I’m jumping around analytics environments these days and have to leave the comfort of my Mac’s RStudio Desktop application to use various RStudio Server instances via browser. While I prefer to use Chrome, the need to have a “dedicated” RStudio Server client outweighs the utility of my favorite browser. This is where Fluid (@FluidApp by @iTod) comes in.
Fluid lets you build separate, dedicated, Safari/WebKit engine application wrappers for any web resource. As the web site puts it: “Fluid lets you create a Real Mac App (or “Fluid App”) out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into OS X desktop apps.” This means you can build something that will behave almost like the Desktop client and make one for any RStudio Server instance you use.
![Fluid](https://i0.wp.com/rud.is/b/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Fluid.png?resize=510%2C280&ssl=1)
It’s far too easy to perform this useful feat. Just download Fluid, point the “URL:” field in the “Create a Fluid App” dialog to an RStudio Server instance, name it what you like (something that lets you know which RStudio Server instance you’re using would be #spiffy
), pick an icon (select the RStudio Desktop application to use that one) and go! You can now start a separate app for each RStudio instance you use, complete with its own cookie storage, fullscreen capability and more (provided you pay the quite reasonable $4.99USD).
Here’s a screen shot of what it ends up looking like (sans MacOS menu bar):
![RStudio](https://i0.wp.com/rud.is/b/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/RStudio.png?resize=510%2C318&ssl=1)
If you currently use Fluid this way for RStudio Server instances or give this suggestion a try and come up with any helpful configuration options, Userscripts or Userstyles drop a note in the comments!
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