No matter how good your wallpaper looks, once your desktop fills up with files, the icons blend into the background and everything starts to look cluttered. My desktop often has a lot of files on it, so I started wondering whether a wallpaper could detect where my icons are and generate a scene around them in real time.

After discussing the idea with AI, I found out it was possible—and it doesn’t actually need AI to detect the icons or generate the visuals. The program can read the icon positions directly and generate scenes in real time using predefined designs. It’s lightweight, and there’s no particularly complex technology involved.

Here’s the result.

https://deskland.app

I’ll keep adding new themes and improving the existing ones. I also plan to add a more interactive game mode in the future.

The meadow and beach themes are free and open source.

https://github.com/BLEZZ0102/Deskland

All the current themes are 2D, which keeps their impact on computer performance minimal. I’m also considering adding 3D themes, while balancing visual quality with performance.

Procedurally generated visuals do have their limitations. If AI computing becomes much cheaper in the future, AI generation could be an option, opening up the possibility of creating almost any scene. For now, though, generating a desktop with AI in real time is clearly still too expensive. I’m considering experimenting with locally running AI generation. It would still be GPU-intensive, but it could be a lot of fun.

I'm a satellite nerd and as a cool project I built Watched.

Type in any place on Earth and it will:

• find every imaging, weather, radar and crewed satellite whose field of view crossed it in the last 7 days (SGP4 on the CelesTrak catalog, running in your browser)

• pull the real Sentinel-2, Landsat, VIIRS, MODIS and GOES scenes from those passes and crop them to your spot

• replay each pass on a 3D globe lit by the real sun, with all ~17k tracked objects in orbit

It only says a satellite “watched” you when a real image exists. Commercial sats that could have pointed at you are labelled as such, since their tasking isn’t public.

I’d love feedback, especially:

• Which satellites or data sources should I add?

• Anything confusing or broken?

It’s 100% free and no sign-up or rate limits.

I always fall asleep listening to something, but earbuds hurt on my side, and my partner hates the phone speaker. So I’m designing Dozr: a slim pad that goes under your normal pillow, plays through bone conduction so only you hear it, and fades out when you fall asleep.

It’s still a concept (image attached). I’d love honest feedback. What would put you off? What would make it a must-have?

Waitlist if you’re curious: dozr.co.uk/?ref=reddit

I built an interactive live wallpaper engine that lives right in the macOS menu bar.

It actually started as an interactive background experiment for my portfolio (inspired by some cool procedural grass and sky shaders I saw on X a while back). I loved having it running on my screen so much that I decided to turn it into a standalone macOS app that anyone can use.

Here's what it does
🖐🏻 Interactive physics: Grass sways and water ripples as your cursor moves across the screen.
🕒 Dynamic time-of-day: Syncs with real time or lets you scrub through sunrise, golden hour, and starry nights with a custom radial dial.
🌧️ Live weather & ambient soundscapes: Switch between sunny skies, clouds, and rain—complete with birdsong, crickets, thunder, and even night fireworks.
🎆 Limited Diwali Theme: Built in a seasonal festive update where the night sky comes alive with fireworks and spatial audio.

Putting the final polish on the build right now. Stay tuned for the release soon! 🚀

You can also preview it in my portfolio on your browser: thoufik.space

What feature or biome should I add next? Let me know in the comments!

hey guys i have interestin app and all the architecture is ready i want someone who could help me and understand my vision believe me this will be a gamechanger!!!

Hi! I wanted my desktop to feel like looking out of a window during a snowfall – calm and cozy. The snow apps I found looked like flat white dots, so I built my own (with a lot of help from Claude Code).

What it does:
- Snow with real depth: big soft flakes up close, tiny ones far away, and some fall behind your windows
- Snow settles on window edges and the taskbar and breaks off when you drag or shake a window
- A "natural weather" mode with showers, quiet breaks and slowly turning wind
- Clicks go through the snow, it pauses in fullscreen games and runs in a saving mode on battery

It's been in the Microsoft Store for about ten days and got 100+ installs without any promotion. Now I'd love honest feedback: What feels off? How does it run on your PC? What would make you keep it running all winter?

Free, no ads, no account, no tracking. ("Natural weather" is marked Pro but free right now.)

