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There's also a few less well supported but perhaps more exciting APIs just around the horizon, or already here hidden behind launch flags. I've been having fun

There's also a few less well supported but perhaps more exciting APIs just around the horizon, or already here hidden behind launch flags. I've been having fun with: # Web Audio Spectrograms and synths, this one is fairly mature, no IE support of course, but everything else supports it. # MIDI Mostly fun with knob and slider controls for various sideprojects. No support anywhere save Chrome. # WebVR Works surprisingly well, I find es6 to be much more friendly when validating random VR ideas than Unity or Unreal, which are basically the only other options. Requires a custom build of Chrome or dev Firefox, also works in Cardboard via polyfill. # Gamepad API Self explanatory, some games are just more fun with gamepads, now those games can be webgames. Works pretty much everywhere # WebGL2 Transform feedback, more than one Render Target (deferred rendering with just one requires some extremely clever swizzling that's really not that fun to work with/implement), Instancing, Uniform Buffers and more. Tons of fun stuff that will bring the state of 3D graphics in the browser a lot closer to today. Behind a flag in Chrome, supported in Firefox.

Already__Taken 10y ago
I believe chrome's webGL 2.0 is about to be on by default if I'm reading this right; https://www.chromestatus.com/features/6694359164518400 https://www.chromestatus.com/features/6694359164518400
rawnlq 10y ago
# WebRTC P2P communication (data, video and audio). Almost ready except for safari. # WebBluetooth Very experimental but some of the demo projects are really cool (control an AR drone quadcopter from a webpage).
- errantspark 10y ago
  Oh yeah, WebRTC! I forgot that one. I wrote a little multiplayer hovercraft racing game using WebRTC via peer.js last year. Super fun to explore programming networked systems in js.
  - Already__Taken 10y ago
    Is there any way to do this without a central server coordinating the peer connections? I'd love to host something off a static site but I've not figured anything out yet.
    - stymaar 10y ago
      You need something for the signaling part (sending the WebRTC offer, answer and ICE candidates to establish the connection). It's not necessarily a «central server», if you can convince you users to send each other the info text-encoded via Facebook or any messaging system, it will technically work (but it won't be really ergonomic for you users ;). I wonder if some people provide a SaaS solution for webRTC signaling. Quick survey: would you be willing to pay for it ?
      - Already__Taken 10y ago
        My specific thing was somebody asked for a demo of a heatmap, I knocked up a page that heat mapped the pointer and wanted every user to aggregate to the map. So no for such a demo I probably wouldn't be coughing up.
        stymaar 10y ago
        For a demo you can just code a 20-lines signaling server using websocket with nodejs or anything.
- 0XAFFE 10y ago
  WebRTC is realy cool, but does not work in Safari. Did cost us quite some time in a project.
- stymaar 10y ago
  > Almost ready except for safari. Unfortunately, that's not that simple. First of all, Edge doesn't implement the dataChannels, and FF and Chrome implements a slightly different version of the spec[1] (and neither implement the latest one) and things still break from time to time :(. [1]: fortunately, it's still compatible with each other, but the API as a few little differences that varies over time.
fabian2k 10y ago
While it's probably a very niche feature for the web, it would be nice if WebGL would also support double precision floats. But as far as I can tell, even when the hardware supports them, WebGL does not, and neither does WebGL 2.
k__ 10y ago
Funny. When I hear people talk about WebVR, it sounds like everything is working fine. When I people hear about Vive/Rift, it sounds like there is still much to do, even with the fact that much better hardware is in place than with most WebVR testing.
- saurik 10y ago
  Given how amazingly slow many websites are, to the point where I start to question whether the site is working at all and deeply regret the fault in my brain that just had to know why list item #7 will surprise me, I generally assume your average web developer does most of their work on some kind of super computer; that probably helps make VR epic ;P.
  - errantspark 10y ago
    Little OT, but I think there might be something to the super computer claim. A friend of mine recently tried to convince me that he needs at least 24GiB of ram for web development. I guess you need to be able to run multiple VMs inside a VM now to write your standard 'database + interface' webapp nowadays. Such is progress. ; )
    - charrondev 10y ago
      I can see how they get to 24 gbs. Running local db, server, a billion chromium instances (besides the browser and tabs and extensions, you have the editor and other apps running in atom), a couple other browsers to test in, maybe photoshop/ illustrator? Maybe?
- errantspark 10y ago
  Different contexts. WebVR 'works pretty well' because you can do everything that works in the WebGL in VR more or less. VR as a whole has a long way to go.

