<click-to-play>: A Web Component That Shows a Still Frame Until Clicked
Simon Willison's Weblog41 days agoNew ToolSimon Willison released `<click-to-play>`, a lightweight web component that wraps GIF embeds and replaces them with a static first-frame image and an on-demand play button. The full animated GIF is fetched only when the user clicks, saving bandwidth on pages with multiple large animations. The component follows progressive-enhancement principles, remaining functional as a plain anchor-and-image fallback when JavaScript is absent.
Pasted File Editor
Simon Willison's Weblog56 days agoNew ToolSimon Willison released Pasted File Editor, a browser prototype inspired by Claude's handling of large pasted text. Instead of filling the editor with a large paste, the tool turns the content into a file attachment. It also supports opening files directly, dragging files onto the interface, and displaying images as thumbnails. Codex desktop helped build the prototype.
Recreating a 1980s Retro Game with Claude: Simon Willison's "Mad House"
Simon Willison's Weblog64 days agoNew ToolSimon Willison leveraged Claude to convert a 1983 BASIC game called "Mad House" from a free Usborne PDF into a modern web app. By prompting Claude to generate a mobile-friendly, retro-styled vanilla JavaScript Artifact, he successfully revived the classic Commodore 64-era game with a green-on-black terminal aesthetic, showcasing LLMs' utility in software preservation and rapid prototyping.