features

The new Bubbles is, well, all new. We took the time to rewrite it from the ground up. One of the main changes moving forward is the new API and the new ease of extending the Bubbles client with new features.

Lets take a few moments to to examine Site-Specific Browsers and Bubbles.

What’s a Site-Specific Bubbles (SSB) ?

These are a browser that is focused on a specific site, and adds features to that site. Less is often more, why treat your email the same way you treat driving directions to Aunt Betsy. SSBs also focus on making your frequently used sites more accessible. In Windows this means your SSBs are running all the time, are a click a way - on the system tray and are generally more lightweight and, well, just yummy. SSBs will usually use an existing browsing engine and extend it with new features.

What do you mean by accessible?

We mean that your important stuff is there for you. Remember when things like Email used to be desktop applications (Outlook, Thunderbird), Bubbles tries to make the new web-based applications more like that.

Create shortcuts to your frequently used web applications right on your desktop:

It will always be waiting for you on the system tray:

When we say ‘just like a desktop application’, we mean it:

Want to Alt-Tab to your app, no problem:

Notifications

Notifications are an integral part of having a fluent user experience with your frequently used applications. Remember how Outlook briefly flashed you with a little window telling you new mail has arrived, how calendar alerts popped on the screen and how any application that wanted to tell you something had a way of doing it…

Web applications have always had two issues that stopped them from providing users with this sort of experience. The first is that they aren’t always running - what if you don’t have a tab with GMail open right now. The second problem is that browsers don’t really let web applications to do much outside of the browser window itself.

Bubbles overcomes both of these problems, making it a fantastic platform to provide notifications with. Your important Bubbles are running all the time, so when new data flows in (e.g. new mai, new story, new bid) - the user can be notified. The second is an API for full HTML notifications letting Web applications popup fully customizable notification windows, the ones users have grown to expect:

Support for drag and drop of local files

Remember how dragging a photo into Picasa imports that photo into an album? Think for a second what happens when you drag that photo into a browser… right, the browser shows you that photo. Bubbles allows web-sites to accept files that are dropped on them, so our example Flickr extension for Bubbles makes uploading new photos as easy as dragging them into the Flickr Bubble!

System tray icon and context-menu

Since your favorite web-application now has residence in your system tray, we may as well put it to use. The system tray icon can be changed in real-time to indicate different statuses (new email, awaiting chat message, etc). Right clicking the icon opens up a Context Menu which, just like with a Desktop application, allows you to quickly start actions (Compose mail, goto main page, See friend list, etc)

Much more

Bubbles and Site-Specific Browsers are an emerging field which is slowly being shaped by the desires of its users and the innovations of its developers. We always want to hear what you have to say, come tell us.

The Extension repository is a growing collection of extensions written by developers. These extensions teach old sites new tricks. Developers are welcome to dive into the Developers section and Forum.