Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Ever fancied having that handy Android app in your Linux distro? Or do you need an Android app on your desktop for a presentation, or for testing? Well, Google’s ‘ARC Welder’ extension is just what you need. Although, if you’re using anything but Chrome, you’re out of luck. This requires Chrome.
If you haven’t already got it, you can get Chrome from: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/
Arc Welder
First thing is to Install the ARC Welder extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/arc-welder/emfinbmielocnlhgmfkkmkngdoccbadn (or search for it at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions)
Click the ‘Add to Chrome’ button at the top right of the pop-up window.
You’ll get a final confirmation box before it installs. Add “ARC Welder”? Absolutely!
The original blue ‘Add to Chome’ button will change to say ‘Checking…’ for a few seconds. After that’s gone, you’re done. You now have an ARC Welder. One that won’t burn your house down. Yay!
KDE USERS: In KDE (Kubuntu 14.10 that I was using), if I click ‘App Runtime for Chrome’ shown in my K menu, it pops up with a window of my installed extensions. Instead I had to use the Chrome ‘Show Apps’ button (top left in Chrome), right-click the ARC Welder icon, choose ‘Create Shortcuts’, tick both boxes, and click Create. This now puts an ARC Welder icon in the Chrome Apps folder on the K menu. You need to do this only once.
So, let’s open ARC Welder. This is either done using your desktop menu, or using the icon in the Chrome apps tab.
Click the yellow Choose button. As the pop-up says, it needs a directory to save stuff in. Give it a directory, and we’re off to the races.
Well, almost off to the races. We need Google Android APK files. First, let’s choose an app to test this with. Go to the store (https://play.google.com/store) and choose an app.
I’ll use News Republic for this tutorial. Copy the URL of the app. Go to the site: http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ and paste in the app store URL.
Click the green download button and save the APK file to your hard drive.
With the APK downloaded, it’s back to ARC Welder. Click the ‘Add your APK’ button and choose the downloaded APK file.
ARC Welder will now give you some options on how to display the app. I’ll choose landscape, tablet, and give it clipboard access.
Finally! Time to click LAUNCH APP (in yellow at the bottom of the ARC Welder window).
Yay! It worked!
Just remember that you need to click and swipe as you would with the touch-screen version.