About two months ago I have posted here an article on a project of mine called "web-desktop-environment", if you're interested in the idea of a web-based desktop environment you can read about it here
in this post I'm going to share the progress I have made since I first posted the article
A brief introduction to the project 👩🏫
"web-desktop-environment" is a desktop-environment (a visual interface for a computer) that can run in a web browser over a NodeJS server, the advantages of "web-desktop-environment" over a regular desktop-environment is that it is much slimmer and portable compared to a regular desktop.
Use cases
- interface for a cloud server (can possibly be used as a replacement for control panel)
- interface for small/low power computers like the Raspberry Pi zero
- interface for controlling your computer over a long distance
A demo video 📹
A live demo 🖥
There is a live demo (serverless) running here
PWA Screenshot 🎞
This is a screenshot of the app running as a PWA in a detachable windows mode
Upcoming features 🎆
Media Players apps are on there way
Looking to build a full-stack app that pushes the web to its limits yourself?
if so you may be interested in the framework I build and used to build this project, the framework is "@react-fullstack/fullstack" and you can read more about it here
shmuelhizmi
/
react-fullstack
a set of packages for creating full-stack React applications
React Fullstack
"React Fullstack" is collection of libraries for creating fullstack applications that are based on React!
"React Fullstack" main packages are
-
Fullstack or
npm i @react-fullstack/fullstack -
express server
npm i @react-fullstack/server-express
All my progress since the first post 🥳
Since the last update, I have made a few new features and improvement
- Resizeable windows - you can now resize windows.
- Notepad - a notepad app.
- PWA - the app can now also run as Progressive Web App.
- Detachable windows mode - you can now run the desktop in a detachable windows mode which means that every window will open as a separate native window.
- style changes - the app is currently moving thought a big style redo, to give it a more "native os" like style.
- big speed improvement from moving the backend from reflow to my own framework "@react-fullstack/fullstack"
- custom themes - create your own theme using the settings app
Contribute yourself 🎁
if you like the project and interested in contributing to it yourself - feel free to open a PR thought Github.
Note that contribution does not have to be in the code side of things, contributing to the project README would be awesome!
Checkout the project 🎮
shmuelhizmi
/
web-desktop-environment
a web/node-based cross-platform desktop environment
A cross-platform desktop-environment with a web interface
What is a Web Desktop Environment
just like any other desktop environment it is just a visual interface for your computer.
the twist with this desktop-environment is that "web-desktop-environment" visual interface runs on the web with his server running localy on your computer
Use Cases
- interface for a cloud server (can possibly be used as a replacement for control panel)
- interface for small/low power computers like the Raspberry Pi zero
- interface for controlling your computer over a long distance
The technologies behind "web-desktop-devironment"
both the server and are build using a react framework called "react-fullstack" which is a framework for building fast react applications that rely a tight connection between the client and the server.
Screenshots
Contribute
if you have any new feature or existing feature you wnat to create or improve fell free to open a Pull Request
Discussion