Facebook launched a standalone Facebook Messenger app for the web yesterday at messenger.com. Today, app developer Elmer Morales decided to wrap that web app into a dedicated Windows app — and show the world how he did it.
All Morales had to do was create a wrapper for the web app — Facebook had already done almost all of the work. This video demonstrates how to do so in about three minutes.
Morales admits that it technically took him a bit longer because he had to design the icons and actually record the screencast. Still, it’s a small price to pay if you’re going to show other developers “how easy it is to build apps these days,” he told VentureBeat in an email.
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As for why he chose Microsoft’s platform, Morales said, “I’m a Windows user, and so are most desktop users. I figured a Messenger app for Windows would be helpful to a larger audience. So I built it.”
Dropbox engineers Rasmus Andersson and Josh Puckett actually beat Morales yesterday when they released a Facebook Messenger for Mac app in just a few hours. That Mac wrapper had a few more bugs compared to its Windows counterpart, though giving the time constraints, this isn’t surprising. Still, they didn’t produce a video showing off the whole process.
Both projects are great achievements and show just how excited developers can still get about desktop apps. Hopefully these apps will continue to improve as many Windows and Mac users undoubtedly prefer a dedicated Facebook Messenger app to keeping a browser tab open at all times.
In case you want to build on their work, the source code for both apps is available on GitHub: Windows and Mac.
