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Orb is a free and open source web desktop

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21–30 of 146 posts

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#21
post #19

The demo was exactly what I expected. That being said, quite nice and responsive. Not sure yet what the general purpose desktop metaphor solves in-browser, but nice nonetheless.

Check Synology DSM. When all your access to a machine you use every day is over the web, having a GUI is really nice. And web is the most obvious way to deliver this GUI to you given there's no video card on the machine.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#22

I wonder how things would have been if we had JavaScript based WMs and DEs. I'd have loved an HTML/CSS supported DE, imagine the possibilities! and seeing how performance of web-based DEs is amazing, I really hope we can get a Linux distro with a HTML/CSS/JS based DE.

The theming on Linux desktops is generally CSS based. For example, gtk/gnome shell is fully styled with CSS - with shell extensions written in JS.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#24
post #16
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that runs inside this "desktop" environment is made for it. So it is definitely not competing with Citrix & co. which are made to run existing stuff under existing operating systems...

well, given that everything is made for the web, it seems like it would be pretty straightforward to jam most existing SPA webapps into something like this.

that's the problem: if you look what companies are actually using, there's definitely a lot of non-web technology going on there.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#25
post #5

Why don't we see more of these, given that canvas and webgl and fullscreen are a thing now? Shouldn't this have put Citrix et al out of business?

Because this is not actually useful in any way whatsoever. The point of citrix is accessing legacy desktop applications running on some server via a light desktop client. The whole point of that is not having to replace those legacy applications and not having to install them locally. The business is allowing companies that have ancient stuff being able to continue to use that. It's worth a lot of billions because lo…

I suspect the complicated bit of Citrix isn't the client, rather at the server end to manage multiple instances of apps running efficiently - where these apps are design to expect they own everything in the enviroment.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#26
post #16
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything that runs inside this "desktop" environment is made for it. So it is definitely not competing with Citrix & co. which are made to run existing stuff under existing operating systems...

well, given that everything is made for the web, it seems like it would be pretty straightforward to jam most existing SPA webapps into something like this.

Not everything is made for the web. Most software in use today is not. You live in a bubble.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#27
post #12

I took a peek at the "Explorer" app code base. PHP + JS + jQuery, but surprisingly readable (but a lot of practices in there that are not exactly considered "best" today). Perhaps we have sunk too deep into the SPA/API rabbit hole that we can no longer appreciate simplicity. https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e... https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e...

We are, indeed, in a world where Jquery is now the preferable choice. Frontend development is going through what video games went through in the 80s, so much new shovelware every day that people are eventually going to get tired of it.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#28
post #12

I took a peek at the "Explorer" app code base. PHP + JS + jQuery, but surprisingly readable (but a lot of practices in there that are not exactly considered "best" today). Perhaps we have sunk too deep into the SPA/API rabbit hole that we can no longer appreciate simplicity. https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e... https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e...

I hear PHP is a pretty good language nowdays. Now, if we could just optionally drop the $ sign from the beginning of every variable and use them only for string templating ;).

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#29
post #12

I took a peek at the "Explorer" app code base. PHP + JS + jQuery, but surprisingly readable (but a lot of practices in there that are not exactly considered "best" today). Perhaps we have sunk too deep into the SPA/API rabbit hole that we can no longer appreciate simplicity. https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e... https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e...

We are, indeed, in a world where Jquery is now the preferable choice. Frontend development is going through what video games went through in the 80s, so much new shovelware every day that people are eventually going to get tired of it.

Few days back I became aware of youmightnotneedjquery.com so we can even do away with jquery.

Re: Orb is a free and open source web desktop

#30
post #12

I took a peek at the "Explorer" app code base. PHP + JS + jQuery, but surprisingly readable (but a lot of practices in there that are not exactly considered "best" today). Perhaps we have sunk too deep into the SPA/API rabbit hole that we can no longer appreciate simplicity. https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e... https://gitlab.com/hsleisink/orb/-/blob/master/public/apps/e...

We are, indeed, in a world where Jquery is now the preferable choice. Frontend development is going through what video games went through in the 80s, so much new shovelware every day that people are eventually going to get tired of it.

jQuery is completely unnecessary now, you can use the built in element selectors to do all the same stuff without pulling a huge lib in. The value in jQuery was acting as a shim to smooth over IE's deficiencies back in the day. Now, its a waste of bandwidth.
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