# A new interactive 3x3 tutorial!



## molarmanful (May 26, 2016)

Hey all, it's been a long time since I last posted here. But I'm back!

Anyway, I've made an interactive cube tutorial at http://molarmanful.github.io/cubetut/. Basically, it teaches you how to solve the 3x3 w/ beginner LBL using a lot of interactive cubesims, but also features a draggable virtual 3x3 that highlights specific steps at specific times. I've given it to several people interested in cubing, and it seems to work decently well.

Since this is a first release, many things will probably be subject to change. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?


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## bcube (May 26, 2016)

Hi molarmanful,



molarmanful said:


> Thoughts? Comments?



Running on generally used browsers would be great. You don't want to see what I see on FF ;-)



molarmanful said:


> Suggestions?



I was on your page like 20 seconds, perharps I will write more later. For now, I would unify the view in your sections. I mean, when I entered your site (Intro section), the cube could be seen from above. When I clicked on Cross section, the view was from below (so far so good). When I clicked back on Intro, the view was (unexpectadly) from below (at first the view was from above, now it is from below).

Also, some cubes seems to be cut a little. See third and fourth cubes in Cross section. I can barely see that corner at the bottom-back. Even if it is not important for a solving purpose, I would still like to see the whole cube all the time


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## molarmanful (May 26, 2016)

bcube said:


> Hi molarmanful,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hehe, I fixed the FF problem. I believe the cut problem is also fixed, but that's on my computer.


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## shadowslice e (May 27, 2016)

I haven't had the time to look through this completely but what I have gone through looks great!


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## bcube (May 27, 2016)

molarmanful said:


> Hehe, I fixed the FF problem. I believe the cut problem is also fixed, but that's on my computer.



I can confirm the cut problem is partially solved now (see sections 4-7, i.e. the view from above).
That´s great it can now run on FF. Please don´t stop there, other browsers are waiting for fully functional gCube too, see this image: http://s33.postimg.org/h3dgk8s73/molarmanful.jpg. On the left, it is gCube on FF (that little colored dots are familiar, that colored inner surface is new  ), on the right it is gCube on IE 11 (I like it, it reminds me your Entropy cube ;-) ) - sir, that I call a puzzle! 

On IE (glad that you seem to change your mind (https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/programmers-wanted.53140/#post-1081840) regarding that browser) the links to your sections are not clickable (therefore I cannot go anywhere from Intro) and the text cannot be even highlighted (to copy it, for example); on default Android browser I see nothing.

Kind of bad rotation of a cube as a whole has been already reported (https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/...2x2-4x4x4-and-5x5x5-cubes.54829/#post-1173970) - I guess ThreeTwisty is based (more or less) on gCube.

Clearly I won´t critize your tutorial/used method for now, as I am more interested in those simulators


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## Herbert Kociemba (May 28, 2016)

Nice page! Some small issues you could think about: 
1. You use the abbreviations EOLL, CPLL and EPLL. But why OCLL and not COLL (Corner Orient Last Layer)?
2. The sliders for the speed are counterintuitive. I would expect the speed to grow if I move the slider to the right but it decreases.


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## molarmanful (May 29, 2016)

Herbert Kociemba said:


> Nice page! Some small issues you could think about:
> 1. You use the abbreviations EOLL, CPLL and EPLL. But why OCLL and not COLL (Corner Orient Last Layer)?
> 2. The sliders for the speed are counterintuitive. I would expect the speed to grow if I move the slider to the right but it decreases.


COLL is for orienting LL while permuting the LL corners. OCLL is just orienting LL corners.

Regarding the sliders, I was thinking more on the lines of twist duration, which is why the speed decreases as the slider increases.


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## molarmanful (May 29, 2016)

bcube said:


> I can confirm the cut problem is partially solved now (see sections 4-7, i.e. the view from above).
> That´s great it can now run on FF. Please don´t stop there, other browsers are waiting for fully functional gCube too, see this image: http://s33.postimg.org/h3dgk8s73/molarmanful.jpg. On the left, it is gCube on FF (that little colored dots are familiar, that colored inner surface is new  ), on the right it is gCube on IE 11 (I like it, it reminds me your Entropy cube ;-) ) - sir, that I call a puzzle!
> 
> On IE (glad that you seem to change your mind (https://www.speedsolving.com/forum/threads/programmers-wanted.53140/#post-1081840) regarding that browser) the links to your sections are not clickable (therefore I cannot go anywhere from Intro) and the text cannot be even highlighted (to copy it, for example); on default Android browser I see nothing.
> ...


Let me just put it this way: IE is the last browser I want to even work with now. I wish that were otherwise, but IE is a nightmare for me 

I also didn't plan on supporting mobile browsers. I probably should, but that's for later once the most important things are done.


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## mikebolt (May 30, 2016)

Wow, this is great!

Giving the user a random cross to practice at the beginning is great. I think lots of beginners get confused by all the extra stickers. I also like that the solution builds on top of what the user has already solved, gradually showing more pieces.

This works on my mobile browser (Chrome for Android), except the cube is too big and is partly concealed by the left side of the page. I think this could be fixed by adding or removing a few bootstrap classes. It might be better to have the cube at the top of the page on smaller screens.

I was looking into the Firefox bug recently for ThreeTwist. It's funny that the fix was to turn _on_ backface visibility. I'm pretty sure that this is actually a bug in Firefox, possibly with the depth ordering or alpha-compositing code. I'm working on new versions of renderer.js and CSS3DRenderer.js that should improve performance and dodge this bug. If it works, then we can investigate how to fix the bug in gCube as well.



bcube said:


> I guess ThreeTwisty is based (more or less) on gCube.



Almost: both ThreeTwist and gCube are based on the "Cuber" project, which ran the Google doodle and the Chrome Cube Lab.


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## molarmanful (Jul 10, 2016)

mikebolt said:


> Wow, this is great!
> 
> Giving the user a random cross to practice at the beginning is great. I think lots of beginners get confused by all the extra stickers. I also like that the solution builds on top of what the user has already solved, gradually showing more pieces.
> 
> ...


Ayy thanks! About the mobile issue, I really don't plan on supporting mobile browsers at thr moment.. May change in the future though... 


Sent from my magical unicorn using Tapalatalkalaka


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## GenTheThief (Jul 10, 2016)

The Site looks great! I went through the whole tutorial and loved it.
Only problem I found was for the 3CYCLE algorithm play button, it said HEADLIGHTS instead.

Maybe you could also include sims for the move notation.


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