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Tiny Apps

tinyapps.org

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Re: Tiny Apps

#51

Post by jaclaz »

lsh wrote: post #2

I was curious about how small (file size) and efficient (memory) I could write a program with a GUI and came across this old gem. Most of them have links to their source.

Have a look at this one (Winexplorer by Edgar Hansen):

https://web.archive.org/web/20160710205728/http://donkeyssta...

https://web.archive.org/web/20160619170739fw_/http://donkeys...

Via Wayback Machine,unfortunately, as often happens another dead piece of the internet.

The actual Winexplorer tool has not been cached, I just uploaded a copy here:

http://www90.zippyshare.com/v/OlyKhob6/file.html

The compiled executable is 164 kb, and the .zip includes sources.

It is a simple replacement for Explorer with a number of nice features.

Re: Tiny Apps

#52

Post by jaclaz »

mmsimanga wrote: post #25
steanne wrote: post #6

nice! mailed them a couple more.

Perhaps you could add software links to your comment. I am always on the lookout for small applications that get the job done.

A good ol' favourite of mine, the DSFOK toolkit:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/dsf...

Sort of dd for Windows:

dsfi.exe 5,061 bytes

dsfo.exe 6,637 bytes

fsz 6,144 bytes And - as a side note - a related rant: http://reboot.pro/topic/15207-why-everything-is-so-dmn-diifi...

Re: Tiny Apps

#53

Post by wernsey »

x0x0 wrote: post #26
shliachtx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why this field hasn't been disrupted yet. It seems ripe for it. Established players. Arcane systems. Poor performance. From what I've heard from employees at Epic their software is something of a nightmare. Is it just something waiting to happen? Is there a company that is already doing this? It could probably be done one independent hospital at a time. Eventually you could get a small network, etc. I unders…

I worked at Epic a long time ago. They're a bad employer -- churn that would make the worst valley sweatshop blush -- and even when I worked there had 10s of millions of lines of vb6 and the same in mumps/cache, the world's worst programming language. I'd imagine their systems have broken 100m lines of code by now. You're essentially using software to automate how hospitals and outpatient clinics work. Each one of th…

TDWTF had an article about MUMPS that stands out in my memory [1]

When I see COBOL fixed width data at my workplace, I just think about that article and thank my lucky stars.

[1] http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS

Re: Tiny Apps

#54

Post by badsectoracula »

microtonal wrote: post #36
voltagex_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a lot, mainly due to being grumpy about the proliferation of Electron apps and the effect that's having on my available RAM. When I'm not being so grumpy, I'm glad it's easier to write apps than ever before. I think someone on here posited that it's a choice between something written in Electron or not written at all. I think that's fair enough - maybe we just need to make it easier to w…

I'm glad it's easier to write apps than ever before. But it was easy before. If you are willing to forego completely native UIs (which you are when you are using Electron), it's always been easy to make GUI apps with Qt. Drag together an UI in designer, use (py|whatever)uic to generate classes, hook up signals/slots, and you are done. I can only pin it on intellectual laziness of front-end programmers not wanting to…

I'd say that with Lazarus (http://www.lazarus-ide.org/) it even easier - just drag/drop the controls to forms to build your GUI, double click on buttons/checkboxes/radiobuttons/whatever or click on menus or double click on the event editor to automatically write the event handling boilerplate code and you just write the actual code in-place. Creates native executables without need for runtimes or big DLLs (you can use Qt as a backend if you like though and in Linux you have to choose between Gtk and Qt).

Here is an old video i made 2-3 years ago where i write a small 2D tilemap editor with Lazarus (the first 5-6 minutes are downloading and installing Lazarus and a tile editing tool i wrote since i used Windows 7 for that vidoe and the Win7 paint program sucks) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3JgeIUo1X0

Re: Tiny Apps

#55

Post by pingiun »

bananaboy wrote: post #15

Hey nice! I wrote a minimal Windows console-based hex editor [0] just recently for fun. Maybe I should submit it. [0] https://github.com/samizzo/hexed

That's really cool! You should submit it

Re: Tiny Apps

#56

Post by RachelF »

iliketosleep wrote: post #14

Progress is modern computing has only been exceeded in the increased in bloatware! Using these lean and mean apps on modern hardware is heavenly - the way I imagined, 10 years ago, of how things would be today.

Yeah, heaven is old software on new hardware!

Re: Tiny Apps

#57

Post by makapuf »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #50
voltagex_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about this a lot, mainly due to being grumpy about the proliferation of Electron apps and the effect that's having on my available RAM. When I'm not being so grumpy, I'm glad it's easier to write apps than ever before. I think someone on here posited that it's a choice between something written in Electron or not written at all. I think that's fair enough - maybe we just need to make it easier to w…

> And yes, I know as a C# developer sitting on top of hundreds of megabytes of runtime, I'm "part of the problem". This should be a solvable problem, IMO. I mean, C/C++ apps are not inherently tiny - they sit on top of a large runtime too, but one that usually comes with the OS. What makes Python or Lisp apps (in binary form) multi-megabyte by default is that they can't depend on users having the runtime installed, u…

Python runtime also uses that same C runtime so it's not as if you can replace one with another. Besides, stripped static binaries in C or even C++ can be relatively small. JRE is not installed by default on many desktops, let alone embedded.

Re: Tiny Apps

#58

Post by dkersten »

ethagnawl wrote: post #18

This calls to mind: http://suckless.org/ > Home of dwm, dmenu and other quality software with a focus on simplicity, clarity, and frugality.

I love dmenu, its tiny and to the point and just works.

Re: Tiny Apps

#59

Post by microtonal »

voltagex_ wrote: post #37
microtonal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad it's easier to write apps than ever before. But it was easy before. If you are willing to forego completely native UIs (which you are when you are using Electron), it's always been easy to make GUI apps with Qt. Drag together an UI in designer, use (py|whatever)uic to generate classes, hook up signals/slots, and you are done. I can only pin it on intellectual laziness of front-end programmers not wanting to…

Is a PyQt app really more lightweight than Electron? To be fair, Qt is a lot trickier than Electron - you've mentioned slots and signals which are not something you'd encounter every day (at least in webdev world). Edit: I also don't buy any argument that relies on "intellectual laziness". There's enough elitism around already.

Is a PyQt app really more lightweight than Electron?

I just tried, because it's only 5 minutes of work. The demo apps (including a movie player and an image viewer) are generally in the 30MB of memory ballpark on OS X.

you've mentioned slots and signals which are not something you'd encounter every day

It's something that you can pick up in a few minutes. Widgets emit signals. You can connect signals of choice to slots to handle those signals. In Python, a slot is just a Python method. In C++ is slot is also a method, but you have to add a small 'annotation' that is processed by moc.

Re: Tiny Apps

#60

Post by wolfgke »

j_s wrote: post #24

Although it was "removed due to copyright violations"[1] in 2003, TinyWindowsGames.com was a work of art. If you don't mind downloading random binaries you can still grab them via the Internet Archive. I will see if I can create a new screenshot of the playable, tiny thumbnail near the system tray (probably microscopic at today's resolutions). https://web.archive.org/web/20030618002602/http://www.tinywi... [1] Ninten…

Which shows that copyright is a form of censorship.
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