“Window drag and resize in React is easy. Making it feel like a real OS is not.”

Content

One of the biggest challenges was creating a desktop environment that behaves like a real operating system.

ARESOS supports:

Draggable windows
Resizable windows
Minimize animations
Maximize mode
Focus management
Dynamic z-index stacking

Initially, dragging felt sluggish because CSS transitions were conflicting with real-time position updates. The solution was temporarily disabling transitions during drag operations and restoring them afterward.

This dramatically improved responsiveness and made window movement feel much smoother.