Carleton University - School of Computer Science Honours Project
Winter 2022
WebPiano
David Farrar
SCS Honours Project Image
ABSTRACT
WebPiano is a JavaScript application for use with Google Chrome or Firefox that enables the user to play musical notes from a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) enabled device. Most MIDI applications require a complicated setup and getting a MIDI device like a digital keyboard to work is quite difficult. The purpose of this project is to make this setup easier by using a JavaScript application on a browser instead of on your computer. Theoretically this would allow a user to “plug and play” a MIDI device. Part of the issue with designing a web application like this is the only browser to enable MIDI inputs is Google Chrome. So part of this project was to demonstrate how to enable another browser, Firefox, to accept MIDI inputs and run them on an application. In the end, while the MIDI addon for Firefox I designed does work, it’s installation is similarly complicated to other MIDI frameworks. On the other hand, the native support for MIDI on Google Chrome does demonstrate the “plug and play” utility of a JavaScript application.