WebOS 2 Devlog #15: System Daemon implementation

To keep the users more engaged so even when they saw everythign, they would still spend more time doing stuff, I wanted to build something alive for the desktop environment that would interact with the user. So, instead of a standard app, I built a system daemon! If you dont know what that is, it is a digital pet that hangs out on your desktop and does random stuff. I dont hav ea name for him yet so ill just call him daemon for now. When he’s healthy, he flies around the screen and shouts random stuff at you.

But I didn’t want him to just be a visual gimmick. He interacts with the actual operating system itself and has states:

• He is hungry: Because I previously built a drag-and-drop system for the File Explorer, I hooked him into it. You can drag actual text files or folders out of your explorer and drop them on his face. He will chew them up and literally delete them from the virtual hard drive (localStorage).

• He has a digestive tract: I built a array for his stomach that records what he has last eaten. If he ate a file you actually needed, you can rapid-click his face 5 times. He will regurgitate the raw file data perfectly back onto your desktop.

• He has boundaries: I ‘taught’ him to recognize core OS files. If you try to feed him Notepad.app or the System Settings, he will violently reject them and yell at you.

• He has one more state but that relates to the easter egg so i wont provide any additional details in order to not spoil it

Oh, and i changed his appearance for the retro theme.

anywhat that’s all for this change. I didn’t get into the nitty gritty of how I built him because I am so excited to finish this project. Just a few more features and then I’m done.