meowOS - Stardance

Ship #1

@arman on meowOS · 12 days ago

What did I make?
A browser based desktop OS. It has a boot screen, a window manager, a taskbar, desktop widgets, and seven apps and its all cat themed.
You can open and drag windows around, change your wallpaper, use a terminal, write notes, check the time. It actually feels like an OS, which was the whole point.

Live at https://meowos-web.vercel.app

What was challenging?
SSR kept biting me. Next.js renders on the server first, so anything touching localStorage or window would crash on Vercel even when it worked fine locally. Took a while to track down every spot that needed a guard.
The window maximize animation also gave me grief windows would snap and drag at the same time in this weird magnet effect. Fixed it by separating animation state from logical state so the transition only fires during the toggle, not while dragging.
I also tried adding route transition fades between boot, shutdown, and desktop. Spent a few hours on it, kept breaking things, eventually just cut it.

What am I proud of?
The boot screen. Kernel text prints line by line, fades into a paw icon, then routes to the desktop. It's a small thing but it makes the whole OS feel real.

How to test it?
Go to https://meowos-web.vercel.app
you'll land on the shutdown screen, click to boot.

3 devlogs
9h

Try project → See source code →

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@arman on meowOS · 12 days ago

3h 6m 41s logged

well its done guys

what i built?

i actually had no idea what to start with, i saw a webOS listed, thought it was pretty cool…
i love cats, so why not build a cat-styled OS?
u guys can check it out
here: https://meowos-web.vercel.app/

whats next?

just check it out guys (pls 🙏)

note

i wrote a highly technical long dev log but it all vanished when i closed the tab accidently, i dont have energy left to write all over again 😔😔

also follow me on github
https://github.com/armansinghh

thanks y’all

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@arman on meowOS · 14 days ago

5h 5m 18s logged

Spent a lot of time this session just making things feel right 😮‍💨

Added boot screen and the best part…
Rebuilt most of the apps from scratch basically.
PawWatch now has an actual analog clock face with cat ears on top and a digital readout next to it.
MeowPad got autosave, word count and char limit.
PawShell now remembers your command history and arrow keys work just like a real terminal.
The settings app (PawNel) got a full sidebar layout, a live desktop preview when picking wallpapers, and an About page showing the stack.

Also added two new apps:
File Cat-alog is a file explorer with a fake filesystem you can navigate.
Also added PrrSurf, it is a browser with a cat themed homepage with shortcuts to Wikipedia, AccuWeather, and Excalidraw.

Taskbar got cleaned up too, the paw menu and control center both feel much more polished now.
Honestly meowOS is starting to look like something I’d actually want to use.

Next up is some final polish and getting it ready to ship 😝

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@arman on meowOS · 18 days ago

1h 17m 13s logged

Built the core of meowOS today!!!
A fully working window manager in the browser. Windows are draggable, resizable, and stack correctly when focused.

4 apps so far:
Clock - live time and date
Text Editor - write and save notes, persists with localStorage
Terminal - commands like help, meow, echo, date
Settings - pick from 4 cat wallpapers, choice saves across sessions

Stack: Next.js, Tailwind, Zustand, react-rnd, react-icons.
Next up: File Explorer and Browser app.