# Get Started

The XRP Ledger is always online and entirely public. You can access it **directly from a web browser** with a few steps described in this page. Scroll down to get started!

## 1. Prerequisites

To access the XRP Ledger from a webpage, load [Lodash](https://lodash.com/) and [RippleAPI for JavaScript (ripple-lib)](rippleapi-reference.html) in your site's HTML. For example:

```html
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.15/lodash.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/ripple-lib@1.8.0/build/ripple-latest-min.js"></script>
```

<!-- SPELLING_IGNORE: lodash -->

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/lodash.js/4.17.15/lodash.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/ripple-lib@1.8.0/build/ripple-latest-min.js"></script>

On this page, that's already done, so continue to the next step!


## 2. First Script

The following code gets the latest [ledger version](ledgers.html) and a list of transactions that were newly-validated in that ledger version, using the [`getLedger()` method](rippleapi-reference.html#getledger). Try running it as-is, or change the code and see what happens.

**Tip:** If you can, open your browser's Developer Tools by pressing **F12**. The "Console" tab provides a native JavaScript console and can give insight into what code is running on any webpage.

<div id="step2">
<pre><code id="step2code">
const mainnet = new ripple.RippleAPI({
  server: 'wss://s1.ripple.com'
});

(async function(api) {
  await api.connect();

  let response = await api.getLedger({
    includeTransactions: true
  });
  console.log(response);

})(mainnet);
</code></pre>
<p>
  <button type="button" id="step2button" class="btn btn-primary">Run</button>
  <button type="reset" id="step2reset" class="btn btn-secondary-outline">Reset</button>
</p>
<h3>Output</h3>
<div id="step2resp"></div>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="assets/vendor/codemirror.css" />
<script src="assets/vendor/codemirror-js-json-lint.min.js"></script>
<script type="application/javascript">
const code_ex = $("#step2code");
const code_text = code_ex.text().trim();
code_ex.text("");
const cm = CodeMirror(code_ex.get(0), {
  mode: 'javascript',
  json: false,
  smartIndent: false,
});
cm.setValue(code_text);
const cm_resp = CodeMirror($("#step2resp").get(0), {
  mode: 'javascript',
  json: false,
  readOnly: true
});
let ret;
$("#step2button").click((evt) => {
  const oldconsole = console;
  console = {
    log: (...args) => {
      oldconsole.log(...args);
      args.forEach(arg => cm_resp.setValue(JSON.stringify(arg, null, 2)))
    }
  }
  Function(cm.getValue())();
});
$("#step2reset").click((evt) => {
  cm.setValue(code_text);
});
function fill_ex_1() {
  cm.setValue("const mainnet = new ripple.RippleAPI({\n  server: 'wss://s.altnet.rippletest.net/'\n});\n\n(async function(api) {\n  await api.connect();\n\n  let response = await api.getLedger({\n      includeTransactions: true\n    });\n  console.log(response);\n\n})(mainnet);");
  $("html").animate({scrollTop: $("#step2").offset().top}, 500);
}
function fill_ex_2() {
  cm.setValue("const mainnet = new ripple.RippleAPI({\n  server: 'wss://s1.ripple.com'\n});\n\n(async function(api) {\n  await api.connect();\n\n  let response = await api.getLedger({\n      includeTransactions: true\n    });\n  let tx_id = response.transactionHashes[0];\n  let response2 = await api.getTransaction(tx_id);\n  console.log(response2);\n\n})(mainnet);");
  $("html").animate({scrollTop: $("#step2").offset().top}, 500);
}
function fill_ex_3() {
  cm.setValue("const mainnet = new ripple.RippleAPI({\n  server: 'wss://s1.ripple.com'\n});\n\n(async function(api) {\n  await api.connect();\n\n  let response = await api.getLedger({\n      includeTransactions: true\n    });\n  console.log('Total XRP: '+api.dropsToXrp(response.totalDrops));\n\n})(mainnet);");
  $("html").animate({scrollTop: $("#step2").offset().top}, 500);
}
</script>
</div>

## 3. Next Steps

Try editing the code from step 2 to do something different:

- Connect to the [Testnet](parallel-networks.html) public server at `wss://s.altnet.rippletest.net/` instead. [Answer >](javascript:fill_ex_1())
- Look up the details of a transaction using the [`getTransaction()` method](rippleapi-reference.html#gettransaction). For the `id`, use one of the `transactionHashes` from the `getLedger()` response! [Answer >](javascript:fill_ex_2())
- Convert the `totalDrops` from the response to decimal XRP. [Answer >](javascript:fill_ex_3())

## Further Reading

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