🌌 daedalOS 🌌

Desktop environment in the browser

Feature Overview

System 🧠

File System

• File Explorer
  • Back, Forward, Recent locations, Up one level, Address bar, Search
  • Thumbnail & Details Views
• Drag & Drop File Support (internal & external)
  • Loading progress dialog
• Archives
  • Browse ZIP & ISO files as folders
  • Create ZIP files (fflate)
  • Extract 7Z/GZ/RAR/TAR/etc. (7z-wasm)
• Writes to IndexedDB
• Group selection/manipulation & drag to sort/arrange
  • Sort by name, size, type or date
  • Persists icon position/sort order
• Dynamic and auto cached icons for music, images, video & emulator states
• Context Menus
  • Cut, Copy, Create shortcut, Delete, Rename
  • Add file(s), Map directory
  • Open with options/dialog, Open file/folder location, Open in new window, Open Terminal here
  • Download, Add to archive, Extract here, Set as wallpaper, Set as mouse pointer, Convert audio/video/photo/spreadsheets, Properties (w/Details)
  • Sort by, New Folder, New Text Document
  • Screen Capture
• Keyboard Shortcuts
  • CTRL+A, CTRL+C, CTRL+X, CTRL+V, Delete (or CTRL+D)
  • F2 (Rename), F5 or CTRL+R (Refresh), Backspace (Up one level)
  • Arrows, Home, End, Enter (Open), ALT+Enter (Properties), ALT+N (New window)
  • CTRL+SHIFT+3 (Thumbnail view), CTRL+SHIFT+6 (Details view)
• File information tooltips

Windows

• Resizable and Draggable
• Minimize, Maximize & Close
• Persists size/position/maximized states
• Animates opening and closing

Start Menu

• Expandable Sidebar
  • Apps list, Documents/Pictures/Videos shortcuts, Power (clears session)
• Spotlight visual effect
• Folder support
• Opens with SHIFT+ESC (or the Windows key in fullscreen)

Taskbar

• Peek hover preview of windows
• Focused window indicator
• Search menu (w/Recent files)
• AI Chat Agent (Prompt API & WebLLM) (w/Summarize & Image Generation)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
SHIFT+ESC	Start Menu
SHIFT+CTRL+E	File Explorer
SHIFT+CTRL+R	Run dialog
SHIFT+CTRL+S	Search
SHIFT+CTRL+X	Start button context menu
SHIFT+CTRL+D	Show desktop
SHIFT+CTRL+Up / Down	Maximize / Minimize (or restore)
SHIFT+F5	Reload
SHIFT+F10	Terminal
SHIFT+F12	DevTools
CTRL+ALT+F4	Close focused window
F11	Toggle fullscreen

In fullscreen the Windows key opens the Start Menu, Windows key combos work in place of SHIFT+CTRL (e.g. Windows Key + R), ALT+F4 closes the focused window and ESC exits fullscreen.

Clock

• Runs in a Web Worker
  • Drawn in an OffscreenCanvas
• NTP server time mode (ntp.js)
• Synced to system clock on load
• Date tooltip
• Calendar popup

Background & Screensaver

• Dynamic animated wallpapers (OffscreenCanvas/Web Worker)
  • Milky Way (density wave theory, device orientation parallax)
  • Vanta Waves
  • Hexells
  • Matrix (2D & 3D)
  • Coastal Landscape
• Set via image/video (Fill, Fit, Stretch, Tile, Center)
• Picture Slideshow
• Online image sources
  • NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
  • Art Institute of Chicago
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Lorem Picsum
• AI generated wallpapers via Stable Diffusion (requires WebGPU)
• Screen saver file support (.xscr)
  • 3D FlowerBox
  • 3D Maze
  • 3D Pipes
  • Hackers

Run Dialog

• Launch apps by alias or paths
• Opens ipfs:// & nostr: URIs

URL

• Query parameter loading
  • Examples:
    • /?url=/CREDITS.md
    • /?app=Browser

Apps 🧪

BoxedWine (.exe, .zip)

• Runs 16/32-bit Windows applications

Browser (.htm, .html)

• Loads websites (w/CORS support)
• Bookmark bar with favicon support
• Proxy support (Wayback Machine & The Old Net)
• Back/Forward & Reload
• Google search via Address bar
• IPFS protocol support
• chrome://dino game

DesktopFly

• Fruit fly pets driven by a live spiking simulation of 9,907 real FlyWire connectome neurons, with escape, backward retreat, grooming, sleep & circadian rhythm
• Every fly has its own brain & senses: window edges are walkable terrain, dragged windows & the cursor loom, clicks swat, and a takeoff startles nearby flies
• Flies learn: swat one while it is watching something and it learns to avoid that thing
• Spawn via fly [count] (up to 5) in Terminal or the Run dialog, see fly help for details

