Mozilla started creating an application last year called WebRunner that would allow you to run certain websites in a standalone version of Firefox. Eventually WebRunner was renamed to Prism, and thus was born a great tool. Prism 0.9 is the latest release, and it is really starting to evolve into a handy little application.
To make things a bit easier Mozilla has created a Firefox 3 extension so that you can instantly make a Prism application for any website. Once installed head on over to the Tools menu, and click the “Convert Website to Application” option. Doing so will bring up this dialog:
You can pick where you want shortcuts to show up, and even customize the icon that is shown for the application.
What I really like about the new version is that each web app is given its own profile. That means you can create two different web apps for the same site, such as Gmail, but use each to manage a different account without needing to logout first. Because of this Prism has just become a lot more useful to me!
Prism Homepage
Prism Firefox 3 Extension
Thanks to “Trip” and “Change” for the tips!
I also used a quick and easy registry hack to have Google’s ‘Gmail Notifier’ open up my gmail.webapp when I right-click and ‘View Inbox’, or when I double-click the icon in the notification area. Have also created a translate.webapp using Google Translate that sits in my ‘Quick Launch’ area for quick translations.
Wow, sounds like you are really trying to take advantage of this!
What i really like about this is that it is cross platform. Will let you know how it worked on Ubuntu.