It has taken some time to work out what I have being building, but after adding Linux and FreeBSD implementations I now claim to have built the simplest functioning cross platform graphical IDE possible.

It works by running a PowerShell process as a tool server, this services requests using a binary protocol over stdin and stdout. It manages a group of runspaces allocated on demand by the client. The client has a simple text document interface where fragments of text can be run on the associated runspace. One client window is mapped to one runspace in the server.

The PowerShell process can either be PowerShell Desktop or PowerShell Core depending on your configuration ( hello HKCU ). Or even use ssh -T ... to run it on a different machine to the UI.

The Windows interface looks almost identical to the classic Notepad, the Linux version looks like CDE dtpad. There are working FreeBSD builds because I packaged PowerShell to run native on FreeBSD 13.3. While apps built using Motif may look lacking when run on Gnome, they look glorious on CDE when all the properties are automatically consistent set across the whole desktop ( turquoise and orange ).

My next plans are for a Qt and a Cocoa UI.