@Apps Revisited

jdp - Recently, I've been looking at the weeapps (or @apps) project. I think that it's an awesome idea; I thought it was a couple years ago, and there hasn't been any activity for a while.

Larry Smith There is, and there isn't. It has progressed some, but not recently.

(back to jdp) - So I took the weedesk code and started hacking at the code. I've added application launching, basic package management, an extension system, a configuration system, several applications, and a few other things.

Does anyone else still like the weeapps/weedesk idea? If anyone else is interested, I can put the code+resources (~822KB) I have assembled on SourceForge or Google Code so that the community has access - in which case I should be considered as looking for co-developers; the time I have to devote to this project is somewhat finite.

Larry Smith I'd like to see that.

jdp Looking at the flurry of activity on the wee* pages

Larry Smith Well, you guilted me into getting off my metaphorical fanny and just getting it done. I have some other bits and pieces and the whole thing can be packaged as a starkit, but it still has a couple of bugs that I just haven't gotten around to.

jdp It seems that a SourceForge project of my material would be pointless at the moment. I've made a tarball of everything as it is now and put it online here. There's a file called todo.txt in the doc folder, it explains the goals I had in mind, along with a number of the design principles, etc. There is an explanation of the directory structure at the bottom.

Larry Smith I swiped a copy and I'll look into it in my Copious Free Time. Meanwhile, I have no readily available public web page, so I can't really do any kind of support. A sourceforge project might be a good idea. Eolas has been supporting the wee project (under the temporary code name "stargus") which is renamed "We". Michael Doyle of Eolas might have an interest in this topic and would be worth an email.


jdp - List of what has already been completed (to pique interest):

  • Application launching (in their own interpreters)

Larry Smith I have a version which does this, too.

  • Configuration

Larry Smith What does you mean? jdp Hmm, bad wording. I mean I've put together a config editor + library.

  • A somewhat loose, but existent, extension system
  • The following @apps have been completed: @Calc (Calculator), @Conf (Config file editor)

Larry Smith I have added Torsten Manz's HP-15C simulator. jdp My version is mainly a GUI for expr, nothing worth speaking of compared to that Larry Smith It is a seriously cool program. =)

  • In progress: @Code (Code editor), @Edit (Word processor), Kitty (Package manager)
  • The desktop system has been built - based on weedesk
  • A long todo list has been made

I would like to aim for this to be a portable, extensible desktop environment, but in the future, it could be mounted on top of a BSD or Linux system and be set up as a whole Tcl-based OS. Since everything would be pure-tcl, the user would have the ability to quickly and easily make radical changes to the environment, which would be totally impossible (or very difficult) in other environments.