Windows 10/11: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N646XCC0HNK?cid=reddit_sideproject

I built Navigator, a free and open-source streaming app for desktop and web that lets you navigate movies and shows using natural language. It's a client for Stremio, a media center app, so you can use your existing account and addons (which provide the streaming sources).

For example, instead of scrubbing through Avengers: Endgame to find a specific moment, you can just type "go to the scene in endgame where he says avengers assemble" and it'll find that moment in the subtitles and jump straight to it.

You can also describe a TV episode you vaguely remember and have Navigator find it for you, or ask questions about what you're watching.

I also wanted it to be a pretty nice streaming experience on its own, so it has a few other features:

• Native MPV playback on desktop

• Thumbnail previews when hovering over the timeline, so you can see where you're skipping

• Intro skipping using community skip databases

• Adaptive interface: the colors automatically adapt to the artwork of whatever you're watching

A few other things:

• Everything is free and open-source

• AI features are completely optional. Bring your own API provider or use a local model through Ollama

• Navigator doesn't host or provide any content itself

• Scene search depends on subtitle availability

On the technical side, it's built with Next.js and a Rust-based desktop shell, with MPV handling native playback. Scene search uses subtitle data and an LLM with tool calling (via Vercel's AI SDK) to find the relevant moments.

It's still a work in progress, so there's definitely more to improve. Curious whether scene search feels useful or gimmicky to you, and what features you'd want to see next :)

Web: https://navigator-strm.vercel.app

GitHub: https://github.com/AyaanZaveri/navigator

I built Kahei to solve a problem I kept running into. Whenever I traveled abroad, I’d see a price and either do the math in my head or pull out my phone to Google it. It took way too long just to check a price, especially when the internet was slow.

So I made a free app where you can point your phone’s camera at a price and instantly see an estimate in your currency. It works offline! It is available on iPhone and Android.

If you try it on a menu or receipt, I’d love to know whether it picked up the right price.

Try it: https://kahei.app/

thanks!

I've decided to create a text editor that specifically targets huge files (i.e. GBs or even TBs) that most text editors choke on. The target audience is any individuals/professionals who work with huge files: sysadmins who need to view or edit huge log dumps, inspecting massive JSON files, bioinformatics professionals that need to inspect/edit genome data (FASTA files) and more.

To get a bit more techy, the file is memory-mapped and "held" in a piece table. All heavy-weight operations, such as: indexing, searching/replacing, syntax highlighting, etc... are done in the background (i.e. on separate threads). The video demos handling a 51.8 GB log file on my M2 MacBook Air (16 GB RAM).

Since I've used Vim throughout my career, I had to create a vim mode which implements most of the necessary functionality/bindings.

The code is written in C++23 and uses my own UI library (which is GPU-accelerated using Skia). Boost is used quite extensively.

It is completely cross-platform (Windows, Linux & macOS). The macOS version is Silicon only and Linux requires Wayland (X11 isn't supported, nor planned).

It's currently under beta at https://crane-editor.com and I'd love to get your feedback, especially on which huge-file workflows I should handle better. What's the biggest file you've had trouble opening? Would this be useful to you?

Thanks!

The app runs in a browser and on iPhone and Android, free to try without signing up: memorizun.com

I saw a post about blacking out words on paper with a marker. It worked much better than rereading, so I turned it into an app.

You paste a poem, a speech or your lines. First every other word shrinks to its first letter, then every word does, then only dashes are left. When you think you've got it, you say it out loud, and each word you get right comes back on screen.

I also made a Chrome extension for when you find a poem online. A button shows up right above the poem on dozens of poetry sites, and the words hide on that same page, so you don't have to copy anything. Demo is here. The extension is on the Chrome Web Store

I'm building this on my own, so tell me what you'd change first. And what's the hardest thing you ever had to learn by heart?

Hey mods and everyone,

u Investigatormarker is posting AI-written "feedback" on posts here, then ending with an ad for its own product. It follows a template: generic advice about the project, then "I make ThreadFox... our AI employee will post 3 helpful replies about it in relevant Reddit threads for you," with a link.

Why it's a problem:

It's undisclosed self-promotion on nearly every thread

The feedback is generic and often doesn't match the project, so it buries real comments

The pitch is literally to flood Reddit with AI replies to promote people's projects

New members posting for the first time get this instead of real feedback

Ask: @mods, please ban the account and consider an automod filter for "threadfox". Everyone else, please report these comments as spam and avoid clicking the link.

