Re: [Phys-L] Physics "applets" in HTML5/JavaScript

["Daniel V. Schroeder" <dschroeder@weber.edu>]

Thanks, Bruce, for providing more details on GlowScript.  I shouldn't have been quite so negative about browser support, although I think it's still fair to say that there are plenty of platforms out there that support HTML5 canvas but don't support WebGL (whether due to inadequate hardware, inadequate or out of date software, or merely the wrong configuration).  For example, there still doesn't seem to be any support in iOS Safari.  As it says on the help page, this is likely to change.

By "another software layer between you and your web page" I didn't mean that the simulations have to stay on the GlowScript site.  I merely meant that the simulations rely on a layer of library functions.  Relying on specialized libraries can be a big time saver, but it also adds overhead and, more importantly, limits what you can do to whatever the library creators thought you might want to do.

Nevertheless, as I said, I find GlowScript to be ultra-cool and extremely impressive for what it does.

Cheers,

Dan

Bruce Sherwood said...
> ... Browser compatibility is no longer a problem for GlowScript, as long as
> your browser is up to date. At glowscript.org, click Help. On the first
> page is browser information, where you'll see that GlowScript programs do
> now run on all browsers, though in some cases you have to turn on support
> for WebGL (instructions are included in the Help). The real compatibility
> issue is no longer with browsers but whether you have a graphics card that
> contains GPUs (Graphical Processing Units), and whether your graphics
> driver is up to date.
>
> Also, when editing a file in GlowScript you can click "Share this program"
> which gives you the option to get a link to post for running the program or
> to get preprocessed code that you can insert into a page of your own web
> site, removing the "software layer between you and your web page".