Web OS Concept

[JellyFish]

Before I post my concept for a Web OS I will ask: Is it safe/recommended that I give out my ideas on this forum? I mean it's not like someone is going to take these ideas and actually implement them into a product (They're big ideas). However guest users viewing this post might work for big companies and steal my ideas, but not that likely.

Still, do you think I should just spit it out? I like my ideas, it's sorta a dream of mine to eventually create them. I sound like such a noob.

[John Cartwright]

Businessman Jcart says: If direct competition means less profits.. then absolutely not!


However, if you can get away with giving us the idea without divulging the secret ingredients that will make your product succesfull, then yes it would probably be beneficial to bounce ideas off the community.

I mean it's not like someone is going to take these ideas and actually implement them into a product (They're big ideas).

Why not? I do believe most of us do this as a career (create new products/services).


P.S.. whats up with that MAC/Windows hybrid ghost logo?

[JellyFish]

Why not? I do believe most of us do this as a career (create new products/services).

Well it's an operating system, are there operating system developers on this forum? If there were OS developers here, I'd very much like to partner with them.

[John Cartwright]

Web based operating systems are a VERY FAR stretch from traditional operating systems and developers. I wouldn't confuse the two.

"WebOS" are not much different from the many interactive softwares I've developed.. however.. I wouldn't consider them operating systems nor myself an "OS developer".

Have you checked out existing solutions? They are pretty cool. Such as http://xant.us/ext-ux/lib/ext-3.0.0/exa ... sktop.html

[onion2k]

Ideas are worthless. All the money is in the implementation.

[JellyFish]

Ideas are worthless. All the money is in the implementation.

Then I best not let my concepts out then huh?

@John those web app based OSes aren't what I'm talking about. I'm rather talking about Google Chrome OS type of thing.

[PCSpectra]

The odds of you having a genuinely uniue idea on the Internet are about 1 in 500 million. Sharing ideas on a forum probably won't be damaging to your bottom line, much anyway.

There are many OS web projects, I myself have been trying to build a web OS system for more than 10 years. It's something I envisioned for ages and partly why I switched to web programming from desktop programming.

Google Chrome like OS?

I think it's more appropriate to say web based desktops rather than operating systems. Much like how Window managers sit on top of the Linux Kernel, webtops are essentially just that, providing a Window'ed interface over top of a remote operating system, at least this is what I envision.

One day I see home computers being nothing more than a basic linux core and a browser such as FireFox, with all applications being web based.

Eventually even specialized applications like IDE's will be web based, with projects like bespin improving daily, it's only a matter of time.

[JellyFish]

PCSpectra, I share an almost identical view. But I might as well just blurb it out, I can't help myself.

I'll start with the user interface concept. The GUI would be simple, like Google Chrome. Here's a quick mockup.

Navigation Bar
At the top we have the Navigation Bar. Back, forward and refresh/stop buttons. Also an Omnibox style address bar (which could possibly act like a more simple command line). After, we have the Launch button, not Go, Launch; I'll explain the significance later. At the right we'll have a taskbar-like tray, which holds different extensions that can be added. The Navigation Bar is an actual web app that starts at boot. Extensions added to the tray aren't built into the OS, but rather just handled by this simple web app. How does this web app have the ability to launch new web apps/pages? It will have certain permissions granted by default that allow it to access certain APIs (haven't thought it much through, but this is concept not a documentation).

The Dock
Yea it's a dock. I like Macs. I think the dock is a better idea than the taskbar. Win7's superbar or whatever is a step up, but I admire the dock. Each dock item is like a tab in current browsers. Each icon will be like a favicon.ico, only called webicon.png and higher resolution (like 64x64). The entire Dock is a web app that starts at boot, just like the Navigation Bar. There are some ideas I have for the Dock that is not in the illustrated image. There will be a vertical drag part on the top left part of the dock, used for resizing. Also on the left will be a new Pin (much like a spacer in OS X) that can be dragged anywhere on the dock between webicons. After dropped, Pins can be dragged around to squish groups of webicons. Webicons can be dragged around to different groups, etc. It's theme can be changed with CSS. Also, web apps that don't have webicons could have a thumbnail screenshot generated as a replacement.

More
Every web application (web page) is a fullscreen layer over the screen. There are no windows. A layer's background can be colored or transparent or in between. The Navigation Bar and Dock are transparent layers with "always on top" properties. In the center of the screen is the viewport (obviously). It's where web apps are viewed. The Desktop is a local web app on the machine (hence the finder icon in the mockup). Web apps loaded remotely can have transparent backgrounds, though all other inactive web apps will be blurred in the background, thus preventing click-jacking.

