SameDesk

SameDesk is a pure JavaScript and HTML library and it can run off any web server, or even the local file system.

Developed by OpenSpot.com, SameDesk is a virtual desktop environment where applications serving directly from different web servers can interact with each other locally at the browser across domain boundary, using a technique we named XDDE (Cross Domain Data Exchange).

Resembling a traditional desktop GUI, SameDesk is also enhanced with browser-adapted innovations such as 2½ D, minimize-to-link, maximize-to-tab, and more.

The SameDesk environment itself is implemented purely on JavaScript and HTML, but web applications based on various standard technologies are also supported, including most AJAX frameworks, Flash, Java, WPF/.NET 3.0, and server page systems.

Heavy-weight applications such as Java applets and ActiveX objects work well with light-weight applications in an overlapping window environment.

There is no need for developers to throw away proven technologies or to bet exclusively on one emerging technology over another. With SameDesk, all options remain open and available. Better still, it is open source.

Unlike other visually similar products in the "web desktop" category, the SameDesk environment is a generic windowing environment and it does not come with any applications.

SameDesk is more akin to X Window than GNOME or KDE. In other words, SameDesk is designed not as an end user product, but rather a framework for building multi-application web sites.

Most existing web applications can operate inside the SameDesk environment with no or little change. Most notably, the SameDesk API conforms to the interoperability requirement set forth by the OpenAjax alliance.

Web applications developed on any compatible toolkits should be able to operate inside the SameDesk environment.

SameDesk is smaller.