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Lewdware

Comparison to Edgeware++

Lewdware was made as an alternative to Edgeware++, an improved version of Edgeware, which in turn was inspired by Elsavirus.

Lewdware aims to improve upon Edgeware++ in a variety of ways:

  • Easier to install - Edgeware++ involves a reasonably complex and fragile installation process. Lewdware is distributed as a single installer on all platforms.
  • Smaller packs - Lewdware’s media compression can result in packs being five or ten times smaller than a corresponding Edgeware pack. Not only do packs take up less space on your computer, but packs also become easier to distribute and download. Edgeware++ also has to copy and decompress a pack to run it, Lewdware’s custom pack format allows it to process packs in place.
  • Better performance - Edgeware++ can struggle with lots of windows open. Lewdware can handle hundreds of windows at a time (although it will crash eventually).
  • Modern UI - Lewdware provides a modern config UI that is easy to use.
  • A pack editor - Lewdware provides a GUI pack editor, making it super easy to create and edit packs.
  • Better scripting - While both Edgeware++ and Lewdware provide scripting features, Lewdware’s scripting is much more fully-featured, providing APIs for moving and setting the transparency of windows, and allowing users to pass options in to modes.
  • Better scripting (for developers) - While Edgeware only supports a subset of Lua, Lewdware runs a sandboxed version of Lua 5.5. Lewdware provides a CLI tool to create, test and build modes. We provide type definitions for the mode API, providing developers with auto-complete and type checking in an editor like VSCode. Lewdware allows you to split your modes into multiple files, which will be compressed and built into a single bundle.

However, there are many features Edgeware++ provides that Lewdware does not. Many of these differences come from the fact that Lewdware relies more on its scripting features (modes) to determine behaviour, which results in less space for user configuration (unless you write your own mode).

  • Edgeware++ allows you to configure in more detail how windows and other features are spawned (e.g. the proportion of video windows).
  • Edgeware++ allows links to be opened, prompts to be shown and wallpapers to be changed without any scripting, since the three are included as options in packs.
  • Edgeware++ provides a “corruption” feature, allowing packs to change behaviour over time without any scripting. This behaviour can be emulated by a Lewdware mode, but doing so is more complex.
  • Edgeware++ has a “fill drive” feature that creates and modifies files on your computer. Lewdware does not currently do this, for security reasons. If we do implement this, it would probably be a standalone program, rather than being integrated into Lewdware.
  • Edgeware++ provides a Booru downloader. Lewdware does not do this because it would be difficult to maintain.