Sakura HyperMedia Desktop

Last updated February 20, 2019

Sakura HyperMedia Desktop is an open source desktop environment and knowledge navigator for Unix. It is written in scripting languages such as Python and Tcl, and therefore runs on a variety of platforms. The Sakura HyperMedia Desktop Project lists the main features as follows:

In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system, which share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.

Unix is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, development starting in the 1970s at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.

A scripting or script language is a programming language that supports scripts — programs written for a special run-time environment that automates the execution of tasks that could alternatively be executed one-by-one by a human operator. Scripting languages are often interpreted. Primitives are usually the elementary tasks or API calls, and the language allows them to be combined into more complex programs. Environments that can be automated through scripting include software applications, web pages within a web browser, usage of the shells of operating systems (OS), embedded systems, as well as numerous games. A scripting language can be viewed as a domain-specific language for a particular environment; in the case of scripting an application, it is also known as an extension language. Scripting languages are also sometimes referred to as very high-level programming languages, as they operate at a high level of abstraction, or as control languages, particularly for job control languages on mainframes.

Hypermedia capabilities hard-coded into the interface
Knowledge Map for user interface elements for knowledge visualization
Speech synthesis and speech recognition user interfaces
Software agents
A Tcl console for reflexive user interface usage

Hypermedia, an extension of the term hypertext, is a nonlinear medium of information that includes graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks. This designation contrasts with the broader term multimedia, which may include non-interactive linear presentations as well as hypermedia. It is also related to the field of electronic literature. The term was first used in a 1965 article written by Ted Nelson.

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech computer or speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech.

Speech recognition is the inter-disciplinary sub-field of computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enables the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also known as automatic speech recognition (ASR), computer speech recognition or speech to text (STT). It incorporates knowledge and research in the linguistics, computer science, and electrical engineering fields.

Subprojects

The software from this project takes a few main forms:

Sakura-OS - a UNIX distribution containing all of the project software, based upon FreeBSD
Sakura - the main software suite, containing:
- Aoi - the graphical shell (an application that serves as a main user interface to the suite, acts as the root window, and contains general purpose menus.)
- LibSakura - the core software library necessary for almost all programs in the Sakura HyperMedia Desktop Project, containing the following sub-libraries:
  - Hyper - the hypermedia and networking library
  - Haiku - the error handling library
  - Futaba - the graphics and windowing library, containing widgets and themes.
  - Cognus - the remote network execution library (a Cognus server will run a Tcl program sends instructions to the client over a socket, which the client executes.
- Sys - a package of command line interface applications, such as a program to look up definitions to words and a reminder utility. Also contains SPM (pronounced SPIM), which is the utility used to install packages in SakuraOS.
A computer network is a digital telecommunications network which allows nodes to share resources. In computer networks, computing devices exchange data with each other using connections between nodes. These data links are established over cable media such as wires or optic cables, or wireless media such as Wi-Fi.
In computing, a server is a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called "clients". This architecture is called the client–server model, and a single overall computation is distributed across multiple processes or devices. Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients, or performing computation for a client. A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers. A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers.
Pak - a library written in Python used for embedding hyperlinks into different types of digital media, such as video, audio, and text. (In fact, it doesn't matter what type of media it is, because the links are put into the container that holds the data, and they refer to individual slices, or contiguous groups of bytes. In this way, the datatype does not need to be known or Wiktionary:Grokked by the library.) It also has the capability to detect links in certain byte positions and return the data that was linked to.
Papyrus - a rudimentary graphical text editor that can output in its own format (UTF-8 with text formatting from the Tcl text widget), and thus be used as a simple word processor.
Fordice - an application termed by its developers as a knowledge manager (because it manages linked portions of files). A user interface for viewing the links between data, and for modifying said links and data. Uses a knowledge map as an interface, and implements search and link categorization using an algorithm similar to Google's PageRank algorithm.

FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993, and as of 2005 FreeBSD was the most widely used open-source BSD operating system, accounting for more than three-quarters of all installed BSD systems.

Shell (computing) user interface for access to an operating systems kernel services

In computing, a shell is a user interface for access to an operating system's services. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending on a computer's role and particular operation. It is named a shell because it is the outermost layer around the operating system kernel.

The user interface (UI), in the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, whilst the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls, and process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to or involve such disciplines as ergonomics and psychology.

External links

Official site

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