A common task you see people using AIR and Prism for, is just a wrapper around a Web application that you use all the time such as Gmail, or your Web based calendar or what have you. It would be nice to be able to automate the creation of a shortcut in a very simple way. This is where the Shortcut API comes into play.

The current thinking is that there will be other desktop-y features that people may want to tie into, so the shortcut API sits inside a Desktop module.

It looks like this:

var desktop = google.gears.factory.create('beta.desktop');
desktop.createShortcut("Test Application",
                       "An application at http://www.test.com/index.html",
                       "http://www.test.com/index.html",
                       {"16x16": "http://www.test.com/icon16x16.png",
                        "32x32": "http://www.test.com/icon32x32.png",
                        "48x48": "http://www.test.com/icon48x48.png",
                        "128x128": "http://www.test.com/icon128x128.png"});

Maybe you would use this as an install step. Maybe you give people the ability to export files in some way. What would you like to see here? This is still early stage, and we are thinking about features you would like to add. For example, the ability to say “open this Web application without the URL bar and other browser chrome”.

Other Future APIs

• Image Manipulation API
• Introduction to the series

Disclaimer: This is early days, and who knows what the final API will look like, and how far it goes. Do you have ideas for cool Gears that make the Web better? Let us know!.