Fresco — a modern alternative to the BOINC Manager

[AufarZakiev]

I've been working on a new BOINC manager and wanted to share it with the community.

What is it? A lightweight, cross-platform replacement for the standard BOINC Manager. It connects to the BOINC client over the same GUI RPC protocol, so nothing changes on the compute side — just a better interface.

Why switch?

• Clean, modern UI with dark mode support
• Tiny footprint (~5 MB standalone binary, no installer needed)
• Built-in auto-update mechanism
• Project attach wizard and account manager support
• Activity controls, preferences editor, disk usage, messages, notices — all the views you'd expect
• Remote client connections
• System tray with status indicator
• Open source (MIT)

Platforms: Windows (x64, ARM64), macOS (Apple Silicon, Intel), Linux (x64, ARM64)

Important notes:

• Runs alongside with standard BOINC. If already a cruncher, just download and run it - it will find & launch BOINC client automatically.
• No Android version and none is planned for now
• macOS and Linux builds are provided but have received limited real-world testing — feedback and bug reports from users on these platforms would be especially valuable

Download: https://github.com/AufarZakiev/Fresco/releases
Source & issues: https://github.com/AufarZakiev/Fresco

[davidpanderson]

This is fantastic! I downloaded the Win version; it works, and it looks great. And it's made with modern tools (Tauri, Vue, TS).
I have a lot of comments and suggestions, which I'll send in a separate comment.
I'd like to discuss this with you by email and/or on Zoom. Please email me at davea at berkeley dot com.

[AufarZakiev]

Looks like smth is wrong w/ email address. Could you recheck it please? Gmail returns the mail back to me with address rejected error

My email is zaufar@gmail.com

[AenBleidd]

@AufarZakiev, I have sent you an email. Please reply if you receive it.

[davidpanderson]

oops! it's davea at berkeley dot edu

[davidpanderson]

Nav bar:
    I like the approach; needs to be shuffled a bit.  Maybe something like
    COMPUTING
        Tasks
        Projects
        Statistics
        Disk Usage
        File Transfers
    SYSTEM
        Select Computer
        Notices
        Host Info
        Settings
        Log
        About

    Suspend/resume popups: I like this approach

    Icons at bottom: we may not need some of these:
    Add project: in Projects tab
    Account manager: in Projects tab
    Options: maybe we should combine these with Preferences
        (and call them all Settings)
        Exclusive Apps logically belongs with Computing Prefs;
        we didn't put it there because the dialog became too tall
        on small screens, and it didn't scroll.
    Select Computer, About: could move to Nav bar


Tasks
    Under PROJECT, show name rather than URL

Projects
    The 'project web pages' (home page, message boards etc.)
    are hidden at the bottom of the Properties.
    It would be good to make these more prominent.
    Maybe when a project is selected we could show the links
    in a second row at the top (replacing the Web Page button).
    Is there a way to graphically distinguish web links?

    The Projects page should show you want account manager you're using,
    and let you add/remove it.

Messages
    In the Manager we call this the Event Log;
        might be better to use that, or Diagnostic Log
    these should be in order of increasing time (newest at bottom)
    If we're at the bottom and there's a new message, it should scroll up
    to show the new message.

    Is it easy to make it sortable by any column, like Task list?
    That would eliminate the need for filter by project.

    The message-type selector settings should be here

Compute settings:
    I suggest keeping the structure used by the Manager;
    it makes the in use / not in use distinction clear.
    Also, move the start/end hour prefs to Schedule,
    and use the structure that's there
    (default hours, with day-of-week override)

Disk Usage:
    shows all projects as using 0 GB
    The Manager has a 2nd pie chart showing Disk usage by project.
        Might be good to include that
        (as a fraction of total space, the sectors are too small to see).
        This could replace the bars at bottom.

Host Information
    I like this!
    Could add Docker info and GPU info

Other
    When I exited from the client Fresco was attached to,
    it didn't run a new client.

[AufarZakiev]

Thanks for detailed feedback! Some points are already implemented, I did not like too many buttons for prefs/settings too.

Sent you an email but it is OK for me to keep conversation here, too. May be more transparent and open for others

[AufarZakiev]

Everything is implemented w/ slight changes, try it out.

