Add the Golly pattern collection to the main page

[muzik]

This is something I've been thinking about for a good while now. Since the main page at conwaylife.com has a usable LifeViewer embed, perhaps we could include all of the patterns bundled with a default installation of Golly (or at least those which LifeViewer is capable of running) as patterns which can be viewed and explored directly from the main page? This would probably be accessed through Advanced Options somewhere.

[confocaloid]

[...] (or at least those which LifeViewer is capable of running) [...]

I'm curious what are the current exceptions. Are those very large patterns requiring HashLife, and some patterns generated by a Python/Lua script?

[muzik]

[...] (or at least those which LifeViewer is capable of running) [...]

I'm curious what are the current exceptions. Are those very large patterns requiring HashLife, and some patterns generated by a Python/Lua script?

This alongside anything that can't fit on the grid at T=0.

[rowett]

There are three things in LifeViewer to be aware of:

1. The maximum pattern size roughly is 8000x8000 cells. This can be extended by 16000x16000 but then you're in danger of having mobile devices run out of memory.
2. LifeViewer's algorithms are all sequential. So there are a family of patterns in Golly's collection that don't make sense to run in LifeViewer.
3. LifeViewer does not support MCell (.mcl), MacroCell (.mc), or compressed (.gz) file formats. So any pattern in those formats would need to be converted to or saved as RLE.