Calmira is an alternate shell available for
Windows 3.1x
Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0.
Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Window ...
and up that has an appearance resembling
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...
. A version named Calmira Longhorn is not compatible with
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
, but emulates some of the visual features of that operating system.
The shell is more than a simple cosmetic upgrade, however. Much of the functionality of later 32-bit shells has been incorporated into the Calmira software. The shell has a
start menu
The Start menu is a graphical user interface element used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 and in other operating systems. It provides a central launching point for computer programs and performing other tasks in the Windows shell. It is na ...
, a
task bar
A taskbar is an element of a graphical user interface which has various purposes. It typically shows which programs are currently running.
The specific design and layout of the taskbar varies between individual operating systems, but generally as ...
and a
desktop
A desktop traditionally refers to:
* The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor)
Desktop may refer to various compu ...
that all function like those found in the Explorer Desktop of later 32-bit Windows operating systems.
Development
The Calmira shell was developed in
Borland Delphi
Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, ...
1.0, an
Object Pascal
Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as classes and methods.
The language was originally developed by Apple Computer as ''Clascal'' for the Lisa Work ...
based programming environment by Borland. Because the Windows 3.x environment is virtually extinct as of 2009, additions of new features and addons to Calmira are few and far between.
Source code
The source code for the Calmira shell is publicly available under GNU GPL license, thus allowing software developers to participate in the project. However, as the Calmira shell was initially developed on the 16-bit Delphi 1.0 programming environment, active contributors are more or less restricted to developing the shell on that platform. An attempt to port parts of Calmira to
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 3.51 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the third version of Windows NT and was released on May 30, 1995, eight months following the release of Windows N ...
has been made, and the project has resulted in NT Shell.
Modified versions
Being open source, some people developed their own version of Calmira, adding other features and customizations. Here is a list of the most used ones:
*Calmira LFN: Modified version that supports Long File Names, better icon shading, a 'My Documents' icon, and a dialog to change the wallpaper. The last version (released on December 19, 2006) also has custom window borders that mimic Windows 95 ones.
*Calmira XP: Modified version that tries to mimic the Windows XP interface. Version 4.0 Beta also includes modifications from Calmira LFN, but has been released on March 6, 2006, meaning that some bugs fixed in Calmira LFN since then are still there, and that there are no custom window borders.
*Calmira Longhorn: It is a modified version of Calmira XP 4.0 that mimics the Windows Longhorn (or Vista) interface. Version 3.5 still had some bugs around dialog buttons (they are shown in French). After an extended time with no new updates (2 years) Calmira Longhorn 3.6 was released. In the new version, new features included a Vista style logon screen, an "X" button in the upper-right corner of windows, and LFN Support. Also, the "Frenchbutton bug" was fixed. On 2008-08-19, Peter Protus, developer of Calmira Longhorn, announced that he stopped both the development of the software as well as support. On 2008-11-12, support and development started again.
*Calmira Blackcomb: It is a modified version of Calmira Longhorn intended to mimic Windows 7's user interface, following the announcement of continual development of Calmira Longhorn. It was being developed by Peter Protus. After the publication of Calmira Blackcomb Alpha 2, its development was ceased on 2011-09-10.
Other versions and the original one can be found at Calmira Online.
References
{{reflist, 1=2
External links
Calmira Online
Desktop shell replacement