11. Using Chrome Apps and Extensions

In this chapter, you discover how to add functionality to your Chromebook with Chrome apps and extensions.

If you have an iPhone or Android phone, you’re used to the concept of apps—small, single-purpose applications that you run with the touch of a button. Well, there are apps available for your Chromebook, as well as a Chrome Web Store, to find the apps you want. In addition, the Chrome Web Store offers a number of useful extensions that plug right into the Chrome browser and add extra functionality to your online experience.

For example, the app called Google Calendar is a web-based calendar and scheduling application. You access the app from Google Chrome, and it looks and acts like a regular application, but the app itself is hosted on Google’s website, as is all your personal calendar and appointment data.

That said, Google ensures that Chrome apps look and act like the apps on your smartphone, and are always available to you, no matter what computer you’re using. Find an app you like, and you can run it on your Chromebook as well as within the Chrome browser on a Windows or Mac PC.

Here’s something else: Apps are always up to date. When you run an app, you’re running the current version offered by that website. No time-consuming (or costly) updates or upgrades are necessary.

On your Chromebook, you easily access your apps by clicking Apps on the Launcher. This displays the Apps panel, which hosts 16 apps per page. Click the bars at the bottom of the pane to display the next page of apps, or use the Search box to search for a specific app. Click any app to launch it in a browser window or tab.

What kinds of Chrome apps are available? The list is long, and includes apps for listening to music, doing office work, editing photos, and even playing games. You can find a large selection of apps—most of them you can freely download—in the Google’s Chrome Web Store.

Some of the items in the Chrome Web Store are developed by Google, others by various third-party developers. Most of these apps, extensions, and themes can run on any Chromebook; others can run on any Windows or Mac computer within the Chrome web browser.

Within the Chrome Web Store, you can browse for items by category, or search for items using the top-of-page search box. Each item in the Web Store has its own information page, where you can read more about the item, contribute your own rating and review, and download the item to your Chromebook.

Virtually all extensions and themes in the Chrome Web Store are free, as are most apps, but there are some apps that cost money to download. Other apps are free to download, but support in-app payments; that is, you might have to pay more in the future to continue using the app, or to activate enhanced functionality.

1. Click the Apps icon on the Launcher.

2. Click Chrome Web Store. The Chrome Web Store opens in the Chrome browser.

3. Click a category in the left sidebar to display a list of related subcategories; click the subcategory you want, and all the apps within the subcategory display.

4. By default, the apps are sorted by Recommended; click the Sort By list at the top of the page to instead sort by Popular, Trending, or Rating.

5. To learn more about a specific app, click it.

6. The Overview tab displays by default; click the Details tab to view more specifics, or the Reviews tab to see what others say about this app.

7. Click the Add to Chrome button at the top of the page to install the app.

8. Click the Add button to confirm the installation.

1. Click the Apps icon on the Launcher

2. Click the icon for the app you want to open.

1. Click the Apps icon on the Launcher.

2. Right-click (two-finger tap) the item to configure and select Options.

3. When the options panel for that item opens, make the appropriate settings.

1. Click the Apps icon on the Launcher.

2. Right-click the item to delete and select Remove from Chrome.

3. When asked to confirm the uninstallation, click the Remove button.

• Open as a regular tab—This is the default option.

• Open as a pinned tab—This automatically opens a tab for the app whenever you start your Chromebook; the tab for the app is always there in the Chrome browser. (Pinned apps have smaller tabs than regular tabs, and always appear first on the row of tabs; plus, they can’t be closed.)

• Open as Window—This opens a new window for the app when you launch it.

• Open maximized—This launches the app in full-screen mode—actually, as a normal tab but viewed full screen.

You can select launch options for any app installed on your Chromebook.

1. Click the Apps icon on the Launcher.

2. Right-click the item and select from one of the Open options.

• Cash Organizer—Manage your personal and family finances.

• Currency Converter—Converts any currency to any other currency.

• Financial Calculator—Includes mortgage, loan term, loan amount, interest, and other calculators.

• SEO SERP Workbench—Monitor your website’s search engine placements across multiple search engines.

• Sprout Social—Social media management tools.

• W2MO—Modeling, 3D simulation and animation, and workforce planning.

• Zoho CRM—Customer relations management.

• 3D Solar System Web—Explore the solar system with 3D models.

• Biodigital Human—Explore the body with 3D models.

• Daum Equation Editor—Online scientific equation creation and editing.

• Kido’z TV—Turns your browser into a safe viewing platform for your kids.

• Learn French/Italian/Spanish/Portuguese/Hebrew/etc—A series of popular language tutors.

• Planetarium—An interactive sky map for exploring stars and planets.

• Thesaurus—As the title says, an online thesaurus.

• Typing Test and Type Fu—Two popular typing tutors.

• Audiotool—A powerful online music production studio, for making your own kind of music.

• BeFunky Photo Editor—Photo editing and special effects.

• Google Play Books—Choose from more than 4 million books to read online.

• Google Play Music—Google’s music storage/streaming service.

• Internet TV—Watch Internet TV from around the world, online.

• Kindle Cloud Reader—Read ebooks on your Chromebook from Amazon’s Kindle store.

• Marvel Comics—Digital versions of poplar Marvel comic books, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the X-Men.

• Pandora—Streaming music from one of the web’s largest music libraries.

• Picasa—Access to Google’s Picasa Web Albums.

• PicMonkey—Advanced photo editing.

• Psykopaint—Creates interesting art from existing digital photos.

