Two days ago Google released their Chrome app store which is intended to provide a common source of apps for both the Chrome browser and the newChromeOS powered devices
And I wondered how easy or uneasy it would be to put up an app for the Chrome ecosystem, and the anwser is: Do you have a web service? you are done.
Yes? yes
Yesterday, a friend of mine said Chrome apps are nothing but bookmarks. but there is a bit more, there is a thin layer of candy consisting on: discovery, ratings, feedback, simplified payment gateway, plattform shared customer trust…
The process is quite straightforward if you go to http://code.google.com/intl/es-ES/chrome/apps/docs/developers_guide.html and follow the instructions there.
All you need is:
- An icon, best is 96×96 PNG with transparent border until 128×128 pixels.
- An screenshot proportional to 800×550.
- A manifest file like:
1 {
2 "name": "Oinak",
3 "description": "Subscribe to «Oinak on the Web»",
4 "version": "1.0.1",
5 "icons": { "128": "128.png" },
6 "app": {
7 "urls": [ "http://oinak.com/" ],
8 "launch": { "web_url": "http://oinak.com/" }
9 },
10 "permissions": []
11 }
Then you have to put the PNG icon and the manifest into a folder into a Zip that you upload, upload the screenshot, pay the one time 5 bucks developer fee, and validate (through the webmaster tools) that you own the url the app points to, via a metatag, an uploaded file, a DNS change and a couple other options.
And voilá in a minute you have: A shiny chrome app
If you want to see the whole thing, fork me at https://github.com/oinak/oinak_app
