What is this Python Desktop Server Thing?

The Python Desktop Server is several things. It's not easy to describe so I think I start with a analogue: the Python Desktop Server is very similar in function to Radio Userland. That said, if you don't know Radio Userland, you are non wiser

Ok, so what are Radio Userland and Python Desktop Server?

Both have much in common, so I describe what those two share, first. Both have a database with a webserver on top of it and a tool structure to create applications based on this. Both have a web interface to configure and use it (Radio Userland has a complete local application with GUI and Outliner features, this is one part that is missing in the Python Desktop Server!). Both have essential applications and support applications, where the essential applications are the following:

A Weblog construction kit. Ok, it is a weblog application, but it goes beyond that, it's more a construction kit to build your weblog application, enrich it with additional tools and techniques and so in a way construct a weblog desktop for those of you who live on the internet.

A News-Aggregator application. Yes, you can read RSS feeds with both of them. Of course, you can read them with other tools, too, but if you already have one on your desktop, why not use it? And it is nicely integrated into the weblog construction kit.

A way to write longer texts and essays, using the same techniques as you use for your weblog. Using the same content enriching tools like shortcuts, macros and templates.

Both have background execution of bigger events, automatic upstreaming of files to your community server in the background, rendering of HTML pages based on templates in the background and an eventlog to see what happens in the background.

Both use the XMLStorageSystem API for upstreaming main content to a community server. Radio Userland has FTP upstreaming as an additional, where the Python Desktop Server can make use of the full Python API to use whatever you need to copy files, but doesn't have a simple upstreaming driver framework (might change over time with the Python Desktop Server). Yes, Radio Userland can run on the Python Community Server, and the Python Desktop Server can run on the Radio Community Servers. Both use the same infrastructural services like http://weblogs.com/ and other services that are available.

Both have a way to access functionality from the outside via XML-RPC or SOAP. But the APIs are different, the Python Desktop Server has it's own API, where Radio Userland often uses (and sometimes sets) standard APIs. This might change over time with the Python Desktop Server. So currently you have more external options running with Radio Userland than with the Python Desktop Server.

There are several supporting applications, many of them target similar goals, but often differently implemented. So this is where there are actual functional differences between Radio Userland and Python Desktop Server. An example is the handling of pictures in Radio Userland and Python Desktop Server. Both allow upstreaming and handling of image data in the application, but since I am a hobby photographer, the tools in Python Desktop Server are more enriched with regard to pictures. On the other hand, Radio Userland gives you much more ways to handle external content thru it's static site rendering, where the Python Desktop Server only has the external story tool to render and upstream longer stories.

An outliner is completely missing from the Python Desktop Server, as I think that others can do that much better than me (and I for example use Tinderbox for this).

Then there is the question of plattforms: Radio Userland runs natively under Windows, Mac OS Classic and Mac OS X. It might run under Linux using Wine (although latest comments to this make me believe that run in this case mostly reads starts ). The Python Desktop Server runs natively almost everywhere you have Python running (you need a multithreaded python though!) and the supporting stuff works, too (most notably the Metakit database). This includes Windows, Linux, BSD, Darwin and Mac OS X (because it's just Darwin for the Python Desktop Server). There sure are other POSIX compliant OS out there where it works. Even some non-POSIX OS should work.

This should give you an idea what the Python Desktop Server is. If you want to see some screenshots and a short walkthrough to the first steps in a fresh Python Desktop Server installation, read: How to build your first weblog.