Shivtanium runs sub systems, like the Shivtanium Interpreter which can be used to safely create GUI applications. These subsystems can run in pararell, and can communicate with each other.

Input is handled by the Shivtanium OS Kernel, which also handles:

• System shutdown
• Killing processes
• Starting processes
• Registering windows
• Moving windows

and more...

Shivtanium uses a custom-written file system: SSTFS That's the reason why you need a SSTFS file for it to boot. An SSTFS file can contain applications, assets, and all kinds of stuff

• Shivtanium Applications have the .sst extension
• Sprites with normal ASCII art have the .spr extension

A SSTFS file contains File headers to seperate files. Here is an example of a filesystem with 2 files:

@FILE test1
This is a file called test1
@FILE test2
This is a file called test2

SSTFS also doesn't extract itself on startup. Instead, whenever a SSTFS file is loaded, Shivtanium reads through the whole filesystem and creates pointers to files (start + end) so that whenever the system needs to read an individual file, it goes to the line bellow that header, and reads the range of lines it needs. Limitations: A SSTFS file cannot contain the exclamation mark (!).

Shivtanium uses a custom-made Desktop Window Manager to render windows with themes. These themes can be customized with resource packs Yes, Shivtanium has a resource pack format.

Creating themes requires VT100 knowledge. The format is easy to understand just by looking at a theme located in: C\Shivtanium\resourcepacks\init\themes\

• To modify the window button controlls, change the CBUI value which should add 9 characters. If more are needed, \e[#E can be used to push the cursor back # characters.
• For more help, head to the .
• Making aero themes will be described on the soon.

It's even easier to create sprites, it's just raw ASCII art located in: C\Shivtanium\resourcepacks\init\sprites\ The sprite loader automatically detects and assigns the width of sprites while loading.

The display dimensions can be changed in ssvm.cww value mode.

The OS name seen in SSVM can be changed in C\SSVM.cww.

And of course, the ShivtaniumOS.sstfs filesystem can be modified with knowledge of the Shivtanium Programming Language.

Shivtanium uses a keyboard layout system, where the keyboard layout is a batch file located in the resource pack: keyboard_init.bat This batch file may contain 3 variable definitions:

• charset_L - Lower case (keycode -> Character)
• charset_U - Upper case (Shift + keycode -> Upper case character)
• charset_A - Alternative (Alt + keycode -> Alternative character)

The variable definitions are long strings containing all the possible characters that can be input.

You can get a character from a character set using the following expansion method: !charset_#:~<keycode>,1!

Keycode is a keyboard key value from WinAPI (used in: getInput64.dll, cmdwiz.exe, getInput.exe)

Example: A is pressed without Shift nor Alt;

• Keycode of A is 65.
• !charset_L:~65,1!

Modifying the keyboard layout can be done in the following way:

• Open the keyboard_init.bat file in the specified resource pack (default: init)
• Change one of the character sets (charset_L - Lower case, charset_U - Upper case, charset_A - Alternative)
• To re-bind a key to a different character, find the character, and replace it with a different one.
• To bind a key by it's keycode, change the character at the position based on the keycode (Example: Keycode of F1 is 112; go to the 112th place)

Applications are written in the Shivtanium Subsystem which is interpreted. More info about it will be revealed soon. (Milestone 3)

This language has a command<tab>parameters syntax. Parameters aren't enclosed with quotes, instead, they are seperated by <tab>

Code examples:

math  1
nocap  The 'math' command works very similarly to 'set /a' in batch. It outputs the result into the `return` variable
nocap  << this is a command for comments. It does exactly nothing.
:main
if  1  ==  1
  nocap  This is a comment.
if  $return$  >  3
  exit
goto  main

With help from the Shivtanium Kernel; Information about creating applications for Shivtanium can be found on the . [in progress: waiting]

• Create a batch file in C\Shivtanium\core.
• Name it with the following format: ic-<command>.bat
• Do not use @echo off nor setlocal enableDelayedExpansion. To call your newly created command, use call \bin\<command>. More information about interacting with the process' environment and Shivtanium:
• %~1 is the PID of the calling process.
• To modify it's variables, use "pid[%~1]v<variable>".
• Printing anything will be redirected straight into the Desktop Window Manager.
• To communicate with the Kernel, redirect (add) data into !sst.dir!\temp\kernelPipe. Warning: Don't lock the pipe! Other processes might want to be using it >:(