Everything else would be a web application. Mainly, Desktop/File Viewer application and a system preference application. Essentially, Every system application would just communicate with system level APIs. The OS will have a start up list, and a open with list. Certain file types open using applications locally or remotely though HTTP (HTTP standard would probably need extending for this).

What do you think so far?

[greyhoundcode]

Certain file types open using applications locally or remotely though HTTP (HTTP standard would probably need extending for this). What do you think so far?

So can files, applications etc be stored on the local machine then? I mean, it would not depend almost completely on having an internet connection?

[PCSpectra]

Hmmm you are much more concerned with the user experience and interface than I am at this moment. Architecturally a webtop is a very interesting problem, whether to implement each application as it's own Window or whether you should refresh the screen when opening a new application. I ultimately decided to follow Google and it's Google apps. When you open GMail it' opens in a OS window not an emulated window.

I have tried going with a entirely AJAX approach and found the performance was horrible and sluggish. Using native OS tabs or windows just felt better.

There is no archiectural difference between the desktop and it's applications. The desktop is simply a highly specialized application, which becomes possible to implement when you build in the required extension points, similar to Windows.

Applications can add icons to the desktop by providing an extension that hooks into the rendering process, etc. Drupal and Joomla have the most interesting architecture I have ever experienced, a combination of the two (they are wildly different) would allow you to build fairly sophisticated applications that handled dependencies intelligently. Like when you install Norton antivirus like utilities and suddenly your default 'Save As' dialogs have a new checkbox that says 'scan file before save' or something to that effect. Supporting such a feature requires a hooking system like Drupal, whereas building the individual components, etc Joomla is far better suited.

Cheers,
Alex

[JellyFish]

So can files, applications etc be stored on the local machine then? I mean, it would not depend almost completely on having an internet connection?

Yes. It is IMO that having a complete cloud based OS is just as bad as having a complete local based OS. Why not reap the benefits from both? The problems with being 100% in the cloud: relies on the internet (no connection, no use), and no physical possession of your data (someone bombed google, now what?). Having your things in the cloud is nice, buy why not bring yourself to the cloud (There's a deeper concept here, that I might convey bellow).

... whether to implement each application as it's own Window or whether you should refresh the screen when opening a new application. I ultimately decided to follow Google and it's Google apps. When you open GMail it' opens in a OS window not an emulated window.

Not so sure what you mean by Google's approach; do you mean to have the application take up the entire viewport like the web browser does, rather than have a windowing system (which most Windows users maximize there windows anyway)?

In my OS concept every application took up the entire viewport. There was no window to resize, minimize, maximize. It's just web browser concept, where every page gets it's own viewport. I was thinking that if application developers wanted windows in their applications, then they can simply create the windows within the page (some people call these DHTML windows). They could set the background of there app to transparent if they wanted.

I have tried going with a entirely AJAX approach and found the performance was horrible and sluggish. Using native OS tabs or windows just felt better.

What do you mean AJAX approach? As far as I know AJAX is the term coined for technology of the web that allows you to make HTTP request within web applications. How does AJAX relate to a UI element such as tabs or windows?

Living in the Cloud
With computers today you have a local machine that accesses your information/life in the cloud. Your local machine isn't necessarily apart of the cloud in any way, until you turn it into a server. What if we can make every local machine apart of the cloud without turning it into a heavy server (Opera Unite)?

Another idea is to create external hard drives with wifi connective capabilities. The drive or Cloud Drive would host a small FTP/HTTP server. Allowing it to receive request from anywhere in the would. Password protected of course and possibly other security layers as well. Make the Web OS capable of connecting to cloud drives like this, you could connect to your hard drive from any computer from anywhere. Not only that, you can have larger amounts of space the on a cloud drive without lugging it around. You laptop can connect to you data via a local hotspot at a coffee shop. Idk if the cloud drive idea could work technically, but it would be great if it did!

The idea of cloud computing is that all your data is hosted for you by various services (google, facebook, dropbox, etc). This is good, but what if you could host your own stuff in the cloud.

[JNettles]

What do you mean AJAX approach? As far as I know AJAX is the term coined for technology of the web that allows you to make HTTP request within web applications. How does AJAX relate to a UI element such as tabs or windows?

I think he meant doing an Ajax call for the new window rather than rerendering the entire page.