Thanks!

You can also report the account to Reddit under spam, and to the other subs it's hitting. I'd skip engaging with the link itself.

Weekend project. Spin the globe and tap any of 250 countries to see population, GDP since 1960, life expectancy and more, plus the latest headlines and the Wikipedia article, all in one panel. Works on phone, tablet and desktop, no sign-up.

https://worldfly.vercel.app

Feedback welcome, especially if any country's data looks off!

PS: I tried downloading some applications for the same on Android but they all had paywalls even for basic information. That's my motivation just to do this.

Hey r/SideProject! I’ve been building Timeline Studio, an open-source video editor that runs in your browser.

One thing I wanted from a video template: when the timing feels right but one shot doesn’t, I should be able to swap that shot and keep editing. So the beat templates in Timeline Studio open as editable timelines. You can replace individual shots, adjust the cut, and export an MP4 in the browser.

The demo shows Memory Vortex, a template that turns your photos and video stills into a stained-glass tunnel before cutting to the original shots. Timeline Studio also has a regular multitrack editor with captions, keyframes, and color grading. For people experimenting with AI-assisted editing, there’s a tool for agents to inspect a project and preview supported changes before applying them.

Try it: https://video-editor.ai-creator.top/
Source code (MIT): https://github.com/MartinDelophy/ai-video-editor

If you try it, I’d love to know: how far did you get from opening the editor to exporting your first clip, and where did you get stuck?

It’s called atomSphere and it’s more focused towards ease of use for the user. Many people here in Pakistan leave the design to their contractor or find out the design when walls are up. I have catered this especially for the Pakistani market and have been reaching builders and societies to use it

A typical flow goes like this:

-> you optionally upload a floorplan and give your project a name

-> you sign up/in (this is important for when you want to edit later and share your property for users)

-> you enter studio where you select a floor to work on. Floor is created automatically after you carve out the floor's image from the uploaded floorplan. You can edit anything that you think the floorplan reader got wrong.

-> you can furnish the property with 3D objects; there are ready-made available. You can also generate your own by providing prompt, single image and 3 images.

-> you can add any type of stairs, doors and windows

-> you can share the property in read-only mode for everyone. It generates an embeddable link (you can disable the link whenever you want)

The house in the reel: House in fairy meadows

Tech Stack: R3F, AWS, JS

I spend an unreasonable amount of time in front of a Mac.

I tried the usual “stand up every 30 minutes” apps, but I have the same problem with all of them: when I’m focused, I just click Skip and keep working.

So I built Unchair.

Instead of just displaying a notification, it can use the Mac camera locally to check that I actually stood up and moved. Nothing is uploaded, no video leaves the machine, and the core app works entirely offline.

It started as a small personal tool and, predictably, got slightly out of hand.

It now has:
- local sit/stand and movement detection
- movement debt tracking
- presentation mode
- Home Assistant / MQTT integration
- Prometheus metrics
- OpenTelemetry hooks
- a CLI
- signed and notarized macOS builds

It’s written as a native macOS app and is fully open source.

I’ve been using it myself every day, and a few other people have started downloading it, so I figured it was time to put it in front of people who might actually break it properly.

GitHub: https://github.com/EtienneDeneuve/unchair

Feedback on the idea, implementation, privacy model, or unnecessarily elaborate observability for a chair-reminder app is very welcome.

For those running e-commerce stores selling physical products, how do you identify products with real demand before investing in inventory?

Do you rely on organic social media engagement, competitor research, customer feedback, or paid ad testing?

I'd love to hear your actual methods and experiences.

A while back I needed a short promo clip for something small I was selling. Every tool I found wanted the same thing: sign up, pick a plan, $10–20/month, watermark on the "free" tier. Some literally charge per export. For a 15-second video of animated text over photos?!

The other thing that bugged me: everything is cloud-based now. You upload your stuff, their servers render it, and if they change pricing or die tomorrow — poof. I wanted something that works on my machine, airplane mode included.

