The DeskThing is a simple CarThing Chromium-based website that can communicate with a Desktop APP on your computer. The CarThing can:

Note: Not all of these are updated and are pending a revision. This is new as of v0.7.0

• All In One Package 📦

  • Download apps directly from the Desktop App
  • Manage and update the Car Thing's display
  • Probably more - just check it out already

• Configurable Controls ⚙️

  • Make any button do any function!
  • Control audio with the top buttons, front buttons, back buttons, really whatever you want!
  • Modify them from the Desktop UI
  • Add more directly from apps! (Basically, you can do anything)

• Spotify Integration 🎧

  • Show currently listening (Album, Artist, Song name, album art)
  • Control Spotify (Skip, pause, play, rewind, shuffle, repeat)
  • Supports Podcasts too!
  • Set Audio Output Source

• Local Audio Control 🎧

  • Show currently listening (Album, Artist, Song name, album art)
  • Control Any Playing Media (Skip, pause, play, rewind, shuffle, repeat)

• Custom Apps

Gif uploaded via the Image Viewer app

Updating this ReadMe with the updated flashing / installation instructions was tedious and led to confusion

So now, it is contained inside an easy youtube video

You can also check out the Additional Resources for further tutorials if you'd rather look there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW2biAnq0n8

While older versions may work, this is recommended.

Node Version: >=v22.15.0 NPM Version: >=10.0.0

Note: Signed end-user installers are not published by this fork yet. Current builds are intended for development and testing.

1. Clone the repo

git clone <your-fork-url>

2. cd into the directory

cd ./deskthing/DeskThingServer

3. Install packages

npm ci

4. Run the development build

npm run dev

That's it, you should be off to the races! A few aspects of the app are different while in development, but nothing monumental.

Before opening a pull request, run:

npm run verify

Optional self-hosted statistics, feedback, and supporter integrations are documented in docs/SERVICE_CONFIGURATION.md.

The architecture is

src/
   main/ // all of the server-end code
   preload/ // types and definitions for the IPC communication layer
   renderer/ // the GUI of the application
   shared/ // shared types between the frontend and backend that are local to the server (global types are in @deskthing/types)

@deskthing/types is installed from npm with the other dependencies. When developing a compatible types fork locally, use npm's standard npm link workflow and keep the linked version aligned with the range in DeskThingServer/package.json.

Welcome contributions! Here's how to get started:

• Reporting Issues: Use GitHub Issues to report bugs or suggest features. Include details like OS, DeskThing version, and steps to reproduce.
• Submitting Pull Requests: Fork the repo, make changes on a feature branch, and submit a PR. Ensure code follows the project's style (e.g., TypeScript types from @deskthing/types or shared/ directory). For new features, include screenshots or demos if applicable.
• Coding Standards: Use ESLint/Prettier if configured. Test your changes locally before submitting.
• Questions: Open a discussion or issue in the repository that distributed your build.