Suggestion: Document for compatibility

[keqingrong]

It would be nice to add a document for compatibility.

Here is my notes. I hope this can help somenoe as a reference.

three.js compatibility

Browser Support

three.js supports most modern browsers, including Internet Explorer 9 and above.

three.js provides WebGL, Canvas, SVG and CSS renderers. Different renderers may have different requirements of compatibility. In theory, three.js works on all browsers that support WebGL: Google Chrome 9+, Firefox 4+, Opera 15+, Safari 5.1+, Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge. More infomation can be found at Can I use WebGL?.

For Internet Explorer, the table below lists avaiable renderers.

Renderer	IE Version
WebGLRenderer	IE11+
CanvasRenderer	IE9+
SVGRenderer	IE9+
CSS3DRenderer	IE10+
CSS2DRenderer	IE9+

If you still need to support IE9, it's a good choice to use CanvasRenderer.

ECMAScript Language Features or Web APIs Used in three.js

Feature	Use Scope	Modules
Typed Array	Source	BufferAttribute, BufferGeometry
WebVR API	Source	WebVRManager
Blob	Source	FileLoader
performance	Source	Clock
requestAnimationFrame	Source	WebGLRenderer
Promise	Examples	GLTFLoader, GLTF2Loader, WEBVR
Web Workers	Examples	WWOBJLoader2
FileReader	Examples	GLTFExporter
URL API	Examples	GLTFLoader

Polyfills

Just import polyfills base on your requirements. Again, taking IE9 as an example, the following polyfills are necessary:

• Typed Array
• Blob
• performance
• requestAnimationFrame

Suggested polyfills

• core-js
• Typed Array
• ES-Promise
• Blob.js
• performance
• requestAnimationFrame

[Mugen87]

@keqingrong Thanks for your effort! Of course a compatibility overview is a useful thing and might be good orientation especially for beginners.

However, i do not vote for an "official" detailed compatibility overview since it is a lot of work to maintain a comprehensive document. Right now, it is already hard for the core contributors to keep the project fairly up to date. I do not like the idea to document even more stuff.

Besides, i see some critical statements in your post:

three.js supports most modern browsers, including Internet Explorer 9 and above.

I'm afraid this statement is misleading and produces wrong expectations. From my point of view, IE9 is not supported. Microsoft users should use at least IE11, the better option is Edge.

If you still need to support IE9, it's a good choice to use CanvasRenderer.

No sorry, this is not a good choice. CanvasRenderer only supports a small subset of WebGLRenderer's features.

ECMAScript Language Features or Web APIs Used in three.js

You've missed some JavaScript APIs that are actually used in the core like WebAudio. Besides, requestAnimationFrame is not only used in WebGLRenderer but e.g. in VideoTexture. Other API's that are used in the examples like PointerLock, TextDecoder or fetch are also not mentioned.

[mrdoob]

I agree with @Mugen87. However, I would be open to include this if @keqingrong agrees to be the main maintainer of that page.

[Mugen87]

Fair enough.

@keqingrong What do you think about @mrdoob's suggestions?

[keqingrong]

@Mugen87 I am sorry for my late reply and thank you for pointing out the existing problems in my post. It is not sufficiently rigorous and comprehensive, which also reflects that why we need a document or wiki.

Personally, I hate outdated browser and don't agree to support them. Unfortunately, in the company, the project I am working on need us to support IE9. We found that with some polyfills three.js can still work fine.😀

@mrdoob Thank you! Frankly speaking, I am bad at English, but I will try my best to refine it.

[mrdoob]

Feel free to do a Pull Request then 👌