Stafftool, being a web-based application, of course runs in your web browser with nothing special to install or keep updated on your computer or servers. In fact, that’s one of the best parts of using web apps.
However, there’s a certain appeal to having a specialized program on your computer for some things…it makes it feel a bit more “real” to see a program icon in your dock, waiting for you to click on it to get some serious business done. Also, it would be nice to have something productive like Stafftool or your Gmail account open in something that won’t be affected by something like a Rickroll gone bad or someone’s bloated MySpace profile page that takes your entire browser down. It would be great to be able to separate the things you need open from the things that are nice to have open…but how?
The answer? Site specific browsers. In this post I’ll show you how easy it is to create a Stafftool “application” on your Mac.
First off, this specific tutorial will only be applicable to Mac users who are running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) since we will be using an app called Fluid that is built specifically for Leopard. If you’re running Mac OS X Tiger or Windows, you can give Mozilla’s Prism a try.
First, download and install Fluid. Then, download the high-resolution Stafftool dock icon so it’ll look good in your dock. Then, open up Prism and you’ll be greeted with a small form to set up your app. Fill it out so it looks like this, with your Stafftool account’s subdomain in place of demo.
Then, click the create button and let it do its thing. When it’s finished, you’ll see this dialog:
Click “Launch Now” and your app will open and you’ll see the Stafftool logo in your dock.
From then on, it’ll act just like it does in your browser except it’s its own app, so if your Safari crashes your Stafftool app will stay open. There are also a few cool things that this specialized app enables that a normal browser doesn’t.
Just like Mail.app has a badge on its dock icon that lets you know how many unread emails are in your inbox, this app will also have a badge letting you know how many unread messages are in your Stafftool inbox.
You can also right click on the Stafftool dock icon and you’ll see a few special menu items — New Message, New Event, New Person, and Search. You can click any of those menu items anywhere within the app and the respective menus will appear. For instance, if you’re in the Messages section and you click the New Person dock menu item, the new person entry form will appear. Other than those few things, though, it’s the same Stafftool you know and love. All your keyboard shortcuts will still work, everything will still look nice and smooth, but you’ll just be able to get to it at any time with a quick click on the dock. Enjoy!
Awesome! It works great and will make using the messaging system a whole lot more feasible as the dock show you when you get a message.
BONUS: because it is a site specific browser you have a clean slate of bookmarks known only to stafftool. SO.. you can keep all of your ministry bookmarks “enclosed” in stafftool and much easier to find later on. Ditto with the bookmarks bar and other customizations because they are all specific to the stafftool “application”.
Awesome, glad you’re enjoying the Fluid version! I think I might look into having it check for messages every few minutes in the background if you’re using fluid, so that way the badge could be updated and it can even give you a Growl alert if you receive a new message.
Good point about the bookmarks! That really helps keep your church stuff in one place and focused.