Applications can add icons to the desktop by providing an extension that hooks into the rendering process, etc.

Not sure how complicated that scheme would be but my guess is it would probably be easier to maintain a database of file locations w/ SQLite. Of course, you could have the database keep track of which apps are hooking into what - give a bit more robust solution.

[PCSpectra]

I dislike the idea of any client machine ever dupplicating data stored on a server, personally.

Google Gears and it's attempt to bring the data back to local storage is not where the future is heading, IMO.

A thin client will always best perform by querying a server. If you are nervous about Google hosting your data (or Amazon, etc) than you are either paranoid (Google will do it better than you at home any second of the day) or have a lousy internet connection. Personally, the Internet goes down once in a blue moon, in which case I think having a redundant connection makes more sense and costs me less than hosting the cloud at home. Unless I misunderstood your explanation, which is very likely.

I could easily have two ISP's if connectivity was that important to me, or I would sign up for a business connection which has a much less downtime average.

I see a webtop replacing the desktop experience completely, your local machine would have only a large enough hard disk to hold a core linux with FF and cookies.

Cheers,
Alex

[greyhoundcode]

Google Gears and it's attempt to bring the data back to local storage is not where the future is heading, IMO.

I for one like the concept of Gears from the point of view that it can speed things up. The Wordpress dashboard (in my experience) runs very quickly indeed when Gears is utilised.

I believe the HTML5 standard will also include local data storage?

... or have a lousy internet connection. Personally, the Internet goes down once in a blue moon, in which case I think having a redundant connection makes more sense and costs me less than hosting the cloud at home ... I see a webtop replacing the desktop experience completely

Fair one. But if for instance you commute to work on a train you might be reliant on wifi/3G services that don't always provide a seamless, fast connection. It's worth thinking about the netbook market, too.

[JellyFish]

Internet hardly ever goes down. But a internet connection isn't everywhere. Your computer would be useless when travelling and there's no internet. You might say "What are you going to do without internet anyway?" Well, there are lots of desktop applications that don't need an internet connection: Photo editing software, video editing, text editing, any-other editing. If you had no internet connection and you where a writer, you couldn't be productive on the plane for example.

What I envision, is a web where all applications can run remotely and locally, just the same. If you went to Google Docs, or 280 Slides, you can, without downloading the app, use it. You can also choose to "cache it"/download it. Storing it locally would give you the ability to use your computer without internet, to a certain extent. Also, rather than downloading an application like 280 slides every time you access it, which would use more resources and energy, you could store it locally.

When I was talking about cloud drives, I was trying to convey the idea that your local machine doesn't have to be so local. Combine the benefits of both local and remote. For an example, you bring your laptop pretty much everywhere. You can connect to the cloud, but you can also use your computer when your in the jungle/nature where there's no internet connection. One day you leave your laptop at home on your desk next to your wifi router. You visit your friends house to hang out, then you decide you want to share some photos that you took during your travels to the "jungle/nature" that I mentioned. You stored these photos on your laptop, but no worries, you get on your friends laptop, desktop, or you use a mobile device of some kind. Your friend has wifi, so you connect to your computer through the cloud. Your able to access your laptops built in cloud drive sense it's connected to your wifi at home. You are now able to remotely access all your information on your laptop, and share your photos with your friends.

Let's see how the above situation would work in a completely cloud based computing society. First of all, you're on your trip in the jungle/nature and you take photos with your camera or mobile device. If your mobile device where a cloud based device, it would NOT have local storage so you'd need an internet connection in order to take photos. Unless somehow the internet was accessible globally by mobile networks, you couldn't take your photos. However, let's say your mobile device does have a small local storage drive. You could take some photos! If you had a larger local storage drive on your laptop that you brought with you, all the better! A complete cloud computing world would require connectivity everywhere. Until a service provider (mobile networks or ISPs) are able to connect you from anywhere on the globe, a cloud+local combo has advantages.

Even if an ISP could serve from anywhere on the globe, how much would it cost to maintain this infrastructure, not only connectivity but also storage services? The architectural design of cloud based computing is everyone connecting to the big guy(s) (Google or something). This gives everything to the big guy. If government got involved, the could easily exploit your data without your knowing. Having everything in on place might seem convenient, but it makes it easier to control. Hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it is possible, and likely, this could happen. Complete cloud computing vs cloud+local is analogous to SVN vs Git, in a way. Wouldn't it be better to give more control to the user-agents, spreading the server technology and it's power.

We think accessing the internet is exciting, how about becoming the internet?!