The ubiquity of web browsers provides an incredible opportunity to move beyond the static world of paper for the presentation of mathematics. The default language of the browser is JavaScript and modern presentations use that language. MathCell provides a quick way to set up interactive elements for input into your code, as well as outputs for visualizing the results of calculations.

For past users of Mathematica’s now defunct CDF plugin, MathCell provides the functionality of the Manipulate command in pure JavaScript. That makes it both faster and more easily configurable. And since it is JavaScript, it works in all modern browsers. Replacing Mathematica’s plugin is one of the major motivations behind the development of MathCell.

The other major motivation for development is to avoid reliance on any server-based online services. MathCell runs entirely in the browser and does not require external servers to function. That means it can be used in the place of Jupyter/IPython widgets in stand-alone web pages, thereby avoiding the server-side rendering of notebooks. It also provides the functionality of interacts without the server-side processing delay.