# AnimCubeJS - an animated web cube



## bcube (Jun 3, 2021)

Hi,

allow me to let you know that there is a new version of AnimCubeJS, a Rubik's Cube simulator ideal for the web-based cubing tutorials or e.g. solving reconstructions.

The new version might be interesting for the developers/programmers as it consists of only 1 fully readable JavaScript file per cube size, without any additional libraries or packages.


I personally would love to see some web cube simulator being directly integrated into the speedsolving.com forum and speedsolving.com wiki in order to visually help the questioners. In my opinion, AnimCubeJS could be a good candidate for this because in comparison with some other simulators it is:

1) simply working on all devices and platforms I tried so far

2) very flexible and customizable

3) easy to integrate by admins (I guess) and easy to create an actual simulator by forum/wiki members (i.e. you)


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## bcube (Sep 1, 2022)

Good news everyone! AnimCubeJS has been updated.

If you haven´t done it before, I encourage you to quickly scan through the simulator parameters. Don´t read parameter descriptions, experiment with example simulators instead to grasp the purpose of that parameter (read description only if you want to know more or you don´t understand example simulators in conjunction with the parameter name).

Anyway, what´s new? 

parameters hinthoriz, hintvert, hintborder - adjust hint stickers whatever you like it
parameter movetextspace - improve readability of your algorithm
align - arrange cube position vertically as you wish (new parameter values 3 - 99)
Enhancement section has even more illustrative examples now, including the 2x2x2 Devil´s algorithm (inspired by Lucas)
Enjoy


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## bcube (Sep 17, 2022)

Good news everyone! AnimCubeJS has been updated.

The counter parameter for displaying / hiding the move count has been added.

Did you know the simulator supports a total of 44 configurable parameters (including all 26 parameters from its predecessor AnimCube) as of now? What 3 parameters (or features) do you like the most and why?


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## bcube (Nov 9, 2022)

bcube said:


> What 3 parameters (or features) do you like the most and why?


No feedback at all? 

Anyway, good news everyone! AnimCubeJS has been updated. This time the changes were made while having speedcubers, solve reconstructors and creators of wiki articles in mind. I hope someone will like them as much as I do 

So what´s new?

multiple scrambles & solutions can be animated using only 1 simulator - see the examples in the initmove or initrevmove parameter section 
to support a widely used notation among speedcubers (especially for the 4x4x4 - 6x6x6 cubes), the sign parameter has been added, so now you don´t need to know a corresponding AnimCubeJS notation which is using advanced modifiers. I believe you can´t go wrong with the sign=1 setting for all cube sizes.
Some ideas where the new features can be used: 

reconstructions of world records (average of 5, mean of 3, even multi-blindfolded solving)
animation of popular algorithm sets such as PLL or CMLL (e.g. for world record holders)
showing several algorithm variations of the same case in the wiki
personal reconstructions (e.g. average of 12) in various example solve forum threads
You can use text comments during the animation, which could be benefical for both speedcubers/reconstructurs and creators of wiki articles.

reconstructors: you could type a scrambling sequence at the beginning of the solve, and type the time and TPS information at the end of the solve
speedcubers: you could make a comment like Xcross, F2L2, F2L3, F2L4 skip, OLLCP, H-perm during the solution
creators of wiki articles: if you have a bunch of 4x4x4 parity algorithms, you could comment which ones are Supercube safe in the animation. Or you could display the Supercubes right away. 
The possibilities are endless...


Happy reconstructing


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## bcube (Nov 19, 2022)

Good news, everyone! AnimCubeJS has been updated.

What´s new?

graphics of inner parts for the 4x4x4 - 6x6x6 cubes has been enhanced
settings for mobile devices have been modified (and simplified) to ensure even more mobile friendliness and to improve a user experience
new link was added to the parameters section: now you can create your own simulator (click on the Help button to see instructions)
Since you don´t need to download the program to create simulators, now you have no excuse for not making one 


Happy creating


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## bcube (Jan 3, 2023)

Did you know:

the history of the simulator goes back to 1995, the same year in which Java language was released?
the Gloomy Cube Java applet has been published by Josef Jelínek 3 years before his AnimCube applet?
Gilles Roux and Ryan Heise were involved in the AnimCube applet development? Lars Petrus was an inspiration with his own 2 applets.
you can still play with 6 AnimCubeJS Java "predecessors" in 2023? Prerequisites: Java being installed on your computer, IE11, Edge or Chrome with IE Tab extension (these are known to be working)
Ryan Heise made his AnimCube JavaScript version back in 2012, 3 years before Michael Feather had the same idea?
AnimCubeJS evolution (click on the pulldown to see pictures and more information).


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## bcube (Tuesday at 12:57 PM)

bcube said:


> you can still play with 6 AnimCubeJS Java "predecessors" in 2023? Prerequisites: Java being installed on your computer, IE11, Edge or Chrome with IE Tab extension (these are known to be working)



I am happy to see Michael Feather proved me wrong regarding prerequisites, they are not needed anymore. You can play with all 6 AnimCubeJS Java predecessors using modern web browser and/or mobile device.


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## ProStar (Tuesday at 1:10 PM)

This looks cool. May I ask what makes it better than alg.cubing.net, and now Twizzle? (Ignoring that twizzle has speedsolving.con support)


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## bcube (Wednesday at 8:58 AM)

ProStar said:


> (Ignoring that twizzle has speedsolving.con support)



As a matter of fact, AnimCubeJS is known to be working on forum platforms like discuz or XenForo no problem (speedsolving.com forum is running on XenForo).



ProStar said:


> May I ask what makes it better than alg.cubing.net, and now Twizzle?



Since developers, webmasters, solve reconstructors, or cubers in general might have different expectations and requirements on a simulator (and each of them might have different preferences too), the best answer I can give you is to read the tool´s documentation and decide what fits your needs better. For more specific answer feel free to ask more specifically - what is your use case, what is your desired functionality.

As mentioned in this post I am not fully aware of the alg.cubing.net and Twizzle functionality (partly because I didn´t have to use these tools at all). My personal comparison for performance and user experience are here and here. While I am aware of webmasters converting from alg.cubing.net type of simulator to AnimCubeJS because of simulator unusability, Lucas might know about webmasters converting from AnimCubeJS to Twizzle (I would be very interested to know the reason in such a case).


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