Developer starts Kickstarter to develop user-friendly shell

Software developer Craig Muth has started a Kickstarter project to further develop Xiki, a shell that would be more user-friendly than current shell environments. Xiki can also handle internet services such as Gmail and Twitter and various developer tools.

Xiki makes operating the shell easier through far-reaching auto completion, among other things. It is also possible to navigate quickly via context-sensitive menus that respond to the desired commands or the application used. The improved shell environment is also able to interact with all kinds of tools that are mainly used by developers. Using wiki-like configuration files, Xiki’s functionality can be expanded quickly. For example, services such as Gmail and Twitter can also be accessed, as well as databases and parts of IDEs.

Developer Craig Muth has posted the source code for Xiki, which currently runs on OS X and Linux, on GitHub, but the developer wants to significantly increase the functionality. To free up enough development time for this, he started a Kickstarter project. Muth is looking for $80,000 for that.

Xiki should receive support for the editors Sublime and Vim via plugins, among other things. Integration with the default shell also needs to be improved and Muth wants to significantly expand the number of context-sensitive menus. Finally, it should be easier to create new plugins by letting the Xiki core handle much of the work. A version of Xiki for Windows is still under consideration by the maker.