Programming Chrome Apps

Put your web app design skills to work by learning how to create powerful and portable Chrome Apps. With this practical book, you’ll learn how to build Google’s unique apps to behave just like native apps so they can interact with hardware devices, access external files, and send notifications.

Author Marc Rochkind takes you through a hands-on, objective tour of Chrome Apps, which run on any platform that supports the Chrome browser―including OS X, Windows, Linux, as well as Android and iOS. If you know how to work with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the DOM, you’re ready to get started.

• Learn how to build, run, and debug Chrome Apps step-by-step
• Use Chrome Apps to access local files, sync files, and external files
• Take advantage of key-value-pair APIs, including sync storage and IndexedDB
• Use WebSockets, Google Cloud Messaging, and other networking methods
• Display graphics and images with Canvas, SVG, and the Media Galleries API
• Use alarms, context menus, location, the camera, Bluetooth, USB, and other APIs
• Publish apps to the Chrome Web Store with the Chrome Dev Editor

Marc Rochkind has an MS in Computer Science (Rutgers, 1976) and worked for Bell Labs from 1970 to 1982, much of that time on parts of UNIX, especially the Source Code Control System, for which he is well known. His 1985 book, Advanced UNIX Programming, was the first book that explained how to program the UNIX kernel. Since leaving Bell Labs in 1982, he has had several management and non-management positions in various software companies and done lots of consulting. He started a venture-capital-backed company, XVT Software, in 1988, that provided tools to allow programmers to develop portable GUI applications―the first such tool. Later, he was the VP of Software at two venture-capital-backed companies, one with an employee-scheduling product, and one with an online-knowledge-base product.

He has written four computer-related books: • Expert PHP and MySQL: Application Design and Development (Apress, 2013) • Advanced UNIX Programming, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2004) • Advanced C Programming for Displays (Prentice-Hall, 1988) • Advanced UNIX Programming (Prentice-Hall, 1985)

Currently he develops iOS, MacOS, and Windows apps (listed at basepath.com), does some consulting, and writes books.