Communicate directly in visualizations/workflows/simulations

It’s still really difficult to share code

20 years ago I hit this problem: I was working with biologists who had carefully created a giant data set (plant response to stresses). I was tasked with creating analyses and decided that interactive visualizations would help the researchers. I wanted to simply use the web, but the tools were not yet mature.

Today it’s still more difficult that is should be to simply distribute code to someone else that Just Runs. Your main options are:

• dump the code in a git repo, a bit of a README.md, and leave it to the reader
• make a Jupyter Notebook
• a lot of other painful, or proprietary workarounds

but most existing solutions require some work. Why? I just want you to run my code.

That early experience shaped what I wanted to do: simply give someone code that runs and is interactive, they the end user can keep and modify.

Metapages is built for (safely) sharing code that runs, immediately, wherever you are

The metapage open-source library and platform are built specifically to address this problem: write code, connect data flow, create visualizations, attach data, and share this with others where they can edit and modify, take whatever they need, publish themselves, all in the browser, with the psychological assurance that this code will run in the future, without any installations.

A simple example of python and visualization, embedded right here in this page:

You can click the pencil icon in the top right, and then you can copy, edit: you have everything. The embedded workflow above is the embedded form: a minimal rendering of a workflow that runs in the browser. A workflow build of interoperable code chunks, editable directly in the browser, runnable anywhere, and embeddable anywhere you can put a link.

How you can share workflows and visualizations over social media and the web

URLS / Social Media

Metapages look great as bookmarks, and implement the Open Graph Protocol. The title, description, and image are all customized by the user:

They look good this way posted to social media, twitter, Bluesky, anywhere that understand the Open Graph Protocol.

Share via Slack, text messages, social media, your blog.

QR Codes for posters, presentations and your phone

You can get the QR code of any metapage via the share menu. Copy the image into your poster, your presentation, your website, now anyone can immediately view and interact with your data, your visualization, right there and then. Also just show someone the QR Code via your phone: now you are communicating directly in models, simulations, and workflows.

Embed in Notion (and other note tools)

Metapages work out of the box with Notion. Paste the URL and choose “Embed”:

Then you get a workflow running directly, fully interactive, fully self-contained, and immediately useable and shareable by your readers:

Embed in your own webpage

Advanced use case:

• directly embed runnable workflows in your own website in plain javascript
• directly embed runnable workflows in your own website in React

Have I forgotten any way to distribute?

Let us know on discord! We aim to be able share any and all ways

How it works

There are two pieces of technology that are needed and need to work together: browsers and (docker) containers. Browsers for running the orchestration anywhere safely with human interaction, and containers for the big, weird, or complex computation that a browser cannot (yet) do on it’s own.

The bit part to solve was the [Problem Internal Link].