Bang — Windows Setup

Bang is a spatial filesystem viewer: your folders become galaxies, your files become evolving planets you can fly through.

Easiest: just run Bang.exe

If you have a Bang.exe (built via build.bat — see below, or handed to you already built), you don't need Python, pip, or a terminal at all. Just double-click it. Skip straight to "Run" below.

The only requirement for the .exe path is Windows 10 or 11 with the built-in Edge WebView2 runtime, which is already installed on virtually all current Windows machines; if it's somehow missing, Windows will prompt to install it automatically the first time Bang opens.

Running from source instead (no .exe)

If you'd rather just run the Python directly without building an .exe:

Requirements

• Python 3.9 or newer, installed from python.org (check "Add Python to PATH" during install)
• Windows 10 or 11 (uses the built-in Edge WebView2 runtime — already installed on virtually all current Windows machines; if missing, Windows will prompt to install it automatically the first time Bang opens)

Install

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell in this folder and run:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Run

python app.py

A window titled "Bang" will open — not a browser tab, an actual app window.

On first launch, you'll be asked to choose a folder. That folder becomes the center of your universe ("Bang" — the origin). Everything inside it, and its subfolders, renders as galaxies (folders) and planets (files). This choice is remembered, so you won't be asked again on future launches.

Files

File	Purpose
app.py	Launches the app window. Run this one (or run Bang.exe, if you built it).
server.py	The backend — scans your files, serves the API, handles file operations.
scan.py	The filesystem scanner used by server.py.
bang3d.html	The 3D universe itself — everything you see and interact with.
requirements.txt	Python dependencies (pywebview).
Bang.spec	PyInstaller build configuration — used by build.bat, you shouldn't need to edit it.
build.bat	Double-click to build dist\Bang.exe.
build_debug.bat	Same, but keeps a console window open for diagnosing a build/launch problem.

Notes

• Write operations (create, rename, move, copy-into, and graveyard) are confined to inside your current origin folder — Bang won't create, modify, move, or copy into anything outside it, even if Void mode lets you browse out there. Copying from outside the origin into it is fine, since that doesn't touch anything outside.
• Opening a file from inside Bang uses Windows' normal "open with" behavior — it never runs anything as a script, it just hands the file to whatever program Windows already has associated with that file type.
• "Graveyard" (the action formerly called Delete) never deletes anything — it moves the item into a .bang_graveyard folder inside your chosen origin, so a misclick is always recoverable. That folder is hidden from normal browsing (same as any dotfolder) but you can still find it in Windows Explorer if you ever want to clear it out for good.
• System folders (C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, etc.) are hidden by default and protected from rename/delete/move, the same way Bang protects Linux system folders on the original Raspberry Pi build. The graveyard folder itself is protected the same way — it can't be renamed or moved.
• Your chosen origin folder, and the file-weight cache, are stored in %USERPROFILE%\.bang\ — delete that folder if you ever want to reset Bang back to a clean first-launch state.
• To change your origin folder later, open Settings → Rendering and use "Change Origin Folder…" near the bottom. (You can also delete %USERPROFILE%\.bang\config.json and relaunch to get the first-run picker again, if you ever need to do it that way instead.)