Fluid by Travis on January 17th, 2008
This is just neat.
Fluid creates what are called ’site specific browsers’ or SSBs, native to OS X. Just like Prism (the project Mozilla is working on), you point Fluid to a URL and it creates a completely native OS X application of that site or web app. A good example could be Gmail, or maybe Campfire. In my case, the first thing I did was try Helperoo. Look!
Neat!! While I can’t imagine this suiting everybody, it certainly helps if you are in the middle of writing an email, or maybe a Google Spreadsheet–should Safari crash, you’re safe from losing any unsaved edits. Plus, like the Fluid website points out, sometimes we lose ourselves in our 20+ tabs. Since it’s a completely native OS X application, you get all the benefits of our most beloved operating system. Webkit, native keyboard controls, beautiful text rendering etc… etc… There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to providing icons!
I always liked the premise behind Prism but always thought it was going to be executed rather poorly on OS X given the Mozilla Groups history (cough Firefox.) Guess I don’t have to worry anymore.