add html5 vnc support for SMC projects so that we can use X11, X windows applications -- noVNC looks good

[williamstein]

Motivation: this would at least make it possible for people to use various native apps (like GIMP? Octave?) if necessary. Better than nothing. It's something people expect. Also, this could be an easy feature to add that wouldn't have any negative effect on our UI -- it would just increase usage. One way to do it would be via simply a document type, e.g., ".vnc", which when opened provides a full vnc session/desktop/etc using the account of that project. Easy, simple, no added ui weight. I've been planning to do this for a long, long time.

Technology to use: https://kanaka.github.io/noVNC/

A discussion of a similar product: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10289673

Sync -- like in terminals in SMC -- does work, e.g., I tried opening the same vnc session in two browsers and either one can fully interact with the session.

[williamstein]

[rbeezer]

R Commander would be a (graphical) application many introductory statistics courses would find appealing on SMC.

http://www.rcommander.com/

[timothyclemansinsea]

I need this ASAP because of an OpenCV script I'm trying to use requiring X server. I tried building on Icebergs.io but it failed.

[williamstein]

Another possibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11744430

[williamstein]

This goes against the whole point/philosophy/dream/argument of SMC. So let's not do this.

[williamstein]

Discussion of some approaches to this problem here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16358774

And reopening, since I disagree with my previous comment - this can be viewed similarly to term.js

[slel]

Would this allow to run TeXmacs on CoCalc?

[williamstein]

Instead supporting Wayland might be a reasonable alternative/tradeoff. See https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield

[williamstein]

Definitely 100% the way to go right now would be xpra

E.g., on my laptop this worked well, after installing a lot of packages:

xpra start --bind-tcp=0.0.0.0:14501 --html=on --start=xterm --daemon=no --xvfb="/usr/bin/Xvfb +extension  Composite -screen 0 1920x1080x24+32 -nolisten tcp -noreset"

See https://xpra.org/trac/wiki/Clients/HTML5

[williamstein]

This will be available soon :-)

[williamstein]

Teaser screenshot showing VSCode, Octave, TexMacs, and RStudio all running in a cocalc-docker instance remotely...

[rbeezer]

Killer!

…

On 10/12/2018 01:18 PM, William Stein wrote: Teaser screenshot showing VSCode, Octave, TexMacs, and RStudio all running in a cocalc-docker instance remotely... screenshot 2018-10-12 at 1 17 59 pm <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1276278/46892177-5760bb80-ce21-11e8-8eeb-88928c7a9dd7.png> — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#135 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABy2cgw9UZ8Z4DkMdqg5vkihvC06YYo2ks5ukPkrgaJpZM4GFERi>.

[slel]

Note that many plugins for GNU TeXmacs just got updated and given a new home,
including

• Haskell,
• Macaulay2,
• Maxima,
• Python3,
• Rust,
• SageMath,
• Scala.

[williamstein]

Another teaser...

[williamstein]

It's now possible to try this out. CAVEAT: It's still far from done and focus is pretty broken, etc., etc.,

But if anybody wants to just try this out, refresh your browser after I write this, then make a file that ends in .x11. Just do this in any project. You'll get a terminal. As a test, try running gvim or emacs or starting R and drawing a plot.

You do NOT have to do anything to explicitly start or stop any servers, and this is collaborative -- multiple people can open the same .x11 file. However, it's no more collaborative than terminals.

Once you have a new .x11 open, you can use the terminal to open app or do this in any non-X11 terminal:

~$ export DISPLAY=:0
~$ gvim
etc.

and tabs will pop up in the .x11 thing for now.

William

[williamstein]

We now have this. It lets you run any graphical Linux X11 applications in your browser. If you want to try it, click

+New --> X11 Desktop

You'll get a terminal on the left and a blank desktop on the right. Type

~$ xclock&

in the terminal, and you'll a tab appear on the right. Click it and see a clock. Similar for lots of other things
like inkscape, libreoffice, octave, gvim, emacs, gnome-shell, rstudio, VS code, nteract, etc.

[rbeezer]

Very nice. I guess all I need now is a ChromeBook and a CoCalc subscription. ;-) I spent some time messing around with RStudio and LibreOffice and it all seemed to work quite well. I think folks are going to like this.

…

On 11/2/18 2:37 PM, William Stein wrote: We now have this. It lets you run any graphical Linux X11 applications in your browser. If you want to try it, click