WebApp Manager, create desktop shortcuts to web pages

about web app manager

In the next article we are going to take a look at WebApp Manager. This app is based on Peppermint's Ice SSB which is developed by Linux Mint. WebApp Manager is very similar to Ice SSB in both form and end result.

The operation of this application must be said that it is extremely simple. As indicated in their GitHub repository, this program will allow us to run web pages as if they were desktop applicationsIn other words, it will create shortcuts on our desktop to the web pages that interest us. These accesses will allow us to assign it a name and an icon. We can also categorize the applications that we create and choose with which browser they will be created and opened.

Using WebApp Manager is easy. We will only have to execute it, assign a name to the application that we want to create and we will also need to include the corresponding URL. We will also have to choose a menu category, select an icon for the application, and choose the default browser to start it. That's it.

create webapp manager

After creating a web application of any website of our choice, we can start it directly from the applications menu as we would with our native applications, and it will run in a browser with a user profile.

General features of WebApp Manager

application run

  • Es a free and open source application.
  • It has revamped icon and user interface layouts.
  • Option for show or hide the Firefox navigation bar.
  • Includes support for themes from icons for popular websites.
  • Improved favicon download (support for favicongrabber.com).

keyboard shortcuts

  • The program offers a few keyboard shortcuts.
  • If you use a lightweight web browser, without any extension to open a website, instead of a Web navigator like the usual ones, the application should be faster than the normal web.

Install WebApp Manager on Ubuntu

As DEB package

The DEB binary package is available for download through the download page Linux Mint. To download the latest version published today, we can open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and use wget to download the .deb package:

download deb package webapp manager

wget http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/w/webapp-manager/webapp-manager_1.1.5_all.deb

Once the download is finished, we can install the package using this other command in the same terminal:

install application deb package

sudo apt install ./webapp-manager*.deb

When installed correctly, we can start the application looking for your pitcher on our team.

launcher webapp manager

From the Linux Mint repository

If you opt for this installation, we will add Linux Mint repository and only receive updates for the application from that repository.

To begin with we are going to download the key (to this day it is' linuxmint-keyring_2016.05.26_all.deb'). You can open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and use wget to download the file:

download key webapp manager

wget http://packages.linuxmint.com/pool/main/l/linuxmint-keyring/linuxmint-keyring_2016.05.26_all.deb

The next step will be install downloaded file with the command:

install webapp manager key

sudo apt install ./linuxmint-keyring*.deb

We continue adding the Linux Mint 20 repository running this other command:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mint.list'

Before installing the program, let's set Ubuntu to only install webapp-manager from Linux Mint repository. We will achieve this by executing the following command to create and open the configuration file with our favorite text editor:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/preferences.d/mint-ulyssa-pin

We are going to paste the following lines inside.

set mint repository priority

# Permitir actualizar solo el webapp manager desde el repositorio de Ulyssa
Package: webapp-manager
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 500

## 
Package: *
Pin: origin packages.linuxmint.com
Pin-Priority: 1

We finish saving and exiting the file. Back in the terminal, we continue updating the available software cache:

sudo apt update

Now we can install the app with the command:

install app with apt

sudo apt install webapp-manager

Uninstall WebApp Manager

For remove the app, we will only need to open the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and execute in it:

uninstall webapp manager

sudo apt remove --auto-remove webapp-manager

For delete Linux Mint repository, we will remove the corresponding line from Software and updates → Other software.

remove repo webapp manager

In addition we can also delete the configuration file created to set the priority using command:

sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/mint-ulyssa-pin

More information about this program can be obtained from project GitHub page.


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