Chapter 3 Chrome OS
Your Chromebook is a little different than most normal Desktop computers. The main difference is that almost everything will be done in a Chrome web browser. For the most part, we won’t use any software that saves data directly to your computer with a few small exceptions. All this is not to say you’ll be limited in what you can do as a data scientist. Rather, your work will be done in the “cloud”, rather than on your Chromebook directly.
When using a “normal” computer you usually download software that makes it possible to edit files, make presentations, use your calendar, or use social media. On a Chromebook there are three different ways that you can add new software to use.
- Chrome Apps: Are apps that you “add” to Chrome. The user interface is just the Chrome Browser. Very often these apps are actually just a link to a website that lets you do something like manage your calendar or write a document. But sometimes they have other offline functionality.
- Chrome Extensions: These are actually pieces of software that modify the way the Chrome Browser itself works. An example would be an ad blocker that prevents ads on webpages you visit in Chrome from being shown.
- Android Apps: Many modern Chromebooks now support installing Android Apps. These are the same apps that you would get if you had an Android phone. These apps won’t run inside of a web browser, but will function just like an app on your phone.
You can think of all three of these extensions to Chrome OS as “Apps”. Not all Chromebooks support Android Apps and we want anyone to be able to complete the Cloud-based Data Science Program if they have a Chrome web browser and an Internet connection. So we will mostly focus on Chrome Apps and Extensions for this course. But if you have Android Apps that you like on your phone and have a Chromebook that supports Android Apps then you can install those apps as well as we discuss in the next section.
3.0.1 Chrome “Apps”
Chrome Apps are software programs that run in the web browser. They can be as simple as a link to a website where the app runs or they can be actual pieces of software that download and run on your local Chrome computer.
When you set up your Chrome OS account and log in, there will be a number of Chrome Apps that are available to you by default. Some of the most useful ones are:
- Google Docs: for creating, writing and editing formatted text documents (similar to Microsoft Word, but through the web browser)
- Google Slides: for creating, writing and editing presentations (similar to Microsoft Office, but through the web browser)
- Google Sheets: for creating, writing and editing spreadsheets (similar to Microsoft Excel, but through the web browser)
Google Docs, Slides and Sheets are three Chrome Apps that come installed on your Chromebook
We won’t go into too much detail about each of these apps here as we will cover them in a future class. For now we are just going to cover how to find these apps on your Chromebook, how to install and uninstall new ones, and how to organize them on your Chromebook.
3.0.2 Where do Chromebook Apps live?
When you log into your Chromebook for the first time you can see icons for some apps at the bottom of the screen. This set of apps that are visible from the main screen are called your “Shelf”.
The shelf is at the bottom of the screen
Once you have installed a Chrome App or Android App you can find it by by clicking the Launcher button on the lower left hand side of the screen. If you don’t see the app among the first set of apps if you click on the arrow at the bottom of the screen you will be taken to a large list of apps installed on your Chromebook.
You can click on the launcher button, then the arrow to see more apps
Another way to open the screen with your apps is to click on the Launcher button on your keyboard. On most Chromebooks this is a button that looks like a magnifying glass.
The keyboard launcher button looks like a magnifying glass
Once you have found the App you want to open, click on it. When you click on a Chrome App the Chrome Browser will open and be directed to the website where that piece of software lives. For example if you click on the Google Docs icon (the blue piece of paper) then you will be directed to the website https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/ which lets you edit and work with your Google Docs.
Clicking on the Google Docs icon will open Google Docs in the web browser.
3.0.3 The Shelf
Your “Shelf” is the set of apps that are viewable on the bottom of your Desktop. You can use your Shelf to provide easy access to the Chrome Apps that you use most often. That way you don’t have to remember the exact web address for your most frequently used websites.
You can “Pin” an app to the shelf by clicking with two fingers (sometimes called right clicking) on an app and then hovering over “Pin to Shelf” and letting go. For example you might want to pin your “Folder” with your local files to your Shelf so you can easily access it.
Pin an app by right clicking
You will then see the app on your Shelf so you can click on it to be taken directly to that Chrome App.
The app is now pinned to your shelf.
If you want to “Unpin” or remove an App from your Shelf you should right click on the app on the Shelf, hover over the Unpin command and let go. The App will then be removed from your shelf.
The app is now pinned to your shelf.
