I'm writing this to both ask for some help and offer my skills as a service. I’ve been learning how Aero and the Windows' DWM work together, and how old apps used to be built to take advantage of those effects and visuals. Since a lot of apps today are just Electron or weird HTML wrappers, I thought: why not make some proper old-school Windows apps for older Windows versions and with the nice aero visuals?
I'm currently unemployed, so I’m offering to build some programs for free, with optional donations. This would help me pay some bills, and anyone who contributes can have their name included somewhere in the software’s support board — still figuring out how I’ll set that up. I’m considering using Itch.io as the platform. Suggestions on how I should develop these apps or how to make a bit of money with this are very welcome.
Requirements:
If the app needs an API, it has to be public and accessible. Reverse-engineering APIs takes forever and needs ongoing maintenance;
The simpler the idea, the better and faster I can build it. The more complex it gets, the further down the list it goes. Some ideas might never even get finished;
No NSFW or piracy requests, please, the same rules for the forum applies to the requests;
The code will be open-source, so if anyone wants to keep the development after, it will be public out there. (Except if you want a commercial software, mail me if you have anything in mind!)
I don't know much technology or marketing, but I'd recommend an instant messaging app that has both private, direct messaging and group chat support. This could work because nowadays people will always want a decent messenger app that doesn't track what shouldn't be tracked. This may also be hard for a few reasons, because you'll need to constantly keep everything under control on how much your server can handle, along with the fact that it's just hard to make. Also, to make a profitable company, you need to make sure people know about your app, and highlight what makes it stand out from the others. Also, I wouldn't make it TOO 'old-school' just because you want people to use it for more than just some old legacy app. Those are my thoughts, hope this is useful to you. (I wouldn't fully trust what I say if I were you, I'm not an expert in any of this)
I don't know much technology or marketing, but I'd recommend an instant messaging app that has both private, direct messaging and group chat support. This could work because nowadays people will always want a decent messenger app that doesn't track what shouldn't be tracked. This may also be hard for a few reasons, because you'll need to constantly keep everything under control on how much your server can handle, along with the fact that it's just hard to make. Also, to make a profitable company, you need to make sure people know about your app, and highlight what makes it stand out from the others. Also, I wouldn't make it TOO 'old-school' just because you want people to use it for more than just some old legacy app. Those are my thoughts, hope this is useful to you. (I wouldn't fully trust what I say if I were you, I'm not an expert in any of this)
That's a good idea but I wouldn't bet on this both because of it's complexity (I can't afford a server for it lol) and the low demand. I would LOVE doing a old-school chatting app, but there's so much apps out there that it's just unreliable to develop and maintain something like this. If it wouldn't be a old school chatting app, it wouldn't be of any interest of anyone, at least being old school could attract some niche community like the Forum people
