Lazarus Desktop Environment

[LazaruX]

LazDesk-E

A cross compatible Desktop Environment, not that difficult with Lazarus/FPC.
What is a Desktop Environment (DE) ?
A DE is just some applications together running in a Windows Manager which will provide you basic functionality, like a Desktop, a Panel (Application bar), File Manager, and so on.
The main idea behind this project is to create a Desktop Environment which will work on Windows, GNU/Linux and MacOS X systems at least, maybe more in the future.

The main idea is to have the following programs all made with Lazarus and distribute them in a package that will become the DE.

What do we need?

- Compiler: FreePascal
- IDE: Lazarus

- Desktop:??
- File Manager:??
- Panel - Application bar:??
- Control Panel:??
- Task Manager:??

- Calculator:??
- Text editor:??
- Browser: ??

- Chat Client:??


I think we should not have an Office Suite, cause OpenOffice or Abiword are there much more time and are probably more stable/compatible than what we could make.

My syggestion is to use the GTK2 toolkit, because this is much easy to use and works on all 3 the systems, while other toolkits don't always.
Why not QT? Well, GTK has been there longer than QT and GTK is an easier interface than QT in my opinion, but maybe later on we can also provide a redistribute with the QT version of the programs.
The application should have a near similar interface, to be similar, so that this DE will have its own style.   

Having the elements what I mentioned above will already be a nice DE, at the level of IceWM, FVWM (which are also Window Managers)

I had suggested this in the past, and people had complained that its too difficult to make such a thing in a cross compatible way, but I don't agree and am sure its possible.

How does it work?

Imagine a WM starts, with just an empty Desktop. We load up our applications, taskbar,...that's it!

What do you think about it?
Who wants to work on it? On what?

[skalogryz]

What do you think about it?

I'm sorry guys, but imho it's waste of time!

Such DE would be welcomed on Linux Systems only. (I wonder if it's even possible to replace Windows and Mac OS X default environments)

But I'd suggest to use fpGUI, instead of Qt or Gtk, since it's language native.

[Laksen]

My syggestion is to use the GTK2 toolkit, because this is much easy to use and works on all 3 the systems, while other toolkits don't always.
Why not QT? Well, GTK has been there longer than QT and GTK is an easier interface than QT in my opinion, but maybe later on we can also provide a redistribute with the QT version of the programs.
The application should have a near similar interface, to be similar, so that this DE will have its own style.

Why not use LCL? That would make it run on anything, and make usage of native theming a possibility. I think this is imperative to any kind of success
Sure, later on we could build a WM even with it's own widgetset built entirely in FreePascal

What do you think about it?
Who wants to work on it? On what?

Well, I think it's a nice idea. It would surely help my plans to take over the desktop market with my OS

I'll gladly help if the project can be done abstract and portable enough

Such DE would be welcomed on Linux Systems only. (I wonder if it's even possible to replace Windows and Mac OS X default environments)

It's possible to some degree in Windows(KDE). You can change the window manager if I'm not mistaken, but that's alot of work(I can't remember which one that did that)

But I'd suggest to use fpGUI, instead of Qt or Gtk, since it's language native.

Again, I propose we go widgetset independent and use LCL

[skalogryz]

Again, I propose we go widgetset independent and use LCL

what prevents from using fpGUI through LCL?

[Laksen]

Again, I propose we go widgetset independent and use LCL

what prevents from using fpGUI through LCL?

Absolutely nothing, I think. Is the LCL interface to fpGUI stable?

[LazaruX]

Well, about which widget we should use its not a big problem, since we are using Lazarus, in 2 minutes we compile the app on the widget we want, ...

[marcov]

Again, I propose we go widgetset independent and use LCL

what prevents from using fpGUI through LCL?

If I see the supported components/widgetset list in the wiki, just about everything?

[skalogryz]

I'm very interested in seeing how to replace Desktop and Application Panel using LCL.

I really doubt in possibility of this for Windows and MacOSX. And i also think it's not so easy to be implemented for Qt and Gtk2 as well. Just because "desktop" and "application panel" is base (or root) of Desktop environment.

Since fpGUI is not based on any DE explicitly (i can be wrong here), it should be possible to create a stand-alone DE using it (based on XWindows) with its own Desktop and Applications panel.

As you guys have already noted I wanted to point, that fpGUI-widgetset is not ready for the usage.

To sum things up:
1) it's possible to replace almost all system native applications and utilities with LCL based;
2) it's next to impossible to write LCL based Desktop Environment;

Btw, I don't think that LCL is a good library for writing DE. It's the excellent library to port Windows (Delphi) code and system native application.

[Marc]

Replacing the windows desktop with your own "desktop" (=shell) app is not that difficult. We use it for some of our software installations, where the user is allowed to only run our software.

For the current user (in the registry):
HKCU\Software\Miscrosoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
  Shell REG_SZ c:\full\path\to\your\app.exe

[skalogryz]

Replacing the windows desktop with your own "desktop" (=shell) app is not that difficult. We use it for some of our software installations, where the user is allowed to only run our software.

Kiosk mode? most of system lock viruses are working the same way

well... i must admit then, writing cross-platfrom Object Pascal ED is possible! But does it worth it?

[Leledumbo]

If I see the supported components/widgetset list in the wiki, just about everything?

You mean this one? Hasn't it been updated or it really reflects the current status?

[LazaruX]

>what prevents from using fpGUI through LCL?

Again which Widgset we will be using is not much important now, in Lazarus you can change widgest very fastly. So this is not a problem, if we decide fpGUI, GTK, QT, lcl, or whatever, that's not a problem now.

>I'm very interested in seeing how to replace Desktop and Application Panel using LCL.

There are more professional ways obviously, but a dirty way of doing this is to just load a Panelon boot and hide the existing panels. As desktop we could use the existing ones in the beginning, or use a Full Screen Form as a desktop.

We already have:

Audio Player: Cactus Juckebox
File Manager: Seksi Commander??? Double Commander???
Text Editor: LazPad
...
...

http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Application_Gallery
http://wiki.freepascal.org/Projects_using_Lazarus

The question is now:

who is intrested in this project? In which part of the project???

I mean, I have been trying IceWM and that is called a Desktop Environment too (apart of beeing a Window Manager), we can make better, much better. Just starting as a bounch of applications whom are united under one creator (Lazarus/FPC).

I am ready to create the application panel and the start menu.

[Laksen]

I'm still interested!

I'm very interested in the desktop and application bar. Those are pretty much the core components

I think we should create a wiki page for it. I don't think it'll take of here

[marcov]

Replacing the windows desktop with your own "desktop" (=shell) app is not that difficult. We use it for some of our software installations, where the user is allowed to only run our software.

For the current user (in the registry):
HKCU\Software\Miscrosoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
  Shell REG_SZ c:\full\path\to\your\app.exe

Are shells win32 apps or winnt ones?

[Marc]

Replacing the windows desktop with your own "desktop" (=shell) app is not that difficult. We use it for some of our software installations, where the user is allowed to only run our software.

For the current user (in the registry):
HKCU\Software\Miscrosoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
  Shell REG_SZ c:\full\path\to\your\app.exe

Are shells win32 apps or winnt ones?

whats the difference between win32 and winnt apps ? You can use any app as shell (even notepad.exe)