3.0.4 Websites as Chrome Apps
You can actually add any website you want to your shelf, not just the ones that have Chrome Apps. For example, we will be using http://rstudio.cloud for a lot of the work in this course. There is not a Chrome App for http://rstudio.cloud. But you can still add this website to your shelf.
You can do this by first navigating to the website you want to add. Then clicking on the three dots in the upper right hand corner of the Chrome Browser. This will open up a menu and you can move your cursor until it hovers over More Tools. Then you can move your cursor over Add to shelf… and let go.
Navigate to rstudio.cloud, move the cursor over More Tools, then Add to Shelf.
This should then open up a window where you can name the website you are linking to. Uncheck the box that says Open as Window so that your Chromebook knows this is a website you want to open. Then click Add to put the icon onto your shelf.
Uncheck Open as Window and click Add to add this website as an app.
Once you are done you will see an icon for http://rstudio.cloud on your shelf so you will be able to quickly navigate to this web app in the future.
The rstudio.cloud icon now appears on your shelf.
3.0.5 The Chrome Web Store and Chrome Apps
Chrome Apps are pieces of software that can be run from the web browser. Sometimes you will need to download and install them on your Chromebook and sometimes they will just be an icon with a link to a particular website that lets you do some function.
We already talked about how you can install any webpage as a Chrome App directly. But many Chrome Apps can also be found in the Chrome Web Store. This is a website that lets you search and find Chrome Apps for your Chromebook, similar to Google Play for Android Apps or the App Store for Apple apps. You can get to the Chrome Web Store by clicking on the launcher button, then finding and clicking the Web Store icon.
Open the Chrome Web Store by clicking on the Web Store Icon.
You will be taken to the Chrome Web Store in your browser. You can filter by whether they are free, built by Google, or are able to run offline. The first thing we will do is click on Apps to ensure that we are searching only among Chrome Apps. As an example we will find and install the StackEdit app, which is useful for writing markdown documents that you will use throughout the Cloud-based Data Science courses. One nice feature of StackEdit is that it can be used even when your Chromebook is offline. To find the app, we will search for StackEdit and then click return.
Search for stackedit on the Chrome Web Store.
This will show two options one as a Chrome App and one as a Chrome Extension. We will select the app version and click Add to Chrome. This will bring up a dialogue box that asks if you would like to add Stackedit. Click on Add and the app will be installed on your Chromebook.
Click add to Chrome and then Add to add the app to your Chrome browser.
You can then click the Launcher button in the lower left to see that the app has been installed.
StackEdit is now installed.
If you click on the StackEdit icon you’ll be taken to the app, which you can see is also run in the Chrome web browser, just like any website you would visit. The difference is that this website will let you write and save Markdown files.
StackEdit runs in the web browser.
3.0.6 Chrome Extensions
Chrome extensions are software programs that modify the way that the Chrome browser itself works. You can find and install them through the Chrome Web Store just like you can with Chrome Apps but they look and function slightly differently. Sometimes these extensions may do something very simple (like show you a funny picture when you open a new tab) or they might do something very important (like managing your passwords).
As an example we will install the Pocket Chrome extension. Pocket is an extension that lets you save a particular website or essay for reading when your Chromebook is offline. So if you know you will need to read a document you can save it to Pocket before you are traveling somewhere where you will not have Internet access and then retrieve and read it even when you are offline. You can open the Chrome Web Store just as we did previously and search for Pocket under the Extensions window.
Once you have found the extension you want, you can click on the extension and it will open a page where you can click on Add to Chrome if you do that and click add the extension will be added.
Click Add to Chrome to add the Pocket extension.
Chrome Extensions often show up as a small icon in the top right hand side of the Chrome Browser. You can click on the icon to bring up the Pocket extension - which will also come up as a web page in your web browser.
The Pocket extension comes up as a web browser.
If you sign up for the Pocket extension you can then navigate to a web page that you are interested in saving for later and click the Pocket icon in the top right hand side of the screen.
Click the Pocket icon to save the webpage
This will save the page for later so that you can read it offline.
The page is now saved for offline reading
Extensions, like Chrome Web Apps, can improve the way that Chrome OS functions in the same way that installing software on your local computer works. Extensions and Apps help you use your Chromebook to accomplish tasks that would not otherwise be possible.