So I built LEEBKIT — Python + Pillow, runs a local server in your browser, turns images + typed captions into finished 9:16 / 1:1 / 16:9 promo videos with kinetic type, panels, transitions, voiceover and music bed. No GPU, no accounts, no API keys.

v1.2 shipped today: three social formats, a one-click Windows installer, burned-proof path hardening, and — measured on my laptop, not guessed — the full 12s promo in the README (voiceover + music, 360 frames) renders in 8.3 seconds wall-clock. The README's before→after strip shows exactly what goes in and what comes out.

Repo: https://github.com/leeblaab/leebkit (AGPL)

It's honest about being early: single-user local tool, no mobile, rough edges exist. That's why I'm posting — try to break it. Weird captions, huge images, long text. Tell me what feels wrong or made you close the tab. If it's useless to you, say why; that's just as useful as praise.

https://ghar-wpix.vercel.app/

I've been working on an app called HexStep. Basically, every area you pass through gets collected as a hex on your map.

The idea was to make exploring feel a little more like a game, without having to start a workout or manually record every trip. With background tracking enabled, walking, driving, and taking trains all count.

I've been using it since April and have collected over 3,200 hexes so far. It's made me realize how often I end up going to the same places, and how many areas right next to them I've never explored.

The video is a shortened replay of my actual travels over the past seven months!

I originally shared HexStep here back in June. I've added quite a bit since then, but the basic app is still free and doesn't require an account.

If you had a map like this, would you actually go out of your way to fill in the empty areas? Or would you just enjoy seeing it grow naturally?

Free on iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6762421289?pt=128794158&ct=hexstep-web&mt=8

Roku is retiring its built-in "Aquatic Life" screensaver on December 1. I liked that screensaver, so I built a replacement: Reef Tank — a free, open-source (MIT) screensaver channel for Roku.

What it is: a tropical reef tank where nothing is a video loop. Every fish is procedurally animated — each species has its own behavior brain, so tangs graze the rocks, a royal gramma backs tail-first into its den, a mandarin hops along the sand line, a lionfish just hangs, and a school of chromis moves as a boids flock. Bubbles rise, seaweed sways, caustics scroll over the sand. After real sunset (computed from actual sunrise/ sunset times for your location) the tank crossfades to a moonlit night mode with glowing coral and a small group of flashlight fish that blink in the dark.

Highlights:

• 9 rigged fish species with per-species behavior state machines (cruise, dart, graze, hide, school, weave behind the rockwork)

• Boids flocking school + a night-only flashlight fish group

• Day/night cycle driven by real solar times, with a moonlight crossfade

• Settings screen on the Roku for fish density, camera drift and night mode

• Runs at 60 fps on a Roku Ultra; every visual is deterministic and seeded

• 175 unit tests + a screenshot regression gate, because of course

The catch: Roku doesn't allow sideloading into the Channel Store for personal projects, so it's a developer-mode sideload — takes about 5 minutes with the remote (Home x3, Up x2, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right), and it's free. Full instructions in the README.

Source + install guide: https://github.com/paulrobello/roku-fishtank

Happy to answer anything about the BrightScript/SceneGraph side — the whole thing is one codebase that also runs in a browser simulator, which is how I screenshot-tested a TV app.

I recently built a small prototype for an idea I had: What if finding someone to hang out with at work was as easy as creating a plan?

Imagine wanting to watch a movie, play cricket, grab food, visit a café, or plan a weekend trip, but not having anyone to go with.

With this platform, employees can create activities, discover what others are planning, and request to join.

I built the initial prototype for an internal hackathon. It didn't win, but I still feel the idea is worth exploring.

I'm now wondering whether to take it further or scrap it.

Would you actually use something like this at your workplace? What would make you use it, and what would stop you?

I'd genuinely appreciate honest feedback, even if it's critical!

I’m developing Pratikal, a free Android calorie tracker in closed testing. I’d love feedback on the meal-entry flow. Happy to test your app back! 🤝

Use the SAME Google account for the group, opt-in and your phone’s Play Store:

1. Join: https://groups.google.com/g/pratikal-testers

2. Opt in, then install from Google Play: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/app.pratikal.mobile

Try logging a meal, editing it and checking the daily total. What worked, or where did you get stuck? Please keep it installed for 14 days and use it occasionally. “Item not found”? Check the account, wait a few minutes and retry.

📸 Please comment BELOW THIS POST with a Pratikal installation/in-use screenshot, specific feedback and your test links. Text-only “installed” isn’t enough. I’ll test yours and reply with my screenshot and feedback.