Lively - An Explorative Authoring Environment

Introduction

Lively is a Web-based runtime and development environment for Web applications. It incorporates tools and techniques to be completely self-sufficient. Development with Lively Kernel is notably different from development in other environments. Instead of working on text files containing source code, programmers interact and modify objects that are shared in a Web-based object repository. The system allows for wiki-style editing so that developers can collaborate and share ideas. This enables the explorative creation of and interaction with active Web content.

Supported web browsers

The Lively Kernel is intended to run in every commercial web browser client with no plug-ins or installation whatsoever. However, because of differences in the underlying graphics and other capabilities of various web browsers, we only support a limited set of browsers and browser versions. We have tested our system on Windows XP, Linux, and MacOS using the following browsers:

Google Chrome - Currently the best choice, has some HTML/SVG rendering issues in version 12
Safari 5 and Webkit nightly-builds - Recommended for best performance and quality of experience
Firefox 4 and 5 - Currently their remain problems with HTML5-specific features like transformations and gradients but overall usable
Opera 11.50 - Slightly slower than Firefox and has same issues
IE9 - Similar to Firefox

Examples

Please note: The following examples do not reflect the current status of Lively. See Webwerkstatt and Livey Web

	Lively Fabrik Lively Fabrik is a Web-based general-purpose end-user programming environment. It extends the ideas of the original Fabrik system by empowering end-users to create interactive Web content entirely within their Web browsers. Web applications created with Lively Fabrik typically combine Web sources, data manipulation, and interactive user interface elements. The result can be a Mashup, but due to the powerful underlaying system, any general-purpose application.
	Lively Wiki Lively Wiki enables users to create rich and interactive Web pages and applications – without leaving the Web. Lively Wiki combines the wiki metaphor with a direct-manipulation user interface and adds a concept for Web programming as well as programming tool support to create an easy to use, scalable, and extendable Web authoring tool. Moreover, Lively Wiki is self-supporting, i.e. the development tools were used for creating its own implementation thereby giving users the freedom to customize every aspect of the system.
	Examples The standard Lively Kernel examples, ranging from stock- and weather widgets, to developments tools, and an astroid game.
	Engine Example Active example with text that describes the Radial Engine with a customizable simulation.