[d3Xt3r]

WinApps doesn't use a Docker backend btw, you can use any Windows machine running anywhere - cloud, physical, container etc. All you need is the IP address of the box once it's set up.

This looks great though. +1 choosing Qt instead of Electron. -1 for Python though. Otherwise, your approach ticks most of my boxes.

One feature I'd like to see though is reverse file associations - basically associate Linux filetypes inside the Windows VM so that any file you open in a Windows app would open the file in Linux, assuming Linux has a file association for it. Say I've installed Directory Opus in the VM and I want to use it as my primary file manager in Linux, and say I double-click on a .xml file, I would like to open it in the Linux app associated with that filetype (which would be Kate in my case).

[thesuavefactor]

What's wrong with python for this use case?

[d3Xt3r]

I'm fine with the language, I just don't like its dependency ecosystem. I don't mind using it for quick-and-dirty single-file scripts, but once a python project reaches a certain level of complexity, you start relying on external libraries and before you know it, you now have to maintain this messy behemoth of a project with a gazillion dependencies, breakages and potential vulnerabilities up the chain... just thinking about it gives me a headache.

[romanroe]

Doesn't this apply to every language? You always will rely on external libraries once a project reaches a certain level.

[Induane]

Python has nothing on the sprawl of nodejs packages.

It is a fair criticism and some languages do fare better than others. Python is kind of in the middle there in my opinion. It's pretty easy to keep a relatively simple dependency graph with a little bit of discipline.

[thetoon]

Certainly not those where you need to reimplement everything yourself, at least ;)

[kernalix7]

yeah.. I also agreed with that. so I'll optimize the code continuously and lower the dependency on python. but for now I'll keep it because of some benefits.

[kernalix7]

Now it supports reverse-open

[kernalix7]

Right, I had WinApps pinned to dockur in that comparison and missed the IP-based flexibility part. That's an actual difference, will fix the README.

On Python: fair pushback. Picked it for stdlib coverage (zero runtime deps on 3.11+, one tomli fallback for 3.9/3.10) and iteration speed. Heavy lifting is in the container and FreeRDP so perf hasn't been the bottleneck, but yeah the language choice is a tradeoff.

Reverse file association is interesting, hadn't thought about that direction. The v0.3.0 agent could probably handle it but I'd want to look at the security model first. Marking it TBD. If you open an issue with the use case that'd help me scope it.