
  • Uneven toolbar UI
  • No custom User Agent configuration, Google stuff doesn't work

Fluid

  • Old, hasn't been updated in a long time!
  • JavaScript that opens new tabs to URL's not in your whitelist do not get thrown to the external default browser, but instead a new tab is opened

Right now I'm still using Google Chrome profiles for most of the things. For Asana (because I feel it needs to be a separate app, and I have a few custom userscripts), I'm using Webcatalog so it throws new link clicks (handled by JavaScript) to my default browser (Choosy).

Fluid is probably the best of the bunch right now, and I can use tabs (though the UI looks outdated and clunky) e.g. for Github which I feel tabbed browsing is a must.

WebCatalog has the most potential, if only they would find a way to allow tabs!

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Aubrey Portwood

Since writing this I've gone back to using Asana as a WebCatalog app (because I need a Userscript and want it as a seperate app), Safari as my normal driver for personal stuff, and Google Chrome (one profile) for work related (and development) stuff. This has been how I've been doing it for months now.

As soon as WebCatalog comes up with a way to do tabbed browsing (which is good for e.g. Google Drive and Github), I'll be a happy man as WebCatalog is excellent. Or, if they could figure out a way to remember new window sizes, I might even put up with that!