When you launch a script written in Javascript in Manifold, there's no browser and no traditional DOM with windows / HTML elements and similar things. Instead, you have an object representing Manifold from which you can get databases, tables, sequences, etc. A lot of Javascript libraries rely on the DOM objects to be there, so they cannot work in the Manifold environment without changes. But there are two caveats: First, some Javascript libraries are abstract enough with minimal dependencies and minimal requirements on what the script host has to provide. These can work without changes. Second, we are moving closer to serving web pages and for scripts running in the context of a web page, we get to use the traditional environment from the browser. This allows using all or nearly all Javascript libraries that currently exist. So, we are planning to allow using Javascript libraries first for scripts running in the context of a web page, and then for scripts running in the context of the bare-bones Manifold application.
|