HTML5 Portability beyond PhoneGap - The Chrome Web Store

One of the great benefits of doing mobile development using PhoneGap is the portability of the codebase. The same HTML application is easily wrapped and built for all major devices using PhoneGap and/or PhoneGap Build. And since your app is written using HTML, CSS and Javascript, you can make it accessible as a web app as well.

After I had already published a few apps to the Android Market using this technique, I read about the Chrome Web Store. And once I digested their publishing and deployment specs, I noticed that the same PhoneGap codebase could easily be deployed to this outlet as well. I re-deployed the same apps to the Chrome Web Store a few months ago, and my experience was so positive, I wanted to share a quick overview of how to deploy to this store, and some things you'll want to think about:

The deployment is simple for Chrome Web Store Packaged Apps - basically you create a .zip file of your HTML app, along with a simple .manifest file, the app icons, and preview images. Here's a sample manifest that launches splash.html at the root of your app:

{
  "name": "My Cool App",
  "description": "This is a test of the Chrome Web Store",
  "version": "1",
  "app": {
    "launch": {
      "local_path": "splash.html"
    }
  },
  "icons": {
    "16": "icon_16.png",
    "128": "icon_128.png"
  }
}

(Full documentation)

The preview images are not required, but you'll never get very high in the rankings without them... and of course the image sizes don't match the Android Market sizings, so you'll need to create new ones. And they will not accept them until the images meet their aesthetic criteria - I had two go-arounds with them because of font sizing.

...but the pleasant surprise was the traffic:

The identical app in the Android Market after 6 months or so has about 2400 downloads, and is approaching 1000 active installs.

In the Chrome Web Store, there are 3500+ users in less than two months, and 250+ users daily, 14,000+ total. Rarely is there inactivity when using Google Analytics' real-time tools.

The manifest sample I showed was for a Chrome Web Store "Packaged App", but for my needs I found that a "Hosted App" was the better way to go - and even easier. My post next week will highlight the advantages of using a Hosted App, plus some tips on using advertising.