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Metapages- publish, embed, edit, share composable complete applications

Dion Whitehead

This is a deeper dive into an example metapage, that runs python, creates plots using matplotlib.

Concepts:

  • The entire user created application exists completely in the URL
    • When you edit the application below, you are editing the URL
    • Obviously there is a limit, but it’s quite high
    • The URL can be shared, and then edited by someone else
    • If you have this URL, you own it. I do not store any application state, in this example at least
  • Each of the boxes is a metaframe, which is a term used here to mean a separate webpage URL, with a small library to listen to inputs and send outputs (because the application is a graph of metaframes)
    • Because the components are also just URLs, and those URLs are also editable, you can edit the components and the changes are persisted in the main parent URL
  • You can edit the global configuration
  • You can edit the individual components
    • Metaframes have their own internal editing overlays/menus
  • You can see the graph layout

The example published application

This application runs python (in the browser via pyodide), and generates some plots, sends those as outputs to components that just display images.

You can take this, modify it, and share it. No backend servers needed (except for serving plain static assets). Embed in your blog, group websites, company docs, etc.

Click any of the hamburger menus to edit the individual components: