Lively Kernel
 Lively Kernel 0.9 example running in Chromium 5
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| Developer(s) | Sun Microsystems Laboratories, Hasso Plattner Institute |
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| Stable release |
2.1.3 / April 7, 2012
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| Written in | JavaScript, Qt variant adds C++ |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Platform | Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, iPhone/iPad, Microsoft Internet Explorer pre-version 9 only with extensions, but an experimental port, needing an added web browser plug-in, is available |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Web development |
| License | MIT |
| Website | lively-kernel |
The Lively Kernel is an open source web programming environment. It supports desktop-style applications with rich graphics and direct manipulation abilities, but without the installation or upgrade troubles of conventional desktop applications. Development began at Sun Microsystems Laboratories in Menlo Park, California, and later moved to the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam-Babelsberg near Berlin.
The Lively Kernel is a graphical composition and integrated programming environment written fully in the programming language JavaScript using standard browser graphics (W3C Canvas or SVG). It is thus accessible to any browser as a web page, and it begins operating as soon as the web page is loaded. It is able to edit its own code and graphics, and through its built-in WebDAV support, it can save its results or even clone itself onto new web pages. Along with its application development abilities, it can also function as its own integrated development environment (IDE), making the whole system self-sufficient with no tools except a browser.
The Lively Kernel uses a Morphic graphics model to add behavior to a scene graph built from browser graphics. Simple graphics are thus assembled into such standard widgets as sliders, scroll bars, text views, lists and clipping frames. A simple window system built from these widgets offers object inspectors, file browsers and code browsers. Even the rudimentary demo pages thus have the ability to edit and test new code in a simple code browser while the system is running.
The Lively Kernel includes its own multifont text editor written in JavaScript. It includes support for centering, justification and similar rudimentary text composition abilities. Working in Lively thus has much the same feel as working in a web page design program, except that the on-the-fly text layout is not being done in an offline composition program, but it is the built-in dynamic behavior of text in the Lively Kernel.
The liveliness of Lively graphics becomes even more apparent when manipulating the scale and rotation handles for objects and text. The whole code browser can be used when tilted 20 degrees on its side. Because the text editor is made up entirely of lively graphics, it works perfectly well when rotated or scaled, just as do the scroll bars, clipping frames, and the rest of the entire user interface.
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