lonkaars / cinquo

An open source Quadro alternative

Cinquo

An open-source Quadro alternative

Quadro was an awesome app that would let you control your PC with virtual launchpads. Unfortunately Quadro was removed from the App Store. I've attempted to recreate Quadro from the ground up using web technologies, because almost all devices support PWA's and they don't have to follow Apple's App Store guidelines.

Currently this project is still a work-in-progress, but some funcitonality is here! Buttons, sliders, and a basic settings app is working. Unfortunately, there is currently no easy way to create tiles, because they're written in JSON and there isn't a finished GUI to create and manage them, although I have included a JSON schema that should add autocomplete functionality to vscode/coc when editing the palette files.

The server is currently pretty buggy with creating new palettes and I'm considering creating a seperate module for managing palettes. If you don't care for the gui you can also run just the server by running node server/index.js in the src/ directory, though you'll need to reinstall your npm dependencies if you've ran electron-rebuild. Most settings are in server/user/ but I'm working on creating an os-dependent config store, so settings will be in ~/.config on Linux and %appdata%\ on Windows in the future.

Important notes

• Some important code is commented out or messy because I was testing on Linux, full compatibility soon™ (affected files are in src/server, notably processMetadata.ts and actions.ts)
• I've decided (after 7 months) that I'll never finish this enough to call it usable before uploading it to GitHub, so here it is I guess.

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Screenshots

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Features

Buttons that launch:

• Node.js modules
• Files, such as executables or documents in their default app
• Midi messages
• Keystrokes (currently Windows only, because node 12 RobotJS)
• Commands (pretty much useless on Windows but useful on Linux)

Sliders that launch:

• Midi messages
• System volume changes
• Screen brightness changes
• Node.js modules

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Installation

Installation guide is here

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Future features

Cinquo is currently in a pretty much unusable state for regular users. I wouldn't recommend using this for important tasks, because all network traffic isn't encrypted. RobotJS doesn't work on Linux (for me?) with Node 12 and electron, and there are performace issues that cause a delay when changing app focus and it being reflected client-side which doesn't happen on Windows.

See the issues tab for planned features, known bugs and progress on milestone builds.

cinquo's Issues

RobotJS on Linux

RobotJS only works on Windows for me, but I haven't tested this in a while

Start using typescript interfaces properly

Currently, "complex" types are defined as type any because I'm lazy and I need to fix this

Unencrypted traffic

Allow the user to specify either a self-signed certificate, and make all the network traffic go over https, or implement end-to-end encryption over http, without the need of trusting self-signed certificates on each device.

Fix performance issues in processMetadata.ts

processMetadata is very slow on Linux which causes big slowdowns and crashing in some cases

Server not working in electron app on windows

The server console is permanently empty on windows after 33d78ce

Better config files

Use system default config locations, XDG_CONFIG_HOME on Linux, %AppData% on Windows, etc. Auto-generate config files if they don't exist, and implement default values so the app doesn't crash when a config file doesn't have a value or it's value is invalid

Fix garbage code

This project is in a garbage state right now, and these are the changes I'm going to make to create a better development experience

• Start using typescript interfaces (#14)
• Move package.json/tsconfig.json etc. to project root so npm start and tsc work from the project root
• Make a BasicElement class that provides an id, $, and html property, which more complex objects can use without redefining id, $ and html every time, but instead just calling super()
• Clean up/rewrite settings.ts
• Start using built-in API's in the settings app when they're completed
• Create a contributing.txt, code-of-conduct.txt and issue-template.txt
• Create readme files for major directories, explaining what each file is for
• Start using some documentation system (typescript?/jsdoc) to document built-in classes

Password access

Currently anyone knowing the port and host Cinquo is ran on, can see the currently focused app, and interact with it. Requiring a password for authentication, or adding some "trusted devices" feature would make Cinquo safer to use in a production environment.

macOS compatibility

Start testing Cinquo on macOS

Remove the need for user-defined id's in palette files

Currently the palette files are set up so the user has to define each tile's id. This can be fixed by generating a random UUID for each tile and assigning it to the tile's html id attribute

Remove /lib folder

Source all /lib folder libraries from npm and move icon packs to a new directory

CSS injector in settings.ts

Allow injecting css from files or from strings

Create and manage palettes client-side

Allow users to add and edit tiles client-side like Quadro did.

Express not serving some files in node_modules after /lib move

Express doesn't serve most libraries after fa849d9. A fix will most likely be released together with #2

Icon API

Create a simple API that does requests from an icon library and returns html (with inline styles)

Plugin system

Create a plugin system that can access a new api from settings.ts, allowing other developers to create plug-ins that define new tile types, new actions and other cool stuff.

Disable auto palette generation

Create a setting that disables automatic palette generation for new apps, and instead allows users to create palettes that can be used for multiple apps.

Complete manage palettes functionality in the settings UI

There is currently no way to easily create and manage palettes.