Google Voice's web site is handy, but keeping it open in a browser tab is a pain. Mac users, however, can get Growl notifications, complete with transcript previews, and app badge updates with the handy Fluid app.
For those not familiar with Fluid, it's a tool for creating "Site Specific Browsers" (SSBs), similar to the Mozilla-powered Prism app we've featured. Fluid is a Mac-only tool, but its support of user scripts makes it a lot more powerful for running Google Voice as its own little dock app. With two user scripts installed, you get both icon "badge" notifications of new messages, and ambient alerts from Growl with partial transcripts.
How does one get this notify-friendly Google Voice App? First things first—install Fluid and Growl on your OS X system. Growl will require a system administrator password, so make sure you have it before charging ahead. Once you've set up and installed Fluid, run it and create a new SSB for Google Voice.
When asked for your SSB settings, enter google.com/voice as the URL, then give it a name and other parameters. Before hitting "OK," though, head over to this Iconspedia entry, download the crystal-clear Google Voice icon, and set it as your dock icon for your Voice SSB. Now hit OK.
Left as-is, the Google Voice app will open anything you click on in the app window with your default browser. The fix is to open the Voice app, click on its name in your screen-top menu bar, select Preferences, then the Advanced category. Under "Allowed URLs," hit the "+" button and add *google.com/voice*, asterisks included. Now your Voice app should be running fine, but it doesn't yet notify.
You get those by adding these two user scripts to your Voice app: Google Voice Notifications (for app badge numbers) and GoogleVoiceGrowl (for Growl alerts). How do you add them? A few ways will work. You can simply enter those scripts' URLs in the Voice app's address bar and confirm that you want to install them. Alternately, with the Voice app/SSB running, click on the scroll-looking icon in the menu bar, select "Browser UserScripts.org," which should open UserSrcipts.org in your SSB. Search for Google Voice, select the Notifications and Growl scripts, hit Install, and you'll be prompted to add them to your SSB.
Edit: Mr. Dee writes in to tell us, as many commenters have noted, that the final trick to getting everything working is installing the experimental Growl/GNTP Firefox add-on, which grants Fluid the ability to send Growl notifications to your system.
I was able to get this working on a friend's OS X Leopard laptop, but mangled the screenshots to prove so. The blog post below was reader Mr. Dee's inspiration in setting up a perfected Google Voice Fluid app, and we thank both of them for their efforts, and sharing.
What's more, you could set up your new Google Voice notification system to work with previously mentioned Prowl to get these transcripts pushed to your iPhone—not a bad workaround, especially considering that Apple ruined your chances of using a proper Google Voice app on the iPhone. Got your own Fluid tweaks for a useful Google Voice or other app? Tell us about them in the comments.
Google Voice → Fluid → Growl [the Vagary]