Launch a Chrome App in Windows 8 Metro Mode from shortcut

Question

I have a chrome app I would like to launch into Chrome's Window's 8 mode from a shortcut on the start page. I can get the Chrome browser to launch in the mode using the --force-immersive flag, but this does not work when combined with the --appId=myAppId flag to launch my application. The app still launches in desktop mode.

Is it possible to launch a chrome app directly into metro/win8 mode from a shortcut rather than the Google Application Launcher? I have looked at other command-line switches for Chrome but have not found a combination that produces the desired behavior.

Answer 1

Unfortunately the short answer is no (unless it gets implemented in a Chrome after version 40).

The code in Chrome that handles --appId explicitly sets the desktop type to "NATIVE" (i.e. not Windows 8 mode). This is because the same shortcut is used regardless of the mode it is launched in, and we didn't want the mode Chrome was currently running in to affect Chrome Apps launched from the Desktop.

And, same as for Chrome, we can't assume that launching from the start page (rather than the Desktop) means you want to start the app in Windows 8 mode.

It's still a legitimate bug though. If you'd like to file a New Issue at http://crbug.com/ like "Not possible to launch a Chrome App in Windows 8 Mode from a Shortcut", we can investigate what it would take to add this feature. Make sure you put the bug number here too so I notice it.