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Core Concepts

Ideal's design is built around a set of interlocking ideas that together define how the desktop works. Each concept reinforces the others — data-focused design leads to typed folders, typed folders enable application integration, and application integration makes the explorer desktop possible.

This section explains each concept in detail:

  • Data-Focused Design — Why data belongs to the user, not to applications, and how the desktop is organized around information instead of programs.
  • The Explorer Desktop — How the file explorer becomes the desktop shell, and how typed folders allow it to present any kind of data.
  • Application Integration — How applications integrate into the desktop through views, actions, and background services instead of running as isolated programs.
  • The CLI Paradigm — How Ideal brings the interchangeability, discoverability, and transparency of command-line tools to a graphical desktop.