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phetsims / ph-scale

"pH Scale" is an educational simulation in HTML5, by PhET Interactive Simulations.
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/ph-scale
GNU General Public License v3.0
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User suggestion: mystery liquids, mix liquids #182

Closed oliver-phet closed 4 years ago

oliver-phet commented 4 years ago

I wanted to reach out to you following my finding your excellent pH scale simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/ph-scale/latest/ph-scale_en.html), and ask if it would be possible to request a custom edit to a version of the simulator in effort to support a virtual learning program.

I am part of an immersive interdisciplinary educational program that is inspired by D&D storytelling in which high school students embark on a literary adventure. As part of the story-telling, the students stumble on a laboratory and are taught about pH and ocean acidification. Since the pandemic turned this program into a virtual program, it would be wonderful if we could use your pH scale as part of it.

I am wondering if it would be possible to create a version of the Macro scale where 1) the pH test liquids are labeled differently (i.e. "Test liquid 1," etc.) and/or 2) two different test liquids could be added together (rather than only being able to add water to a test liquid), to view the change in pH.

Is this something that the iO version could accommodate?

pixelzoom commented 4 years ago

The timing on this request is interesting, since we've just started the RC process for a new version. And that typically means that we're unlikely to add significant new features for quite awhile. That said...

1) the pH test liquids are labeled differently (i.e. "Test liquid 1," etc.) and/or

This can be done via PhET-iO, but is not available in the public version. Under phScale.global.model.solutes you'll find the solutes, and you modify their nameProperty. For example, you could change phScale.global.model.solutes.blood.nameProperty from "Blood" to "Mystery1". Changing a nameProperty changes it everywhere in the sim, in both screens.

If we wanted to support something like this in the public version, we'd need to provide a query parameter for each solute name, used to initialize nameProperty. For example `?bloodName=Mystery1". There may also be a general way to override translated strings via a query parameter, but (if there is) I'm not familiar with that approach. We've discussed such an approach before, and it seems like a better way of customizing strings than having to modify Properties via PhET-iO.

2) two different test liquids could be added together

We have intentionally excluded combining solutes in this sim. It's not at all supported by the model. The model supports adding 1 solute to 1 solvent (water). Combining solutes would be a major rewrite.

Assigning to @arouinfar to decide if anything needs to be done now.

pixelzoom commented 4 years ago

On the Slack developer channel, I asked about a general way to override translated strings. @samreid replied:

There used to be a way to change i18n strings with the old requirejs string plugin, but I’m not sure whether we kept that feature in the es6 plugin migration. I’m not too familiar with the new string support, but I don’t see support for query parameter replacements in js/getStringModule.js

zepumph commented 4 years ago

Related to previous phet-io conversations in https://github.com/phetsims/phet-io/issues/1565 and https://github.com/phetsims/phet-io/issues/1551

arouinfar commented 4 years ago

@pixelzoom thanks for evaluating these requests. We will not be making any changes to ph-scale.

  1. the pH test liquids are labeled differently (i.e. "Test liquid 1," etc.)

Searching the design doc and repo, I haven't seen any previous discussion of unknown/mystery solutes. I'm not sure what goal a mystery solute would serve in the phet-brand version of this simulation. The pH probe immediately reveals the pH of the mystery liquid. This is in contrast to other simulations where the "mystery" would require some calculation, such as:

Perhaps the goal would be to identify the mystery solute by comparing its pH to a list of knowns. If the solution is diluted, this is problematic. If the solute is undiluted, it's trivial.

If we wanted to allow changing the name of solute via query parameter, something like ?bloodName=Mystery1 would reveal the identity of the mystery substance in the URL.

  1. two different test liquids could be added together

    We have intentionally excluded combining solutes in this sim. It's not at all supported by the model. The model supports adding 1 solute to 1 solvent (water). Combining solutes would be a major rewrite.

Agreed. Combining solutes is beyond the scope of this sim, and it's not something we will ever support. This goal would really be better supported by a sim about titration.

Since the bigger picture discussion of customizing strings via query parameters is happening elsewhere, I'll close this issue.

pixelzoom commented 4 years ago

Reopening and reassigning to @oliver-phet, in case he needs to reply to the user. @oliver-phet please close this issue when you're done.

oliver-phet commented 4 years ago

Thanks for the discussion, replied to user!