• Webcam Toy—Take photos from your Chromebook’s webcam and apply more than 70 fun effects.

• YouTube—A front end to Google’s popular video sharing site.

The following are some of the most popular games in the Chrome Web Store:

• Angry Birds—Of course, today’s most popular online game is available for Chrome. If you haven’t played it yet, go ahead—everybody else is. (This game has more than 10 million users from the Chrome Web Store.)

• Bejeweled—Popular gem-swapping strategy game.

• Cargo Bridge—All about building bridges.

• Contract Killer—Popular shooter upper.

• Crazy Rollercoaster—Construct your own rollercoaster—and then ride it.

• Cut the Rope—An award-winning all-ages game.

• Entanglement—Physics-based game that challenges you to create the longest path possible.

• Gun Bros—A first-person shooter.

• Isoball 3—Challenging puzzle games.

• Little Alchemy—Create awesome things with selected elements.

• Plants vs. Zombies—Award-winning game that has you defending your home from zombies, using an arsenal of zombie-zapping plants.

• Poppit—A Tetris-like balloon popping game for all ages.

• BBC GoodFood—A recipes app, with more than 260 healthy (and free) recipes.

• Bible—An online app for reading, listening to, and sharing the Bible.

• eBay Web App—Manage your eBay auctions from within Chrome.

• Gojee—Fashion and food reporting.

• Google Finance—Financial news, stock quotes, performance charts, and more.

• Mint—Web-based financial management.

• Personal Trainer—Exercises and workout routines.

• TouristEye Planner—Plan your trip online.

• Full Screen Weather—More weather conditions and forecasts, from the Weather Underground.

• Google News—A front end to Google’s online news headlines.

• Google Reader—Online RSS newsreader.

• New York Times—A specialized app for reading the Times within the Chrome browser.

• The Weather Channel for Chrome—Forecasts, radar, and current conditions for up to nine locations, from the folks at The Weather Channel.

• Weather Window by WeatherBug—A cool, graphical way to view current weather conditions—in a virtual window in your Chrome browser.

• Audodesk Homestyler—Plan your own home remodeling projects.

• Dropbox—Store and share your files online with this service that competes with Google Drive.

• Google Calendar—Another popular Google app, for keeping schedules and appointments.

• Google Drive—The front-end to Google’s online file storage service.

• Google Maps—Online maps and directions.

• Google Search—A front-end to Google’s online search engine.

• Microsoft Hotmail—Microsoft’s popular web-based email service.

• My Chrome Theme—Create and share your own Google Chrome themes.

• Pixlr-o-matic—Convert your digital photos into cool-looking retro pics.

Here are the most popular of these apps:

• Gmail Offline—Enables you to read and create Gmail email messages, even when your Chromebook isn’t connected to the Internet.

• Google+—A front-end to Google’s new social network.

• imo messenger—Chat with your friends on Skype, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, and other popular instant messaging services.

• persona—Enables you to read your Facebook and Twitter feeds in a single app.

• TweetDeck—From Twitter, a front-end to manage communications across multiple social networks.

• WordPress—Manage and post to your WordPress blogs.

• Calculator. Popular scientific calculator.

• Digital Clock—Customizable onscreen clock.

• Evernote Web—Award-winning note taking/sharing app.

• Numerics Calculator & Converter—Powerful Chrome-based calculator and converter.

• QR Code Generator—Create your own QR (quick reference) codes.

• QuickNote—Take notes from within the Chrome browser.

• Springpad—Create and share topic-focused notebooks.

• Sticky Notes—More onscreen notes for Chrome.

• Stopwatch—An easy-to-use online stopwatch.

• World Clocks—Interactive analog and digital clocks from more than 400 cities worldwide.

For example, you can add Chrome extensions to block web page ads, display how many unread messages you have in your Gmail inbox, view status updates on Facebook or Twitter, view dictionary definitions, and capture screenshots of web pages. There are thousands of these extensions available, and they’re all free.

You can find Chrome extensions in the Chrome Web Store; just scroll down and click Extensions in the left sidebar. From there, you can use the top-of-page Search box to search for specific extensions by keyword, or browse available extensions.

1. From within the Chrome Web Store, scroll down and click Extensions in the left sidebar.

2. Click a category to view extensions of that type.

3. Click an extension to learn more.

4. Read about the extension and then click the Add to Chrome button if you decide to install.

5. When asked to confirm the new extension, click the Add button.

For example, the YoWindow Weather extension installs a new button next to the Chrome Omnibox; this button displays the current weather and temperature. When you click the YoWindow Weather button, the extension displays an information pane with your current weather conditions and forecast.

You also get a new button installed when you download the Cloudy Calculator extension. Click this button and you see a scrolling calculator window, with an input field at the bottom. Enter your equation into the input field, press Enter, and the Cloudy Calculator calculates the answer for you.

Obviously, other extensions work differently, but you get the picture. Add as many extensions as you like to add functionality to Chrome and your Chromebook.

1. Open the Chrome browser and click the Customize and Control button to display the drop-down menu.

2. Select More Tools, Extensions to open a page that lists all the extensions you’ve downloaded.

3. Check the Allow in Incognito box if you want the extension to be available when browsing in Incognito mode.

4. If an extension has configurable options, it displays an Options link next to the Allow in Incognito item; click this link to configure the option. (Not all extensions have configurable options.)

5. Uncheck the Enabled box for an extension to disable it.

6. Click the Remove from Chrome (trashcan) icon for an extension to totally delete the extension from your Chromebook.