Stark Raving Finkle
  1. Home
    2.  » 
  2. Posts
    3.  » 

WebRunner 0.7 - New and Improved

After much fooling around, WebRunner 0.7 is ready to release. This release has some small changes and some big changes.

Small Changes

  • The WebRunner command menu has been removed from the context menu and is now on a statusbar button menu. The commands had nothing to do with the web application content, so the context menu was a bad spot for the commands. See WebRunner:HostWindow
  • The statusbar is no longer allowed to be hidden. The status messages and progress meter, used during a page load, can still be hidden using the status config parameter. The statusbar is where the SSL lock information is displayed and we feel its important enough to always be displayed. See WebRunner:HostWindow

Big Changes

  • The simple INI webapp file used to configure the web application has been changed to a zipped archive. The configuration file is now inside the archive. Also, inside the archive are the window and desktop icons associated with the web application. In addition, an optional script file can be placed in the archive and used to tweak the WebRunner chrome window for the given web application. See WebRunner:Bundle, WebRunner:Config and WebRunner:Scripting
  • The WebRunner host window now has an optional Sidebar component which can be enabled using the configuration file and initialized via the webapp script. See WebRunner:Config and WebRunner:Scripting
  • WebRunner now installs web applications into its profile/webapps folder. Any web application launched via a webapp bundle (the zip archive) and has an ID (new configuration parameter) will be unpacked into the profile/webapps folder. Afterward, you no longer need the webapp bundle and you can launch the web application using the installed copy. See WebRunner:Bundle and WebRunner:Config.
  • WebRunner can create a shortcut to an installed web application on your desktop. The shortcut uses the web application icon. On Windows, a normal shortcut .lnk file is created . On Linux, a .desktop file is made using the web application icon. On OS X, an application bundle stub will be created (not implemented on OS X yet, sorry). We will get this working on OS X ASAP.

Installs for Windows, Linux and Mac can be found here. You can also find some example webapp bundles there too. The GMail bundle has an example webapp script that watches for new mail and displays a popup notification if any new mail arrives. I also added new webapp bundles for Facebook and Twitter.