Show HN: WebCatalog – turn websites into desktop apps
webcatalog.app
webcatalog.app
google-chrome --app=https://example.com
firefox --ssb=https://example.com
Can you point to a viable alternative? Multiplatform by default, with the option to build rich reactive UI? Plus text editing with a sane document model (via ProseMirror etc)? Fast math rendering (via katex)?
If so I will happily jump ship! Even Microsoft's attempt at a react native for desktop excludes Linux so it's a non-starter. The Rust community seems to be interested in solving this problem, and I eagerly await their solution.
Certainly, if the built-in "install-as-app" of major browsers work well for you, then it's great.
WebCatalog tries to make the concept simpler and more accessible to average users. Most people are familiar with the concepts of apps and app stores so our vision is to build an app store for web apps that gives users easy access to desktop apps (many not available elsewhere). A user doesn't need to know what is difference between a website or an app, they just need to open WebCatalog and install the apps they want like they usually do on their phone. For a power user, this might sound unnecessary, but this is proven wrong as there are plenty of apps like "X for Gmail" or "Y for Netflix" on Mac App Store and Microsoft Store. It is also the reason why companies like Notion and Slack build web-wrapper desktop apps.
One more point, we're not only letting users install chromeless window apps. If you give it a try, for example, with the Gmail app on WebCatalog [1], you can switch between multiple accounts using workspaces, set the app as the default email client, attach it to the menu bar or taskbar, etc. They're real apps with executables, not just bash scripts. And we're trying to integrate the web apps with your system and make it feel native-like as much as possible. And we're going to add many more features soon. In other words, we're trying to bring the experience that web-wrapper apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Notions offer to every web app.
I've been bootstrapping WebCatalog since 2017. I and many people around the world use it every day. It's a well-tested idea. It's only now that we decide to launch the product widely.
For each app, if you need to, you can divide the app into workspaces (similar to how Slack workspaces) which you can switch between using Cmd+1, Cmd+2, etc.
Sometimes convenience can be enough.
Im doing something that is based on browsers for instance, but the end product diverge quite a bit from traditional browsers and if they try to play the catchup game, i have at least a 2-year window of opportunity.
Remember PhantomJS? And Phantom was actually providing something browsers were not doing at the time.
It has no real distinct features from what browsers already do right now, and whatever way they make it easy to use, if the product by some change get traction, it will be easy for them to just ship with that feature built it.
It may provide some value on convenience, but its easily copiable by a competitor that is deployed everywhere, which is a big threat to their bussiness model.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16660140 is some discussion around it later.
Easy Accessibility is key.
This on the other side has very very slim novelity and convenience. And tools like this exists since at least a decade and never really took off. Maybe for a reason?
As a dev, service workers are a PITA and getting them to work with with our products is a bit of a hit and miss. Installable / pinnable web apps are only available if the original web dev has made them available. Web catalog and electron wrappers are for people who want to wrap apps and sites that are not nor ally available.
google-chrome --app=https://example.com
firefox --ssb https://example.com (sadly requires enabling the ssb feature)
Sure, you can have a tool to create "desktop shortcuts" for the casual user, but this is not worthy of a commercial product.
> WebCatalog also supports Brave, Google Chrome, Chromium, Cốc Cốc, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Yandex Browser or Vivaldi
https://help.webcatalog.app/article/14-is-it-possible-to-cre...
Effectively its a paid for browser which, considering Mozilla owes of recent, maybe it's not a bad idea.
I have said for a while that if someone built a tool that would let me be signed into multiple AWS accounts, and switch as needed at the same time, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
You have my 20 dollars now.
One request, though. I would like a way to show the name of the workspace on the workspace switcher panel, instead of just ctrl+1/2/as etc
Really, I see little value over these browsers with vertically stacked tabs. There's already free solutions out there, what's the added value? Workspaces are easy to replicate using Firefox's containerised tabs and the vertical tab structure can be replicated with something like Tree Style Tabs. The remaining minor improvements are nice to have but certainly not worth $20 in my opinion.
2. Click on menu option at the top right of your browser.
3. Add to home screen (select open as window)
https://www.maketecheasier.com/enable-site-specific-browser-...
You can sort-of replicate the behaviour by creating a shortcut to "chrome --app=https://www.example.com" for websites that don't offer it.
You also do the 'add to home screen' instead of using this app.