I M A G I N E:
>tab containing a navpanel that loads in the json of a 4chan/8chan/any chan software that uses json
>can load in ads too as normal to keep hiroshimoot and others happy
>point is that you skip most of the net code/bloat/fud/timewaste of making a real browser by strictly pulling json and ad elements
>barebones default look and you can build your own client-side css theme
>any really nice themes that get posted here or made by the homos in Discord get added to a simple repo you can pull from inside of the client, maybe a few get added to default install if they're lightweight
>muh dark themes
>simple posting form in bottom panel, always visible, pulls captcha element from 4chan and 8ch, you can scroll through in your main window and never have to click to bring up a post form
>post form is flat one line by default with the name/options fields inline, you can click-drag the top of the panel up with mouse or change a default setting in options to make visible text area bigger, but by default it covers very little screen real estate
>either just ask devs/mods of imageboards to accept your custom user agent because hydrus is good, or spoof a new-install chrome useragent or something, can't be too hard, Opera used to offer full-featured custom user spoofing before they had to ditch it for PR
>both view panel and post panel are bordered on the right by the 4chan X style thread watcher, not like a hydrus thread watcher, this one is for "starred" or favorited threads and just watches them in the background, lets you know when there are updates (posts rather than files)
>watched threads also have a dropdown at the end opposite the close button, options like open a hydrus thread watcher in new tab, new tab at top level of tabs
>you can set presets in options to always open new hydrus thread watchers in given tab-subtab structured areas based on site and board, so I no longer have to navigate to wait>4chan>/wg/ and make a subtab there
>you can set specific subtab-located "topic watchers" so instead of making a new thread in wait>4chan>/wg/ for each new cat thread and reopening the tag import options and retyping (or choosing from favorites) download:4chan, board:wg [with media:wallpaper subtag], animal:cat, etc, and reticking that import filenames box each time - I can instead just go to the catalog view of my hydrus not-browser (I think 4chan may provide a catalog json directly, not sure though), search for the new cat thread, star/favorite it right from the catalog, and send it to my pre-defined "/wg/ cat watcher" in wait>4chan>/wg/ subtab, or send it directly from the thread icon on the catalog, and it will insert itself into the list and download all of the files and apply those same tags.
>just like the simple downloader works where you can paste in as many URLs as you want, but for thread watcher. Then just have a popup where you can set a policy to auto-delete the threads on 404 or archive, or keep them around but stop checking them so they can be cleaned out manually.
>going a bit further, an internal pseudo-RSS/filtering function which scrapes loaded catalogs, OPs, or threads for specific text or even md5s to grab for auto-add to thread queue on right panel (4chan X style thread watcher) and/or send directly into "topic watchers" (maybe archthreads would be a cooler and more fitting name for them)
>right watcher panel of fake browser is always the same however many tabs of fake browser you open
>recheck rate of all of these various things like the thread watchers and the autofilters can be configured to avoid getting b& and to reduce load on hydrus
>fake browser tabs give (1) and (!) functionality for new posts in their specific thread and also update more often than right-panel watcher threads do, which is also configurable
It might be beyond the capabilities of python itself, or maybe need certain features and chunks written in C++ with python wrappers, but man.
I might only open an actual browser once every few months if it got to this point.
And then if it added IRC and Youtube tabs…
In fact, hydrus_dev, if you're reading this…hydrOS when?
remember no bully for my flawed tagging and tab structure system, I'm learning in baby steps