BevelDesk

A beveled desktop environment that actually works — built entirely with Dear ImGui's DrawList API. One binary, two moods: silver Windows 95 and dark NeXT Night, switchable at runtime.

▶ Try the live demo in your browser  (WebAssembly, no install)

Beveled chrome, a real file manager over your actual filesystem, and an MS-DOS Prompt running a live shell (your zsh) through a pty — every bevel, caption bar, scrollbar and icon drawn by hand, pixel by pixel. No stock ImGui styling, no image assets, no web views.

BevelDesk borrows from the two great beveled desktops — Win95 and NeXTSTEP — which share one visual philosophy (3D edges, light from the top-left, per-window chrome). So the dark NeXT Night mode isn't a reskin engine; it's a second Palette + Style the same drawing code reads. Flip it in Display Properties ▸ Appearance and the whole desktop — chrome, dialogs, taskbar, icons — repaints live. It's BevelDesk's own dark design language, not a NeXTSTEP replica.

Features

• Theme95 rendering layer — the 1995 visual language reproduced from research: the 16-color system palette (#C0C0C0 chrome, #000080 captions, #008080 desktop), the four 3D bevel conventions (raised, pressed, sunken field, window frame — each with its distinct edge-color order), 18px captions, 16×14 caption buttons, procedurally drawn icons.
• Real window management — drag, resize, minimize to taskbar, maximize/restore with saved geometry, double-click captions, and the full system menu on the caption icon (double-click it to close, like the original).
• Explorer — browse your real filesystem: Details view with sortable columns (folders first, KB sizes right-aligned), Large Icons view, Up button, address well, status bar, custom Win95 scrollbars with arrow buttons and dithered tracks. Open as many windows as you like.
• MS-DOS Prompt — a genuine interactive shell ($SHELL) on a POSIX pty in an authentic fixed 80×25 terminal: VT100/xterm-subset emulation, 16-color SGR (with 256-color mapping), OSC window titles, scrollback, Ctrl+C that actually interrupts. The window closes when the shell exits — just like 1995, except this one runs zsh. (macOS/Linux)
• Taskbar & Start menu — live clock, per-window task buttons with pressed/active states, and a working Start menu: Programs (MS-DOS Prompt), Documents / Find (Explorer), Settings (Display Properties), Help (About), Run… (a real Run box — type a folder to open it, or a command to run in a DOS prompt), Shut Down… (the iconic dithered screen-fade dialog).
• UI zoom — Ctrl/Cmd + mouse-wheel (or + / - / 0 on a US keyboard) scales the whole desktop through 1×–3×, with fonts re-rasterized at each level so text stays crisp (no bitmap blur). Handy on 4K/5K displays.
• Two moods, one binary — a silver Windows 95 scheme and a dark NeXT Night scheme (charcoal chrome, chiseled black-keyline bevels, muted-gold folders, a steel active caption). Everything shared; the two differ only by a Palette (colors) and a small Style (chiseled vs. Win95 bevel). A third mood would be additive — fill one more Palette.
• Display Properties (Start ▸ Settings) — recolor the desktop from the classic 16-color picker with a live monitor preview, or switch scheme on the Appearance tab; live-apply with OK/Cancel/Apply revert semantics. Start in the dark scheme directly with --night.
• Crisp on Retina — native-resolution rendering with the UI font (Tahoma / Microsoft Sans Serif / DejaVu, probed from your system) rasterized at monitor density. Fixed 96-dpi metrics, like the original.

Download

Prebuilt binaries for every release are on the Releases page:

• macOS — universal (Apple silicon + Intel) BevelDesk.app. Unsigned: right-click ▸ Open on first launch, or xattr -d com.apple.quarantine BevelDesk.app.
• Linux x86_64 — needs OpenGL and X11/Wayland runtime libraries.
• Windows x86_64 — note: the MS-DOS Prompt is POSIX-only for now.

Building

Requirements: CMake ≥ 3.16, a C++17 compiler, network on first configure (dependencies fetched via FetchContent: GLFW 3.4, Dear ImGui 1.92.8, stb).

macOS

cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j
./build/beveldesk                  # or double-click "build/BevelDesk.app"

Linux

sudo apt install build-essential cmake libgl1-mesa-dev xorg-dev
cmake -S . -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j
./build/beveldesk

Windows (Visual Studio 2019+)

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --config Release
build\Release\beveldesk.exe

(The MS-DOS Prompt is POSIX-only for now — a ConPTY port is a welcome PR.)

Running

Double-click My Computer to browse /, Recycle Bin for ~/.Trash. Start ▸ MS-DOS Prompt opens a shell. Inside Explorer: double-click folders to navigate, click column headers to sort, toolbar buttons switch view modes.

Code layout

src/
  main.cpp            entry point: GLFW/ImGui boot, main loop, CLI flags
  app/                the model — AppState, windows, terminal emulator (no drawing)
  theme95/            the beveled visual language (reusable, app-agnostic)
    palette.*           Palette + Style schemes (Silver / NeXT Night), live
                        color globals, ApplyScheme(); metrics
    bevel.*             the four 3D edge conventions (+ chiseled variant) + dither
    widgets.*           Button, Radio, ToolButton, CaptionButton, ScrollBarV
    window.*            window chrome, system menu, dialogs
    style.* icons95.*   global ImGui style; procedural icons
  shell/              the desktop environment, one component per surface
    desktop.* taskbar.* explorer.* dosprompt.* shutdown.* displayprops.*
  platform/           OS glue: fonts, pty (forkpty), GL textures, screenshots

Adding a mood is additive: fill one more Palette (16-odd colors) plus a Style flag or two and add it to the Appearance list — every draw call reads the live t95:: color globals unchanged, so nothing else moves. A new program (Notepad, Minesweeper…) is one new shell/ component drawing inside t95::BeginWindow95.

WebAssembly build

The live demo is the same code compiled with Emscripten (web/ holds the HTML shell, bundled DejaVu fonts, and a small mock filesystem for Explorer to browse). To build it locally:

source /path/to/emsdk/emsdk_env.sh
emcmake cmake -S . -B build-web -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build-web -j
python3 -m http.server -d build-web 8000   # then open http://localhost:8000/index.html

The MS-DOS Prompt is native-only (the browser has no pty/forkpty); on the web it simply doesn't open. Everything else — Explorer, dialogs, zoom, the Start menu — runs in the browser.

Project docs

• CONTRIBUTING.md — the contributor's field guide: architecture seams, Win95 authenticity rules, the build/verify loop, and the Dear ImGui gotchas that each cost a debugging round (read this first)
• PLAN.md — the Win95 visual-language research (palette, bevels, metrics, Explorer anatomy)
• DECISIONS.md — every ambiguity resolved, numbered, with reasoning
• CRITIQUE.md — the compile → screenshot → inspect → fix iterations, including the bugs only play-testing found
• STATUS.md — what works, known limitations, roadmap

Authenticity notes

Windows and Windows 95 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. BevelDesk is an independent homage that reproduces the style of the era for educational and nostalgic purposes; it ships no Microsoft assets, fonts, or code. Fonts are probed from your operating system at runtime. Menus deliberately cast no drop shadow (that's Windows 3.1 / Windows 2000 — see DECISIONS.md #13b).