Introduction

Now that you have learned some of the basics of animation it is time to introduce interactivity. Unless your animations are designed to run completely without any user involvement, you will need to process user events. This is not to say that all applets require user involvement. Some applets are designed to display an animation, in the background, as the user uses the site.

This chapter will present a simple animated applet, that the user will be allowed to interact with. This applet will display "Conway's Game of Life", an allow the user to start/stop, as well as edit the pattern that is being displayed. If you have never heard of "Conway's Game of Life," that will be explained next.