When I exited from the client Fresco was attached to, it didn't run a new client.

I feel strange about that. UI manager should not run a client again if it was intentionally closed, as I see it

[CharlieFenton]

My Mac says:

The application "Fresco.app" can't be opened.

The executable Fresco.app/Contents/MacOS/fresco did not have executable permission bits set. After I set those, my Mac says:

“Fresco.app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

The app has only an ad-hoc signature and is not notarized. Macs will generally refuse to run code that has not been signed by a registered Apple developer and also successfully run through Apple's notarization system. But I think there is an additional problem, because I get the "can't be opened" message even when I tell the OS to override the signing and notarization checks. Here is what is reported when I check for code signing and for notarization:

charliefenton@M1-iMac ~ % codesign -dv /Volumes/Pax/Eudora\ Attachments/Fresco.app
Executable=/Volumes/Pax/Eudora Attachments/Fresco.app/Contents/MacOS/fresco
Identifier=fresco-65d5af0b5e9101c7
Format=app bundle with Mach-O thin (arm64)
CodeDirectory v=20400 size=118520 flags=0x20002(adhoc,linker-signed) hashes=3700+0 location=embedded
Signature=adhoc
Info.plist=not bound
TeamIdentifier=not set
Sealed Resources=none
Internal requirements=none
charliefenton@M1-iMac ~ % codesign -vvvv -R="notarized" --check-notarization /Volumes/Pax/Eudora\ Attachments/Fresco.app
/Volumes/Pax/Eudora Attachments/Fresco.app: code has no resources but signature indicates they must be present

[AufarZakiev]

Hm, weird, it was tested on Mac and runs fine. What version of Mac OS and which arch do you have?

[CharlieFenton]

The requirements for signing and notarizing applications only apply to applications downloaded from the Internet. But that doesn't explain why the executable permission bits weren't set or the "Can't be opened" message. I will try to build it myself and see if I can get it to work.

[CharlieFenton]

@AufarZakiev I could try to build the application myself locally from the source files, which would avoid the need for code signing and notarization. (Those are required only for executables downloaded from the Internet.) I downloaded the source tree, but I don't see any instructions for how to build it locally (outside of GitHub.) Please advise.

Another comment:

Fresco will automatically find and start the BOINC client if it is installed in the default location. No additional configuration is needed.

The default client location is different for different OS platforms. On the Mac, the client is normally embedded inside the BOINC Manager application's bundle as a resource: BOINCManager.app/Contents/Resources/boinc. But a user can also download the Unix command-line version in which case they would put the client at /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/boinc.

[AufarZakiev]

Added "Building from source" section to README. Here is a copy but refer to repo for the latest changes

# Install Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --install
# Install Rust
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
# Install Node.js and pnpm
brew install node
npm install -g pnpm

# Build
pnpm install
pnpm tauri build

[AufarZakiev]

But a user can also download the Unix command-line version in which case they would put the client at /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/boinc.

Wow. Will see if it is possible to determine that automatically

[CharlieFenton]

@AufarZakiev I noticed you have posted new builds but there is no arm64 Mac build now. I downloaded the x86_64 version for the Mac. It had the same errors as before (including "Can't be opened".) It also did not have the execute permission bits set for Fresco.app/Contents/MacOS/fresco. But once I set those bits and told MacOS to allow running it despite not being properly signed and notarized for downloading from the Internet, it ran under th Rosetta x86_64 emulator.

I suggest trying to post the built arm64 Mac version artifact again.

[AufarZakiev]

There is arm64 version, it is called Fresco-aarch64-apple-darwin.app.zip. I see your point, changed CI to use more common names instead of Rusty ones. Now it will be Fresco_macOS_ARM64.app.zip

Let me know if it runs properly. Signing is not a top priority now (it requires a little bit of dancing with CAs) but this execute permissions thing I want to check and address.

Thanks!

[CharlieFenton]

After setting the executable permission bits for the arm64 version, I am still getting

“Fresco.app” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.

But I did not get that message for the x86_64 version. After getting the x86_64 version to work under Rosetta, I haven't tried building it myself.