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So the other day, I showed where to find the App Store located on Macs. Well, today, I want to show how it's possible to create a self contained app, which actually shows up in your Dock using the iPhone App Store logo and everything, as you can see in the pic above.

The first thing you need to do is download Fluid:

fluidapp.com/

Fluid is a cool free app that allows you to make apps out of web pages. You'll also need the iPhone App Store icon. Joshia Della at DeviantArt has one here:

joshladella005.deviantart.com/art/iPhone-icons-91004527

Okay, now that you have downloaded all the necessary components, open up Fluid and you should see the same dialog as above. First, paste in the url of Apple's download page. In this case it is:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/

Paste that in to the "URL" dialog. Next, you're going to fill in the "Name" dialog with "App Store" or "Mac App Store" or whatever name you want to give to this app.

Leave the "Location" dialog at its default of "Applications." Okay, in the "Icon" dialog, navigate to the PNG folder located inside the icon folder provided by Joshia Della and click on the "Applications" icon or whatever icon you prefer.

Now click "Create" and Fluid will ask you if you want to "Launch Now." Go ahead and click it because there's one more thing you need to do to make sure this is a self-contained app.

Go to the Preferences menu in your newly created app and go to the "Advanced" dialog. Inside, you will click on "Allow Browsing to Any Url." This option allows you to open up any link in the App itself. Otherwise, whenever you hit a link, it will automatically open up Safari or Firefox or whichever your default web browser might be.

That's all. Enjoy your new Mac App Store.

ProTip: When choosing icons for Fluid always use PNG files instead of JPEG. PNG files allow Alpha Channels, which is a big deal when part of the icon needs to be transparent. JPEGs don't allow this.

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