Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps

Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by WillAdams on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @02:25PM (#44239771)

A tool which looks at this sort of thing which was mentioned here recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44118159

but which didn't seem to get much traction is:

https://pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/

but it pretty much only works for JavaScript programmers and their friends (or folks interested in learning JavaScript).

Other tools which I'd like to put forward as meriting discussion in this context include:

- LyX --- making new layout files allows a user to create a customized tool for pretty much any sort of document they might wish to work on --- a front-end for LaTeX

- pyspread --- every cell being either a Python program or the output of a program, and the possibility of cells being an image allows one to do pretty much anything without the overhead of making or reading a file

- Ipe https://ipe.otfried.org/ --- an extensible drawing program, this really needs a simpler mechanism for that and I'd love to see a tool in the vector drawing space which addressed that --- perhaps the nascent https://graphite.rs/ ?

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by Y_Y on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @03:16PM (#44240344)

Very pleased to see LyX and Ipe here. They've been invaluable throughout my academic career, and are just a pleasure to use (once you get the hang of them).

The Qt/KDE world has (imho) some of the best quality software I've used, and is, astonishingly, relatively unpopular compared to FOSS competitors.

Ipe now has a web interface (through the magic of Qt) and I remember there was a plan to make one for LyX, though if it ever happened, I couldn't find it.

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by jauntywundrkind on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @02:45PM (#44239995)

First two links right now both go to Scrappy, but your text makes it sound like you are contrasting different things?

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by WillAdams on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @02:50PM (#44240049)

I meant to note that Scrappy was discussed at the first link and then to provide the actual link --- my apologies if that wasn't clear.

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by gklitt on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @10:12PM (#44243567)

Neat —- Scrappy looks like a lovely prototype! As the creators say in their writeup, it fits nicely into the lineage of HyperCard-style “media with optional scripting” editors, which provide a gentle slope into programming.

In the section on dynamic documents towards the end of our essay, we show several of our lab’s own takes on this category of tool, including an example of integrating AI as an optional layer over a live programmable document.

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by WillAdams on Tuesday June 10, 2025 @10:33PM (#44243662)

Yeah, I just wish it had a Bézier curve object....

I need an interactive tool for programming such (or I need to buckle down and implement the METAFONT algorithm in my current project).

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by 392 on Wednesday June 11, 2025 @10:02AM (#44247747)

Tove2d editor demo?

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by WillAdams on Wednesday June 11, 2025 @10:18AM (#44247909)

Interesting, trying to research and look into that now --- good starting link and suggestion for approach?

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Re:Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of l... by moughxyz on Wednesday June 11, 2025 @10:12AM (#44247844)

Viberunner is another stab at this idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44236729

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