Userland

About this repo

This implementation is not under development anymore, as it was a prototype/proof-of-concept/MVP which I've successfully used to do rapid experimentation and evolve and stabilize the fundamentals of the concept.

I am currently working on a new implementation, which I intend to open-source once it is production-ready.

About Userland

Userland is an integrated dataflow environment for end-users. It allows users to interact with modules that implement functionality for different domains from a single user interface and combine these modules in creative ways.

The UI works as a series of cells. Each cell can be set to a different mode, and each mode implemented as a separate module. There are currently three different modules:

• spreadsheet - basic spreadsheet-like behavior, activated by typing formulas starting with an equals sign (e.g. =1+1, =A1 * (3/2))
• shell - Unix shell mode, where each cell represents one command and its output, activated by typing shell. As the cell switches to shell-mode, it displays its current directory and allows commands to be entered.
• synth - synthesizer mode, activated by typing commands starting with a tilde (e.g ~triangle 220). Pressing Enter when a synth cell is focused will start/stop the audio wave.

Pressing Ctrl-Backspace clears the cell mode back to ?.

This video demonstrates the integration of "spreadsheet" and "shell" modules inside Userland.

At LIVE 2019 I also gave a live demo combining the "shell", "spreadsheet" and "synth" modules.

Running

First, make sure you have the following installed:

• LÖVE
• LuaRocks
• Rust

You can install Rust support in LuaRocks with:

$ luarocks install luarocks-build-rust

Install the Lua dependencies for Userland:

$ luarocks --lua-version 5.1 --local make

Finally, run userland:

$ ./userland