So I don’t know about you all, but I like to use my desktop as a launching page for programs. However, I love sorting things, so I put many of these programs into categorical folders: Video, Audio, Development tools, Games, etc…
The problem I see here, is that these folders behave like any other folder in the OS, they just open up the file explorer. But that’s not really what I want. The file explorer provides too much information, and the window (at least on windows) appears wherever I last had an explorer window open. All I want is for the folder on my desktop to expand right where the folder sits, and reveal only of the programs inside- like how home screen folders in Android or iOS work.
I’m a developer (mostly web stuff) and I use Windows 10 and Xubuntu. I use Windows for games and general tasks, and Xubuntu for development related tasks.
I’ve been looking around the web for something like this, but I haven’t found much other than custom folder icons- If you have come across something like this, please let me know!
I’m not trying to monetize anything, but this just sounds like it could be a fun project to build out myself (or with some of you!). I’m pretty decent with Java and C++, but I’m just not sure where to start. I suspect it would be easiest to do on linux, perhaps though use of GTK or some desktop environment tweaking? @wendell you know a lot about Linux, have you done anything like this before? Have ideas on what APIs I could use to build something like this? If anyone else would be interested in working on this with me me, we could make a github repository too!