Phoenicis is a tool to manage non-native (e.g. Windows) applications in Non-Windows environments (e.g. Linux/Mac OS). It is the successor of PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac 4.

Phoenicis aims at being the one stop shop platform for non-native applications. To achieve this goal, it focuses on two main principles:

• extensibility
• platform independence

Currently, Phoenicis comes in two flavors:

• Phoenicis PlayOnLinux
• Phoenicis PlayOnMac

  It is planned to eventually support Android in the future as well.

First, let’s look at some terminology:

• App any non-native application which shall be managed by Phoenicis
• Engine program which allows you to run an app (e.g. Wine)
• Container directory where an app is installed (e.g. a Wine prefix)
• Shortcut file describing the startup command for an app
• Library collection of the shortcuts of your installed apps
• Repository place where the available apps and engines are defined

Knowing PlayOnLinux 4, you might wonder why I said that Phoenicis is first and foremost a platform (and not e.g. a GUI). The heart of Phoenicis is a Java interface to the apps and engines which are written in JavaScript. Based on this, anyone can provide custom repositories and user interfaces. Want to provide a restricted set of Windows applications to a client using MAC OSX? Just collect the apps on a website or even on a DVD and you’re ready to go!

Of course Phoenicis also provides some UIs out of the box (see here):

• Phoenicis CLI
• Phoenicis JavaFX

And the Phoenicis repository here.