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What is the future of the current Wolfram Demonstrations?

William Stewart, CardiffTuition
Posted 9 years ago

They no longer seem to launch in the browsers. I've spent quite a long time producing two of these and total work done on all the demonstrations by people is enormous. They were mainly produced as a service to the community. Are they just going to be left as a non function facility on the site? What's the master plan folks?
POSTED BY: William Stewart
17 Replies
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Erik Mahieu
Erik Mahieu
Posted 9 years ago

I reinstalled the CDF player and indeed, there is no problem any more as Mr. Binder pointed out. I recently upgraded to 10.4 and apparently you also have to upgrade the CDF-player?
POSTED BY: Erik Mahieu

I don't find any problem using Safari on Mac OS X. From the Website http://demonstrations.wolfram.com, just find the Demonstration you want and click on it. If the free Wolfram CDF player is installed, the Demo is then fully functional.

It would be nice if the user had an option on the Website to automatically install the CDF player.
POSTED BY: S M Blinder
Hans Milton
Hans Milton
Posted 9 years ago

Hello,

The user is already pointed to the CDF Player download link, from the Demonstrations site. If the CDF Player (or MMA) is not already installed.

Repeating a screenshot from an earlier post on this topic:

enter image description here
POSTED BY: Hans Milton
Erik Mahieu
Erik Mahieu
Posted 9 years ago

Thanks, William! I was hopelessly looking what was wrong with my mac, safari or CDF-player settings. I indeed get this always when trying to open on iMac Safari. Now, I know to wait for the "cloud"!

enter image description here
POSTED BY: Erik Mahieu

It's certainly the case that browser support for plugins is drying up, and as indicated in my 2015 Wolfram Technology Conference presentation on CDF, our plans for the Demonstration site do indeed involve a switchover to cloud support. This is a process that is in progress right now, but I can't say more about the timetable. There will be no shortage of announcements as we roll out our updated site, so please stay tuned!
POSTED BY: Andre Kuzniarek

I'm still hopeful that the Demonstrations will be thoroughly revamped into more native citizens of the cloud. I fully agree with your observation that having to install anything (even just a plug-in, I'd argue) immediately breaks the whole "go and google this Wolfram Demo" approach.
POSTED BY: Bianca Eifert

It seems we are now in a situation where Firefox, Safari and probably Opera also don't work.

The point is that Wolfram have benefited from adopting a publisher/ curator role for these contributions - for example giving guidance as to how they can be quoted as refereed publications. So now - in my opinion- it is up to them to provide and host cloud based versions. I don't think the authors are going to be too happy on a pay per click system when they are basically providing a public domain intellectual contribution. By cloud hosting the demos it seems to me Wolfram would boost the credibility of their new system.

POSTED BY: William Stewart
Hans Milton
Hans Milton
Posted 9 years ago

Regarding the scope of supported browsers, this is from http://support.wolfram.com/kb/20057 :

enter image description here
POSTED BY: Hans Milton
Thomas Eli
Thomas Eli
Posted 9 years ago

yes I confirm it doesn't work in safari and firefox

POSTED BY: Thomas Eli
Jim Baldwin
Jim Baldwin, Retired
Posted 9 years ago

Sorry, Hans. I got it wrong. It does not open in Edge on Windows 10 but it does open in Internet Explorer on Windows 10.
POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin
Hans Milton
Hans Milton
Posted 9 years ago

Does the browser Plug-In really work with Edge, as indicated by Jim? On a PC with Windows 10, with CDF Player installed, this is the response I get in Edge when selecting one of the featured demonstrations:

enter image description here

Firefox, on the same PC, opens the demo OK.
POSTED BY: Hans Milton

Yes but it all happened without user intervention. Now the message one gets is "file doesn't load" or something similar. Ie the cdf won't load into the browser.
POSTED BY: William Stewart
Jim Baldwin
Jim Baldwin, Retired
Posted 9 years ago

Many of the demos have animations showing some of the functionality (using Adobe Flash Player which I thought by decree would never be allowed on a Mac) but if one needed to run a CDF, then one needed to download the CDF Player. It's always been that way (as far as I know).
POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin

The way it used to work was that I might mention to a student that there was a demo on the site - I'd say something like:

"Google Wolfram Demo Diffraction"

and they would (sometimes!) go home and do this -and it was all very easy. If they have to download and install something it's less likely that people will bother. Or am I missing something?
POSTED BY: William Stewart

It doesn't work in Safari or Firefox as running on my iMac. Together with Chrome thats about 80% of the browser usage.
POSTED BY: William Stewart
Jim Baldwin
Jim Baldwin, Retired
Posted 9 years ago

I'm not happy about the more limited options either but does it not work with the CDF Reader? (which is required to be installed in any event)
POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin
Jim Baldwin
Jim Baldwin, Retired
Posted 9 years ago

It works in Internet Explorer, Edge, and the CDF Player. It certainly hasn't worked in Chrome for a while. I don't know the status for any other browsers.
POSTED BY: Jim Baldwin
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