Q.- Is it possible to make a WebApp GUI for Everything?

[Stamimail]

(general speaking...)
I mean the GUI will be in a web-browser, for local use. I'm not sure, but I think it can let the user more flexibility with customization.
The performance will be the same? if not, why?

[NotNull]

I know next to nothing about web technologies, so I hope someone else will fix my errors and improve on this:

Modern web browsers run in a sandbox, meaning that they don't have access to the local filesystem. That is for security. In the past, one could access the local filesystem through plugins like Flash and Active-X like technologies (that is why those got hacked so much as they gave access to the system).
For an application like Everything, running in a sandbox is not very useful.


Nowadays there are also frameworks based on web-technologies (mostly some form of JavaScript), like Atom/Electron and QT that are used quite often to create GUI's.
Those frameworks access the local system through some extra DLL's that are included in the framework. So it is a two-step communication with the local system.
There are a few file managers that are written in these frameworks (fman, File Commander, Launchy), so it is definitely possible.
You could even do it yourself: Use one of these frameworks and Everything's SDK and go for it!

One disadvantage is that Everything will get bulky (the framework has to be installed too). Another disadvantage is that it will run in a separate process and the 2 processes (QT and the Everything database) have to communicate somehow. Most common IPC (Inter Process Communication) is through a pipe and that is slow. At least compared to the current way Everything operates.
You could work around that a bit by asking for a subset of all the matching results (for example 3 pages/screens). That is the way an ETP client communicates with an ETP Server. And that is still quite responsive imo.

[therube]

What is a "WebApp"?
(This, Web application? [Wait till Windows is a "web app".]
I think some versions of MS Office are "web app"? What a joke that is. Hell no, we won't go!)


What flexibility, customization are you looking for?


(Don't get me started on Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM), which I suppose is a "web app" in that it runs from within a browser. What a joke that is, IMO. If it's Linux, it's Linux, & give me a program that runs in Linux, directly, from the box, & not something that runs through a browser.)

[Stamimail]

@NotNull, thanks for your reply
@therube,
by "WebApp" I mean the Front-End part.
let's take for example this Calculator:
https://www.tcsion.com/OnlineAssessment ... lator.html
You can save this webpage locally, and use the Calculator offline. (Tested just a little)
If I'm not wrong, in Chrome you can even get this app windowed (making it like a Windows app) by "--app" switch.
by "let the user more flexibility with customization" I mean that it more easy even to a simple user to edit the GUI by browser development tools.
I don't know if such flexibility exist for Windows programs, a GUI Editor that let everyone to edit the GUI. I'm not so familiar with Resource Hacker.
I never saw such an idea in Windows programs:

• Everything.exe - like the BackEnd (not editable for users)
• Everything.ini - Settings (editable for users)
• Everything.gui - FrontEnd (editable for users)

It can help the developer waste less time on FrontEnd development and improvements (e.g. Dark Mode), and put the focus on BackEnd.

[therube]

(What a convoluted, confusing morass Synology softwares are [IMHO]. And it runs within a browser - within a browser!, no less. Maybe they do this to make it "simple", but to me, it is anything but. It's a computer [NAS]. It's an OS & a file system. Treat it like one, not like a "web browser".)

https://freefilesync.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7396

Chrome extensions are 'the new rootkit' say researchers linking surveillance campaign to Israeli registrar Galcomm

[Stamimail]

I never saw such an idea in Windows programs:

• Everything.exe - like the BackEnd (not editable for users)
• Everything.ini - Settings (editable for users)
• Everything.gui - FrontEnd (editable for users)

It can help the developer waste less time on FrontEnd development and improvements (e.g. Dark Mode), and put the focus on BackEnd.

Thinking about it, maybe the ".wmz" type files (Windows Media Player Skins) is the Windows way/solution for this idea.

A WMZ file is a pre-installed or custom skin that changes the appearance of the Windows Media Player interface, often to match a certain theme. It contains a combination of graphics and JScript code that defines the look and behavior of each skin element. WMZ files are compressed using ZIP compression.

Though, I guess this won't be so easy way for the simple users to edit the GUI (comparing to WebApps editing tools). Good enough for advanced users to create skins.