Introduction
Astroblahhh Desktop, or ABDesktop for short, is a software package which, similar to software packages like WordPress or Drupal, is run with web server software, database software, and PHP. Astroblahhh Desktop can be accessed and used via any typical web browser.
However, unlike WordPress or Drupal, Astroblahhh Desktop is currently designed only for private use on your own computer while disconnected from the internet, rather than for use on a regular online web server.
Astroblahhh Desktop contains three organizers - one for files, one for URLs, and one for ideas (or any random text scraps).
I've been working on Astroblahhh Desktop off and on since maybe 2007. Or, at least 2007 was when I first noted down some ideas that I later incorporated into Astroblahhh Desktop.
I never tried very hard to promote ABDesktop or keep the publicly-released version up to date because ABDesktop's many shortcomings bothered me.
For example:
- The probable security and privacy problems.
- The possibility of not-yet-discovered problems that might result in data loss. (I found one in 2011, but hopefully that's fixed now.)
- The fact that installing ABDesktop was not as effortlessly easy as I would have preferred.
- The fact that I never felt like I had enough time to focus on making ABDesktop as easy as possible for other people than myself to use.
- As the years went on and I became a more experienced programmer, it became more and more obvious to me that the source code is a mess, full of bad practices such as using global variables all over the place. It works surprisingly well despite all that, but it is a lot more difficult than it should be to update.
Despite all that, I rely on ABDesktop quite a lot myself, so it is definitely nowhere near abandoned.
Not-yet-finished and/or not-yet-released things I've been working on off and on since 2013 (or beyond) include:
- I'm trying to make Astroblahhh Desktop into a three-in-one app - runnable as a console/command line app, a web app, or a desktop app - without splitting ABDesktop up into three different packages for each type of app. Instead, they all use much of the same code.
This is far from done, but surprisingly, has been working out a lot better than I thought it might.
Ideally, it will be possible to get rid of unwanted PHP-GTK, web, or console capabilities just by removing some folders from your ABDesktop installation.
- To make Astroblahhh Desktop into a true desktop app, I've been working on a PHP-GTK desktop interface, which I'm hoping will work not only in Linux, but also in Windows and MacOS.
Another good thing about the PHP-GTK desktop interface is that it will liberate me from having to usually run Astroblahhh Desktop inside a VirtualBox with no internet connection running Windows XP. (Which I do to avoid Astroblahhh Desktop's possible security and privacy problems, and also because I've used Astroblahhh Desktop more in Windows than in Linux, so I'm more confident it works properly in Windows.)
- Another thing that will help make Astroblahhh Desktop into a true desktop app will be the ability to use SQLite databases, so I no longer have to rely on a MySQL or MariaDB database server.
But, at the same time, I'm making sure the MySQL or MariaDB databases still work, and that it's still easily possible to transfer data between SQLite and MySQL/MariaDB databases.
Happily, this is already largely functional.
- I want to retain (and add) compatibility with Windows and MacOS. Even though they're horrible proprietary closed source platforms, way too many people still use them, and even I sometimes still find myself with reasons to use them.
- I'm going to make Astroblahhh Desktop compatible with a later version of PHP, such as 5.6.13.
Happily, it is actually possible to compile PHP-GTK from scratch and use it with PHP 5.6.13! I managed to do that either in August or September 2015, while using Lucid Puppy Linux 5.2.8 version 004.
- Maybe starting in late July 2015, I recently became fascinated with graph databases, especially OrientDB.
So, while I want to forever keep the ability to store things in MySQL/MariaDB and SQLite databases (and maybe even add in support for PostGreSql if it seems easy enough, or worth the trouble for some reason) - I'm very interested in somehow doing something involving graph databases.
Stuff below this point was probably mostly written before or in 2011.
Warnings
Since I am an amateur programmer who barely knows what I'm doing, I recommend not trusting this software. Please don't use it for anything really important or which has to definitely be private, safe, and secure.
- Astroblahhh Desktop very likely has major security problems - so, it's safest to use it while disconnected from the internet.
(Or, if you can figure out how to make your web server software and database software block all outside connections, and you're really sure that's really working, then, maybe that would be OK.)
- Another major problem is that, if you create a really large database in Astroblahhh Desktop, and then use PhpMyAdmin or something to add and/or remove indexes from that database, you might literally, physically overheat and melt your hard drive.
That happened to me when I was experimenting with a file database with around 255,000 records. I added/removed about 20 indexes and then got a scary warning from my hard drive temperature software that my hard drive was at 69° Celsius. :-O
So, it's best not to make your databases too colossal. I like to keep my databases down to less than about 80,000 records.
Fortunately, in the course of ordinary use of Astroblahhh Desktop, I haven't run into such dramatic problems as that, since I guess most searches tend not to be as hard on your hard drive as building indexes. But, I recommend being cautious just in case.
- Perhaps the most dangerous features of Astroblahhh Desktop are the file organizer's file moving features.
I'm guessing they are quite likely to fail to work on platforms other than the two I actually use Astroblahhh Desktop on - Windows XP and the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux. (Other, less dangerous file organizer features are also probably unlikely to work properly on other platforms).
So, if you're using a very different platform than those two, or even just a slightly different platform, it's quite probable that Astroblahhh Desktop will have to be modified to function properly on your platform.
Even if you have one or both of the same platforms I do - if you plan on using the file moving features at all, you should first test them on unimportant files you can afford to lose.
Astroblahhh Desktop might also have other serious problems that I'm not yet aware of.
Platforms ABDesktop Works On
Astroblahhh Desktop can definitely run in Windows XP and the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux, and could possibly at least partially work on other platforms (like MacOS, other Linuxes, etc.) too, though it might need to be modified to work properly on them.
There are only two set-ups that I've extensively used Astroblahhh Desktop with.
| OS | Web Server Software Package | Web Server Software | Database Software |
|---|---|---|---|
| Windows XP (Service Pack 2) | XAMPP | Apache | MySQL |
| The Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux, run from a live DVD+RW | LHMP | Hiawatha | MariaDB, a variant of MySQL which is very compatible with MySQL |
If you have a different set-up, or even if you don't, you should be very cautious about using Astroblahhh Desktop.
It might run on any platform which has PHP, some MySQL-compatible database software, and some web server software like Apache or Hiawatha - but as for whether it will work properly, that's uncertain, since it hasn't been tested on a wide variety of platforms.
Astroblahhh Desktop might partially work if uploaded to a typical online web server, but I strongly discourage you from doing that at all, because since Astroblahhh Desktop probably has security problems, and it's not designed to be used on the web or by more than one person.