Make yourself a native Google Keep client for Linux

Turn Google Keep into native Linux Software

Google Keep, our trendy new buddy

Google Keep has been a great hit right since the moment it hit the floor. Many of us users, tired of Evernote's laggy behaviour, massive app size and just backdated system of storing notes (I am taking about the android client though, and that's entire my personal opinion) had welcomed this new refreshing opportunity to try and use a new software for online storage and retrieval of notes and important data. Google Keep is not only surprisingly easy to use on android, but even opening it on your computer or any other system supporting any web browser is no problem, just open drive.google.com/keep (you should be logged in to your account though, or else you'll be prompted to login once the URL opens). 

This amount of beauty and simplicity of Google Keep is just wonderful. But it is the natural human tendency to demand more, and more, and more. As such, I wanted to integrate my Keep notes with my laptop running Ubuntu, my desktop running Mint, my tablet and phablet both running android. And I did it, using just a simple trick. As for a smartphone/phablet/tablet, it's no problem. Just install the native Google Keep app from Play Store. 

Now comes the Linux part. Please note that it is not an absolute integration, but rather an easier way to start and work on keep. For this the only requirement is Fogger, a sibling to Mac's popular web-app maker Fluid. But many users have reported that they're having trouble to install fogger on their Ubuntu 12.10s. I myself upgraded from 12.04 directly to 12.10, and as such I didn't face any problem. But however, if you're in Ubuntu 12.10, you should be able to install it using the fogger repository for Ubuntu Quantal. If you're using ubuntu or any ubuntu-based system such as Mint, just fire up your terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T and execute the following code: 

The dialogue box of Fogger, the first time

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/fogger

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install fogger



Add one line at a time (merely stating facts though, but I want to make it friendly for new users as well :) ) and hit enter. 

Another optional, but highly recommended software to fully utilize Keep's integration with Ubuntu is a launcher. My personal choice is synapse, but you may also try Kupfer, Gnome-Do or Launchy. Start your terminal again and enter: 

sudo apt-get install synapse

And it'll get installed. Now, open synapse using Ctrl+Space and enter 'fog' (without quotes). You'll get an option 'Create a new 'fog' app, and hit enter. A dialogue box will pop up. Now, enter exactly: 

The icon of Google Keep, easy to find but still added here
for convenience

URL: drive.google.com/keep

Name: Keep

Now download the icon of Google Keep I've added to below (right click on it and select 'Save image as'). Finally, in that dialogue box, click on that large icon tab to the left of Name and URL, and browse for the icon you've downloaded. Select it and hit enter. Now hit create an you're done. 

The same procedure goes for Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and nearly every site you want to turn into an integrated app. From now onward, doing a little work on your Keep notes would only require you to hit Ctrl+Space, type Keep and hit enter again. This saves time, and thus boosts productivity.