I’m happy to announce the first major building block of the Tractor System: Apptron.
Apptron is a software primitive that lets you drive native platform APIs using the technologies you’re already familiar with, enabling cross-platform webview apps and more.
Usable from any language, or even the command line, Apptron gives you webview windows and common platform APIs for your simple scripts, homebrew utilities, or full applications. Building cross-platform programs that leverage native functionality (menus, dialogs, notifications, global shortcuts, etc) has never been more accessible.
These APIs are packed into a single executable that can be used a number of different ways, making Apptron a simple but powerful software primitive.
Zero Config Native Apps from HTML
Turn an HTML file and any other web assets into a self-contained, cross-platform executable in a single command.
Language Agnostic Building Block
Use the Apptron APIs like a library from any language without C extensions or tricky event loops.
Shell Scriptable Native APIs
Use platform APIs from CLI commands to break shell scripting out of the terminal and into the desktop GUI.
These features and more will be showcased in a series of demos coming out over the next few weeks. Given all the different ways it can be used, Apptron is something you really have to see in action. Catch their premieres on Twitch, or subscribe on YouTube so you don't miss them.
Early Access
In the meantime, we're opening up Early Access via the Apptron website:
By joining early access, you'll be invited to the currently private GitHub repository where you can try Apptron out, submit issues, and help bring Apptron to a stable 1.0 release and become public open source software.
Help Wanted
I've been using Apptron in some form with the rest of the Tractor System for over a year now, but to make this a solid standalone primitive I'll need your help. Please consider joining early access to play around with it and give feedback.
Anybody interested in contributing or helping drive this project should definitely request access and get involved. This is one of many projects I have in the pipeline and I can only do so much.
Thanks
A huge thanks to my sponsors, who I depend on to fund this early R&D work on the Tractor System. As long as it's sustainable, I look forward to releasing more powerful open source primitives.
Excited to tell you more next week with the first Apptron demo!
-jeff
Top comments (2)
In regards window with the squared buttons & borders, did you style that w/ CSS? I'm assuming if so, you've bound the movement handlers to the OS? Interested to see how that's wired up here.
Yes, there is a skin/chrome system letting you define the look of windows with a separate HTML file that only requires CSS classes to identify elements ties to OS interaction.