2013: GeoGebra Web & Tablet Apps

Our main focus right now is on improving GeoGebraWeb (more information: spreadsheet, right click, etc.) to make our software and all your GeoGebraTube applets work very well in web browsers without the need for any plugins. Recently, we have also made great progress with our CAS integration in GeoGebraWeb.

At the same time, we are working hard to use GeoGebraWeb as the basis for GeoGebra Apps with a new touch interface for tablets. Our goal is to get the first Apps ready this summer before the start of the next school year.

2014/15: GeoGebra goes 3D and fully Web

The main new feature of our upcoming new desktop version is a fully integrated 3D graphics view which you can already try out in our GeoGebra 5 Beta release. As we are making fast progress with GeoGebraWeb, we are also planning to include the 3D there using WebGL technology. As you can see, our long-term goal here is to bring all of GeoGebra’s versatile functionality from the Java desktop to web browsers and thus to all platforms including tablets and mobile phones.

Some of the improvements include:

• The Derivative command (and hence the Tangent Tool) are now working for all functions (rather than just polynomials as before)
• Integration now works for most common functions (not just polynomials as before)
• The Spreadsheet is now working for simple copy & paste operations (the spreadsheet tools aren’t implemented yet)
• Double-click to redefine and the right-click menus now work in the Graphics View
• There are now more options for loading and saving. As well as uploading directly to GeoGebraTube you can open directly from Google Drive. You can now also save and load .ggb files locally.
• The Chrome App is now working in the same languages as GeoGebra 4.2, so try it out in your language!

• in Chrome (works best): http://www.geogebra.org/chrome
• or in other browsers: http://app.geogebra.org

Today we are announcing the new Spreadsheet view in GeoGebraWeb. You now have the Algebra, Graphics and Spreadsheet view available in your web browser, all based on HTML5 without the need for any plugins. It is now also working in 44 languages (with Hindi as a new language) and variants.

Our development team is continuously working to make GeoGebraWeb better, faster and add more and more functionality of our desktop application. It would be great if you could give us feedback and suggestions in our GeoGebraWeb User Forum.

What is working now:

• Graphics, algebra, and spreadsheet view
• Tools and style bar of the graphics view
• Input bar
• Open and save ggb files, also with Google Drive

What is coming next in GeoGebraWeb:

• Right-click menus
• Properties dialogs
• CAS view
• …

Cheers, and see you on the (GeoGebra) Web!

Even during the last week there were lots of improvements on the user interface. Now GeoGebra accepts statements in a∥b, c⊥d, E≟F (or E==F) format, and both segments and lines can be used in many proofs. The non-degeneracy conditions are also reported for almost all investigations. These are maybe nuances for a researcher, but important details for most users, for example students: GeoGebra must be intuitive in all subtopics of the mathematics. This is what we try to focus on: to ease understanding of difficult things.

This screenshot shows a non-degeneracy condition for the triangle midsegment theorem: if the points A and B are different, then the theorem is true. Here we used the "parallel" sign to define the statement. The URL shows that Google hosts the web version of GeoGebra, but also an offline version can be installed for the Google Chrome browser.

Ted Kosan, a pioneer of converting computer algebra systems from different languages to others, was one of the first hard worker in this long story. Ted, the lead developer of MathPiper, also did a great effort on converting YaCAS into Java, back in 2008. Because of Reduce has been open sourced since December 2008, and a Java interface (JLisp) was also available for it, Ted decided to try to convert it to JavaScript by using the Google Web Toolkit “Java to JavaScript” compiler (GWT). His adventure was inspired by Gábor Ancsin, a former web designer, who had surprisingly great results in compiling the GeoGebra source code into JavaScript with GWT. Now Ted’s work is a part of Reduce under the name “JSLisp“, and it is also built into GeoGebra as “GGBReduce“. With Ted’s help we have been using the Java version of Reduce by inserting its bytecode stream for the desktop platform, and finally we were also able to put the same bytecode into GeoGebraWeb as a static text. (In fact, Ted was already finished with his prototype back in May 2011.)

To try it out, the user should simply go to the alpha test page of the web platform version of GeoGebra. Then enter

f(x)=x^2*sin(x)

into the input box, press ENTER, and as another command, enter

g(x)=f'(x)

In some seconds (depending on the internet connection and the machine speed, and also the browser) the output g(x)=x^2*cos(x)+2x*sin(x) will be shown in the Algebra View on the left. Google Chrome users may want to try to install GeoGebra from the Google webstore as well to make all of this work offline on their workstation, too.

Yes! No magic any longer – a full featured computer algebra system fits in HTML5 and JavaScript. The next step is to do it faster – to offer convenient use for smartphone users as well. A smartphone can be really slow, and have just limited resources, so this sounds another great challenge.