Opening any of the chrome app without opening a new tab was only possible if you had created shortcut for the applications and either have it on desktop or pinned to start menu. Probably Google understood that not many will do this and to solve this has released a new extension, App Launcher, which similar to Desktop Launchers, lists all the apps you have installed on your Chrome and can make a search if you have a lot of apps installed.
However you don’t get the any right-click options for the apps installed which means that you need to open a new tab and then set options if you want which is still awkward if I can see the apps listed there but still have to come to new tab thingy. Hopefully the Google Extension Team might listen to this request.
