Desktop applictions from web pages (updated)
Linux on desktop machines is getting better and better in the years. There are still lack of some functionalities and appeals to the end users. Gaming is one of the areas were Windows is still leader. Neither Linux or Mac can compare to Windows in that field.
Other than gaming Linux misses some desktop application which are available on Windows. A couple of example of this are::
- Plex desktop client
- Whatsapp desktop app. There an unofficial client called whatsdesk
- Netflix can be sued inside a browser only on Linux. There are some tweaks to watch it on Kodi
eToro doesn't have a desktop app at all, there's only an app for mobile phones (iOS and Android) and iPAD.
Linux Mint introduced a small utility called "Web Apps" since version 20.1 which allows to create small desktop apps which embeds the website page of the app you're interested in.
Opening the Web Apps manager yo get the list of all the apps currently created:
From this page you can edit an existing app:
From the edit from you can adjust the name of the app, the icon, the address and the category to properly classify the app and make it appears in the right palce in the desktop menu.
To add a new app click on the + button the Web Apps manger.
Adding a a new Web App allows you to choose some parameters over the parameters already saw in the edit form.
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Navigation Bar: You can choose to display inside the window the browser navigation bar
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Browser: It's possibile to choose the rendering engine between the browsers installed on the system (Firefox, Chrome, Viavldi, ...)
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Private/Incognito Window: It's possible to open the app using a private/incognito window or not.
Once the app has been defined it will appear in the desktop menu under the category you specified in the configuration. You can search it inside the desktop menu as any other application and as any other application you can dock it in a docking bar like [Plank](Plank in Launchpad).
At this point you can open any of the defined application on your desktop as any other standard application.
Similar methods are available in MacOS, below some links: