4/14/12 - Just so you know, the project isn't dead. I update the date when I stop by the page, just so it isn't assumed. I have many projects, and a job, and etc., so work isn't constant - just when I have time and am in the mood.

About Periscope

Periscope is the result of lots of research into the user interfaces of every operating system from DOS to NeXT to Windows 3.1 and Mac OS X 10.6. I found all current shells and file managers to be lacking in features that were present in older ones, or else lacking in modern features, so I began work on this one.

It currently feels somewhere between Windows 3.x's Program Manager, OS/2's Workplace Shell, and Windows Explorer when in shell mode, and Windows Explorer when in file manager mode. As the project grows and develops, many features from many various shells will be added in a modular sense, able to be toggled and changed to fit the end user's taste.

It has two main benefits over traditional shells:

- Truly multiplatform (runs on Unix, BSD, Linux, Mac, Win32, Win64) with the same copy, due to interpreted language - no recompilation.

- Fully customizable to a particular user's taste (still in progress), even if that user's taste is a NeXT file browser and Program Manager side-by-side.

Licensing

The license is a modified variation on the MIT License, identical functionally to the XFree86 1.1 license. You can find the license at the top of the source file.

Periscope comes with IBM-designed OS/2 icons from the Workplace Shell for Windows, which comes with a license (IBM License Agreement for EWS Tools) stating that I may "modify the Program and merge it into another program". The included icons have been taken in the spirit of my interpretation of this license, and if I misunderstood it, I am willing to remove them immediately from the project. Any icons that are 32x32 will work, however, in standard Windows .ico format.

Getting Periscope

The current release is on the downloads page, and is also available in the bar on the right.

Since Periscope is coded in Python, the "src" package is the only package. There have been binary builds in the past using py2exe, but that tool's later iterations have ceased to function, at least last time I tried them.

Errata

Please note that some versions of the shell come in .py format, so if you notice an unwanted console window opening with the program, rename it to .pyw and change all references to "periscope.py" in the source to "periscope.pyw". Once version 1.0 is released, this will be done by me prior to each release, so there will be no need for you to worry about it.

Periscope requires Python/wxPython on POSIX systems, and for Windows you can find the dependencies in the Downloads section for either 9x- or NT-based Windows. These packages may still contain the "comtypes" library, which is no longer required to run Periscope, i.e., you don't need to install it.

If you opt not to use ActivePython, you will also need pywin32 installed with ordinary Python 2.5 (9x) or 2.6 (NT).

Periscope should work with most versions of Python, but wxWidgets limits us to Windows 95 as the oldest Windows we can support.

Depreciated Errata

Versions v.05 and before are hardcoded to run from c:\periscope (or /periscope, on POSIX systems). As of v.06 this is no longer the case.

Contact

If you need to contact me, yushatak(at)gmail.com is the way to do it, or yushatak on Steam.