Already__Taken 10y ago

I believe chrome's webGL 2.0 is about to be on by default if I'm reading this right; https://www.chromestatus.com/features/6694359164518400 https://www.chromestatus.com/features/6694359164518400

rawnlq 10y ago

# WebRTC P2P communication (data, video and audio). Almost ready except for safari. # WebBluetooth Very experimental but some of the demo projects are really cool (control an AR drone quadcopter from a webpage).

errantspark 10y ago
Oh yeah, WebRTC! I forgot that one. I wrote a little multiplayer hovercraft racing game using WebRTC via peer.js last year. Super fun to explore programming networked systems in js.
- Already__Taken 10y ago
  Is there any way to do this without a central server coordinating the peer connections? I'd love to host something off a static site but I've not figured anything out yet.
  - stymaar 10y ago
    You need something for the signaling part (sending the WebRTC offer, answer and ICE candidates to establish the connection). It's not necessarily a «central server», if you can convince you users to send each other the info text-encoded via Facebook or any messaging system, it will technically work (but it won't be really ergonomic for you users ;). I wonder if some people provide a SaaS solution for webRTC signaling. Quick survey: would you be willing to pay for it ?
    - Already__Taken 10y ago
      My specific thing was somebody asked for a demo of a heatmap, I knocked up a page that heat mapped the pointer and wanted every user to aggregate to the map. So no for such a demo I probably wouldn't be coughing up.
      - stymaar 10y ago
        For a demo you can just code a 20-lines signaling server using websocket with nodejs or anything.
0XAFFE 10y ago
WebRTC is realy cool, but does not work in Safari. Did cost us quite some time in a project.
stymaar 10y ago
> Almost ready except for safari. Unfortunately, that's not that simple. First of all, Edge doesn't implement the dataChannels, and FF and Chrome implements a slightly different version of the spec[1] (and neither implement the latest one) and things still break from time to time :(. [1]: fortunately, it's still compatible with each other, but the API as a few little differences that varies over time.

fabian2k 10y ago

While it's probably a very niche feature for the web, it would be nice if WebGL would also support double precision floats. But as far as I can tell, even when the hardware supports them, WebGL does not, and neither does WebGL 2.

k__ 10y ago

Funny. When I hear people talk about WebVR, it sounds like everything is working fine. When I people hear about Vive/Rift, it sounds like there is still much to do, even with the fact that much better hardware is in place than with most WebVR testing.

saurik 10y ago
Given how amazingly slow many websites are, to the point where I start to question whether the site is working at all and deeply regret the fault in my brain that just had to know why list item #7 will surprise me, I generally assume your average web developer does most of their work on some kind of super computer; that probably helps make VR epic ;P.
- errantspark 10y ago
  Little OT, but I think there might be something to the super computer claim. A friend of mine recently tried to convince me that he needs at least 24GiB of ram for web development. I guess you need to be able to run multiple VMs inside a VM now to write your standard 'database + interface' webapp nowadays. Such is progress. ; )
  - charrondev 10y ago
    I can see how they get to 24 gbs. Running local db, server, a billion chromium instances (besides the browser and tabs and extensions, you have the editor and other apps running in atom), a couple other browsers to test in, maybe photoshop/ illustrator? Maybe?
errantspark 10y ago
Different contexts. WebVR 'works pretty well' because you can do everything that works in the WebGL in VR more or less. VR as a whole has a long way to go.