Just tried Applino

[Bill K]

Great idea!

If this is going to get into common usage, I have a few ideas that you
might want to consider:

It would be nice to have a way to automatically get new software--a
repository like with "apt get" and a little GUI. Just clicking on an
app could download the aar and start it.

In the same vein, if the repository had a few "Killer apps", you'd be
on your way. Eclipse and netbeans (and jedit?) to start (Wouldn't
they start significantly faster?), perhaps an open-source IM client
and Azureuz (I believe it's open source, but if not, any open-source
bit torrent client).

Now that I think about it, including a bit-torrent client by default
could help with applino distribution from your "repository", but that
may be down the road a ways.

A CLI starter would be nice. something like:
applino notepad
or just:
ap notepad
to start an app.

Also, clicking on an aar should pass it to applino (should be easy
once the CLI starter works)

Once you have the GUI to add/remove/start apps, you could have some
apps flagged as autostart.

I haven't tested for misbehaving apps (apps that allocate all of
memory until they crash, apps that lock in a tight loop). You have to
have ways of handling these things that don't bring down the
container. I think you should ship misbehaving apps in with the
samples to show people that these situations can be handled.

You'll need to handle folders in the applini folder (sub-menus in the
right-click menu)

Finally, a GUI for "Security settings" would be awesome, something
that might allow you to say that a given app should not be able to
access the hard disk, or can open new desktop windows. Something that
might be akin to browser security for applets.

I'd at least like to see that an app doesn't request the ability to
execute programs on my system.

Would you like me to make feature requests from these?

[Dominic]

Hi Bill,

many thanks for the feedback! All of your suggestions (without
exception) are excellent ideas and I will do everything I can to
implement them as time permits. It is important to also look at
expanding the number of developers on this project as some of your
suggestions may require significant effort. In any case, it would be
great if you could create enhancement requests for these (on the
Google code page) to make it easier to keep track and assign them to
specific future releases.

Thanks again for the input!

Regards,
Dominic.

[Bill K]

This has the potential to be fantastic, but I think it all comes down
to reliability (which, honestly, is up to the container). If I can
run a bunch of java apps from one container and have it live
indefinitely on my machine, I'd be really willing to give you a hand.

But if we can't do things like allocate limited memory and cpu time to
individual applications, it probably isn't worth it.

I'm kind of imagining this being like another Windows 3.0 where every
time you get one poorly behaved application you've got to restart all
your apps. If it's not--if it can continue to work as it should
throughout problems, I think there is a lot we can do here.

I'll register these as feature requests and possibly start to delve
into how seriously one bad app spoils the whole bunch.

[Bill K]

I added the feature requests, but I had to add them as bugs--couldn't
figure out any way to change the type, i assume that's something you
have to do.

If applini is singular and applino is plural, I screwed up some of the
descriptions, but do you know how lame it sounds to say: Applino runs
applino? Plus Applini actually sounds like a plural. It started to
mess with my head.

On Apr 25, 7:08 pm, Dominic <dominic.cioccare...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dominic]

Hi Bill,

excellent! I'll get started as soon as I get a sec. On the
terminology, it is applino singular and applini plural. Think
cappuccino (1). If you want two cappuccinos you should really ask for
two cappuccini! Anyway, it doesn't matter too much...

Thanks again,
Dominic.

[Bill K]

Funny, I was just thinking this morning "Maybe I got that backwards".

I'd be interested in helping out--if I get into it and find that it
has reliability issues outside our control, I can always bail on you
later :)

[Bill Kress]

If you want to see a sample of my code, I just created my first google code project--it's a state engine, project is called state-machine.

[Dominic Cioccarelli]

Hi Bill,

sorry for the late reply (I was travelling over the last 2 weeks). I'd
be happy to have a look at your project. I'll check it out over the
weekend when I have a decent amount of time.

Cheers,
Dominic.

2008/4/29 Bill Kress <bill....@gmail.com>:

[Dominic Cioccarelli]

> Hi Bill,
>
> sorry for the late reply (I was travelling over the last 2 weeks). I'd
> be happy to have a look at your project. I'll check it out over the
> weekend when I have a decent amount of time.
>
> Cheers,
> Dominic.
>
> 2008/4/29 Bill Kress <bill....@gmail.com>:

[Bill Kress]

No need--I don't even know why I offered that :)  Has nothing to do with Applino.

When it comes around again in my list of things I'm wanting to spend time on, I'll play with Applino more and see if I can address any of those requests I submitted.