Scott Hanselman

Site Specific Browsers aren't a really new idea. In 2005 there was an app called Bubbles I ran for a while that would let you run a website with minimal "browser chrome." Mozilla Prism (né WebRunner) is a Firefox add-in that does a similar thing. Google Chrome includes the idea of Application Shortcuts. The idea of all this is that some web apps are really applications and you think about them as applications. For me, I think of Gmail and Facebook and Twitter and Basecamp as applications not necessarily as browser tabs. The notion of Site-Specific Browsers is definitely arriving.

Internet Explorer 9 Beta (IE9) is out now and includes a featured called "Site Pinning" which is a effectively Site Specific Browsers. It's integrated nicely with Windows 7. It's easy for you as a developer or site owner to add these features to your site.

Here's the basic idea from a markup perspective from a Channel 9 example:

<meta name="application-name" content="Channel 9 Audio Player" />
<meta name="msapplication-tooltip" content="Channel 9 Podcasts" />
<meta name="msapplication-window" content="width=1024;height=768" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Msdn Flash Podcasts;action-uri=./?topic=msdnFlash;icon-uri=Images/channel9_logo.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=IE Podcasts;action-uri=./?topic=connectedShow;icon-uri=Images/channel9_logo.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Other Podcasts;action-uri=./?topic=other;icon-uri=Images/channel9_logo.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=All Podcasts;action-uri=./;icon-uri=Images/channel9_logo.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-navbutton-color" content="#FF3300" />
<meta name="msapplication-starturl" content="./" />

You add meta keywords (you don't need to add them all) to represent Jump List Tasks. Here's what Twitter added:

<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=New Tweet; action-uri=http://twitter.com/home; icon-uri=images/ie/tweet.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Direct Messages; action-uri=http://twitter.com/inbox; icon-uri=images/ie/dm.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Mentions ; action-uri=http://twitter.com/replies; icon-uri=images/ie/mentions.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Favorites; action-uri=http://twitter.com/favorites; icon-uri=images/ie/fav.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Search; action-uri=http://search.twitter.com; icon-uri=images/ie/search.ico" />

If I visit Twitter with IE9:

Then either drag the TAB or the FAVICON to the Taskbar:

Then I'll get a Twitter icon in my Windows 7 Taskbar that looks nice like any other app. If I right click on it, I'll get a jump list like any other application. Compare this screenshot to the meta tags above:

If I run Twitter, the Twitter app icon will show up to the left of the back button. The back and forward buttons also change color (it's subtle here because Twitter's icon is blue like the default blue, but you'll see later) and the home button is gone from the toolbar. Note that you CAN change the color (see the code above) if you don't like the automatically calculated color.

Now, this browser is site-specific. The Pinned Tab will effectively become a Twitter app.

Rather than dragging the site to my taskbar, I could have click the Tools icon (the gear) and clicked File|Add To Start Menu:

Now my app is in the Start Menu, as are my jump lists:

If you want, you can also use Javascript to push overlay icons to your pinned app. For example:

Via code like this:

//show
window.external.msSiteModeSetIconOverlay(iconUri, toolTip); 
//hide an Overlay Icon: 
window.external.msSiteModeClearIconOverlay(); 

There's also the ability to add and remove jump list items dynamically to keep track of a search history or favorites, for examples. You can even add taskbar buttons like this:

Here's a little code for the example:

document.addEventListener('msthumbnailclick', onButtonClicked, false); 
var btnPlay = window.external.msSiteModeAddThumbBarButton(iconUri, toolTip); 
window.external.msSiteModeShowThumbBar(); 
function onButtonClicked(e) { 
    switch (e.buttonID) { 
        case btnPlay: 
            play(); 
            break; 
        } 
}

Adding Basic Jump Lists to your own Site

I'll add some jump lists to this blog. Here's my site visited in IE9. See my big head in there? That's just my favicon.ico that I made with IcoFX, a great free icon editor.

You can't TELL me you haven't always wanted my tiny transparent head on your taskbars, Dear Reader. Come on! ;)

Here's the code I'll add..

<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Complete Archives;action-uri=/blog/Archives.aspx;icon-uri=/blog/images/archives.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Speaking/Videos;action-uri=/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Speaking;icon-uri=/blog/images/videos.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Weekly Podcast;action-uri=/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Podcast;icon-uri=/blog/images/podcast.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Scott on Twitter;action-uri=http://twitter.com/shanselman;icon-uri=/blog/images/twitter.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-task" content="name=Scott on Facebook;action-uri=http://facebook.com/scott.hanselman.public;icon-uri=/blog/images/facebook.ico" />
<meta name="msapplication-starturl" content="./" />
<meta name="application-name" content="Scott Hanselman's Blog" />
<meta name="msapplication-tooltip" content="Scott Hanselman's Blog" />

Then when I drag the favicon or tab to the task bar (or select File|Add to Start Menu) you'll see:

And the top of the browser  changes:

Pretty slick! While I don't see the world considering my blog an app, it was minimal effort to get this little bit of integration.

The more interesting ideas would be:

• Adding a podcast player for Hanselminutes.com so the site could be an app
• Keeping a separate list of recently searched for terms

Enjoy. Download IE9 here.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By