so i was looking at task manager one day and realized how much ram my computer was using.
naturally, instead of closing some programs like a normal person, i decided to make my own task manager.
except this one has a cat.
and he hates you.
introducing meowtop
meowtop is a system monitor i made using python, pyqt6, and psutil.
it shows your cpu, ram, and disk usage, lists running processes, and can notify you when your ram usage gets too high.
but that's boring.
so i added tuft.
tuft is a purple cat who lives inside the app and judges your computer usage. he has different moods, animations, and a concerning number of insults.
if your ram usage gets too high, he'll complain about it. if a program starts using an unreasonable amount of memory, he'll question your decisions.
he also falls asleep when he's bored.
and you can pet him.
he likes that, surprisingly.
how it works
the actual system monitoring is done using psutil, a python library that lets you get information about your computer and running processes.
for example, getting cpu and ram usage is pretty simple:
cpu = psutil.cpu_percent(interval=None)
ram = psutil.virtual_memory().percent
then i use PyQt6 to display everything in a desktop application.
the interface updates every couple of seconds, and the process list gets refreshed separately so the entire app doesn't freeze while checking everything that's running.
because making a task manager that lags your computer would be a little embarrassing.
giving tuft a personality
tuft uses a sprite sheet with different animations for different moods.
he can be normal, concerned, confused, angry, happy, or asleep.
his mood changes depending on what's happening with your computer.
i also made him clickable, so you can pet him. he'll get happy for a few seconds before going back to judging you.
there's also a button specifically for roasting your computer.
completely necessary feature.
the windows defender incident
once i finished, i tried packaging everything into an exe using pyinstaller.
it worked.
and then windows defender decided meowtop was a trojan.
so that's great.
from what i've investigated, it might be a false positive related to how pyinstaller packages executables, but i haven't confirmed that yet.
for now, i'm just publishing the source code instead of distributing an exe that windows is actively trying to delete.
apparently tuft is a national security threat.
anyway
this started as a tiny python window showing two percentages and somehow turned into an entire system monitor with an animated cat.
it's not meant to replace windows task manager, but it was a fun project and i learned more about pyqt6, system monitoring, threads, and making desktop interfaces.
the source code is on github if you want to try it yourself, look through it, or see how it works.
github: meowtop
meow.
Top comments (2)
cool👀
thanks!