Friday, March 21, 2008

We're geeks bearing gifts...

As I type, I'm just ironing out a few final things before I release Project Nelson 1.0 Build 18, as a public beta, on my website. Since I haven't really talked about it much on my blog, let me introduce it to you guys.

image

Project Nelson is a shell[1] for Windows and a suite of accessories. It's based on a task-based view, rather than applications-based. That is, programs are organised by type, rather than name. (The picture on the right is of the Applications page.) It also comes with several utilities, such as a file browser, address book, and scheduler.

I've been working on Project Nelson for near-on three years, so it feels quite satisfying to be so close to putting it out there. (That said, it's only a beta, y'know. There's a lot more stuff to be done.)

My focus on this build was fixing long-running bugs; however, some important new stuff was introduced as well. There are some things that don't do anything when you click on them, somewhat like a fake door - they're there for completeness, but the stuff behind it isn't implemented yet.

For the curious, the Project Nelson home page has a few more answers on the matter.

So, here's hoping for a few brave souls beta testers and better productivity for all. Woot!

--MarkKB

[1] A "shell" is a way of interacting with your computer, a program with which you start other programs, so to speak. Historically speaking, Windows 3.1's Program Manager was a shell. The default shell for the current incarnation of Windows, consisting of the start menu, taskbar and desktop, is managed by Windows Explorer.

Updated 26/09/2012 and 14/07/2013 to fix broken links.