DevTools

• Console, Elements, Network, Resources, Sources, DOM
• Activate from Start Menu or SHIFT+F12

EmulatorJS (.32x, .a26, .a52, .a78, .gb, .gba, .gbc, .gen, .gg, .j64, .jag, .lnx, .n64, .nds, .nes, .ngc, .ngp, .pce, .sfc, .smc, .smd, .sms, .v64, .vb, .vboy, .ws, .wsc, .z64)

• Plays console game ROMs

IRC

• Internet Relay Chat Client
• Connects over WebSockets

js-dos (.exe, .jsdos, .zip)

• DOS emulator
• Automatic save states on close
  • /Users/Public/Snapshots
• Automatic window resize

Marked (.md)

• Markdown Viewer

Messenger

• Encrypted direct messaging client
• Utilizes Nostr Protocol (NIP-17, NIP-04 for older clients)
• Automatic public/private key creation
• Sign in with a NIP-07 extension or nsec
• Message requests, spam folder, bulk delete & blocking
• Default contacts from the author npub & the site's /.well-known/nostr.json (NIP-05)

Monaco Editor

• Code/text editor
• Supports all file types
• Save files via CTRL+S
• Line count, cursor position, language id
• Prettier formatting
  • JSON, JS/TS, CSS/Sass/Less, HTML, Markdown, XML

OpenType (.otf, .ttf, .woff)

• Font viewer

Paint (.bmp, .gif, .ico, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tiff, .webp)

• Create & edit images

PDF (.pdf)

• Render/Print PDFs
• Page current/count & Zoom

Photos

• Supported Formats
  • HEIF (.heic, .heif)
  • JPEG XL (.jxl)
  • QOI (.qoi)
  • TIFF & RAW (.tif, .tiff, .cr2, .dng, .nef)
  • Cursors (.ani, .cur)
• Fullscreen & Zoom

Ruffle (.swf, .spl)

• Flash Player emulator

Stable Diffusion

• Creates 512x512 images using artificial intelligence
• Runs locally using WebSD (requires WebGPU)

Terminal

• Activate from Start Menu or SHIFT+F10
• File system support
• Autocomplete & history
• Pipe commands together
• Command list via help
• Git support (checkout & clone)
• Python support (.py)
• JavaScript support via qjs
• WebAssembly Package Manager (.wasm)
  • Ex: wapm cowsay moo (#)
• FFmpeg & ImageMagick conversion
• Weather information
• eSheep
• Neofetch
• Boots Linux in Virtual x86 via linux or wsl

TIC-80 (.tic)

• Runs "fantasy computer" games

TinyMCE (.rtf, .whtml)

• Read & WYSIWYG modes
• File save support

Virtual x86 (.bin, .dsk, .img, .iso)

• x86 emulator
• Automatic save states on close
  • /Users/Public/Snapshots
• Automatic window resize

Video Player

• Supported Formats (.mp4, .webm, .mkv, .mov, .m4v, .ogv, .3gp, .m3u8, etc.)
  • AVI/DivX decoded via codecbox.js
• Plays YouTube videos/shortcuts
• Keyboard Shortcuts (Volume, Seek, Scale, Fullscreen)

Vim

• Code/text editor
• Supports all file types

Webamp (.mp3, .wsz, .asx, .m3u, .pls)

• Winamp audio player
• Skin support (w/random skins via Winamp Skin Museum)
• Playlist & streaming support
• Visualization support ("Milkdrop")

Games 🎮

Chess (.pgn)

• Play against stockfish.js, a friend, or watch CPU vs CPU
• Load PGN games w/move navigation

ClassiCube

• Minecraft Classic compatible client

DX-Ball

• Block breaker arcade game like Arkanoid

Space Cadet Pinball

• Reverse engineering of 3D Pinball from Windows

Quake III Arena

• Port of the classic first-person shooter

Try It 🚀

Requirements

• Node.js 22+
• Yarn

Development

build:prebuild generates the file system and search indexes the app loads at startup, so re-run it after adding or removing files in public/.

yarn install
yarn build:prebuild
yarn dev

Then open http://localhost:3000.

Production

Builds a static export to out/ and serves it on http://localhost:3000.

yarn install
yarn build
yarn serve

Docker

docker build -t daedalos .
docker run -dp 3000:3000 --rm --name daedalos daedalos

Tests & Linting

yarn test # Jest unit tests
yarn e2e  # Playwright end-to-end tests (run `yarn playwright install` once first)
yarn lint # Oxlint