Launch a chrome app from native application

Question

I know that the Chrome App Launcher can launch a Chrome App "just like an a real application" from the taskbar, but the question here is: is there a library or instructions somewhere on how to do this from an existing native client (i.e. .exe or .dmg) without the launcher?

An entire solution would entail detecting the Chrome installation status and the actual launch ofcourse.

The alternative for us will be to embed Chromium, but that seems like overhead for many users now when Chrome so common (at least here in Europe).

Answer 1

Chrome Apps exist as .apps in ~/Applications/Chrome Apps (on a Mac that is, where ~ is your user's home directory), so you should be able to handle them the same as ‘normal’ apps.

In Finder, they appear there with their proper names. Looking in Terminal though, the folder is actually ~/Applications/Chrome\ Apps.localized/, and the files are more like this:

Default hmjkmjkepdijhoojdojkdfohbdgmmhki.app
Default koegeopamaoljbmhnfjbclbocehhgmkm.app
app_list.app