Use Mozilla Prism to add web apps to your desktop

6. Configure your new web application in Prism
As mentioned, you need to fill out the details of the web application that you are installing into the Prism window. Enter the URL of the web app, such as ‘http://www.wordpress.com’. In the next text box, assign a name for the web application launcher. Call it something like ‘Wordpress.com’. There are a few more options for you to check if you want, such as ‘Show navigation bar’. The option that you do need to check is the one that creates a shortcut for your application on the desktop. By default Prism only allows applications to create shortcuts to the desktop.

7. Pick an Icon
When you key in the web application’s URL, Mozilla Prism checks whether the web app has a favicon that it can use as an icon for the shortcut. If so, it automatically pulls the favicon for you and displays it in the Settings menu. If it fails to get a favicon, Prism instead uses its own icon. Prism also allows you to pick an icon for your web application’s shortcut. While setting up a new web application in Prism, click on the Settings option. Then click on the ‘Choose image’ option in the drop-down menu and select and add the icon you want to use. Hit OK when done with all the settings.

8. Launch the application
So your application is all set up. You should now see an icon on the desktop for the new application. Double-click on it to launch it. If it launches correctly then that’s great. However, you might encounter the error displayed in the screenshot. In that case you will need to do the following: right-click on the new application icon on the desktop and choose the Properties option. Click on the Permissions tab, then check the ‘Allow executing file as program’ option. Voila, you should now be able to double-click to launch your new application.

9. Add new application to menu
Now that you have been able to set up a new web application launcher on your desktop, let’s see how to move the icon for the application from the desktop to the Applications menu, like it is with the Facebook and other pre-packaged applications. First, launch the Menu Editor by going to System>Preferences>Main Menu. Once this is launched, drag and drop the desktop shortcut into the menu at the location where you want it to be placed.

10. Installing Google Apps
Installing most prepackaged applications such as Facebook is quite straightforward. Google Apps, although available as a pre-packaged app, can be a bit tricky. The reason for this is that you need to have Adobe Flash installed to operate certain web applications such as Google Apps. You can use the command ‘# sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree’ to install it. Once you have Adobe Flash installed, you can then install and run the Google Apps web application.

11. The Prism Firefox plug-in
We looked at how to install a standalone version of Mozilla Prism. There is also a Firefox plug-in to help us. Prism can easily be added to the Firefox browser just like any other extension. Head here and download the latest release of the Prism plug-in. After installation, a browser restart enables the application. To access the application, launch Firefox and go to the website that you want to convert into an independent application. Now click through to the ‘Tools>Convert Website to Application’ option in the Firefox menu. You will see an options window pop up just like with the standalone edition of Mozilla Prism. Enter the URL, assign the application shortcut a name and check the desktop shortcut option. Your application should now be operational.

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