Algorand is a blockchain with various unique features that most developers & users are unaware of. The Algorand IDE Playground was created to help developers discover and experiment with many of these features while in the browser. The playground was developed by the RockX team through a grant from the Algorand Foundation. This article walks through some of the tool’s capabilities and illustrates how simple it is to use! This project is still in development and we are adding additional features. Check it out and let us know what you think.

The intention of the IDE playground

We believe that having a playground where various Algorand features can be tried out easily will make understanding the nuances of Algorand easier. Users can try out various features without having to download any apps or libraries. Tooltips within the user interface also help to highlight usage without users having to read up on documentation to get a gist of how it works.

Below is a quick summary of the main features provided by the playground.

Asset Creator

Unlike other blockchains where tokenized asset creation involves custom smart contract code, this feature is provided out-of-the-box in Algorand as a standardized ASA asset. Within the playground, you can quickly configure, create, and deploy an asset.

ASA provides native features that allow managers to freeze or clawback assets which makes it useful to have better control over fraudulent usage of the asset. The playground provides a UI to enter all of the Asset configuration properties and quickly deploy it.

Stateless Smart Contract Builder

Stateless smart contracts are non-turing complete smart contracts written in Python or TEAL. They can be used for building escrow style accounts or for delegating signature authority.

Within the playground user interface, users can compile and fund contract addresses with ALGOs with the simple click of a button. Users can use the provided TEAL contract templates or write their own smart contract to test things out.

Algorand JavaScript SDK Editor

Algorand provides an SDK to interact with the blockchain. This SDK can be used to do things like create transactions, create accounts, transfer assets, deploy smart contracts, and execute atomic transfers. The playground provides a built-in editor and runner for the JavaScript SDK which allows you to quickly test out integration code within the browser environment.

Transaction Builder

The playground provides a feature-rich environment for building transactions. The builder allows constructing payment transactions, asset transfer transactions, asset opt-in transactions, and atomic transfers!

Tutorials

The playground also provides a set of tutorials to help developers get up to speed with Algorand. These tutorials have a one-click “Run Script” feature, that makes it easier for beginners to follow and change parameters within the tutorial IDE to test out various aspects of the API.

The Playground also contains a wallet manager and a settings configuration UI that allows the IDE to be connected to any Algorand node.

Conclusion

At RockX, we think that the technology stack of Algorand has the potential to be one of the major blockchain systems that powers Web 3.0. The features of Algorand have been overlooked by most and we hope that the IDE playground will help to onboard developers and further the Algorand ecosystem.

Feel free to try out the IDE playground & Algorand. We hope you helps you to learn more about the Algorand blockchain.