Support more shapes in NetLogo Web and Customizable interface colors

Feature Requests
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1

Hi all,

I have reviewed the posts here related to turtle shapes and want to propose that it would be very helpful to add more turtle shapes to NetLogo Web for educational purposes. Currently, NetLogo Web only supports the standard shapes. I would love to explore the possibility of including those from the library. I have been teaching NetLogo to students in grades 3-8 for years. The top two features that rapidly peak their motivation are colors and shapes. NetLogo Web is a better platform for most beginner students than the desktop version because of its no installation. So far, the limited shapes have frustrated students so often that I would like to request that more shapes be included in the NetLogo web, given that it does not support online shape edition.

Both NetLogo and NetLogo Web offer various color options for agents and patches. We can even set the plot color. I would also like to suggest allowing users to customize the colors of buttons, sliders, monitors, switches, and choosers. This will help users, especially young students, to gain ownership of the models.

2

Thanks for these suggestions! It sounds like three:

  1. Add the shapes library from desktop to NetLogo Web.
  2. Add a shape editor for NetLogo Web for students to make their own shapes.
  3. Enable users to customize colors of widgets.

We want NetLogo Web to be on par with desktop, so the first two suggestions are something we definitely want to do at some point. We have also discussed allowing for custom color themes which would relate to changing the colors of widgets. That would be a change to both NetLogo Web and Desktop, but we will consider it.

For students in grades 3-8 are you actually teaching them to code in NetLogo?

3

Yes, it would be fantastic if we could have all three.

Yes, I have been teaching them at the STEM Summer Camp at the University of Kentucky for years. The 3rd graders need some help, but students in grades 4-8 learn it very quickly. They are always eager to try more colors and shapes. When they used the desktop version in the past, they couldn’t stop creating their own shapes. Now we use NetLogo Web because it is more accessible.