Multiple p5.sound references pages are broken

[mvicky2592]

Most appropriate sections of the p5.js website?

Reference

What is your operating system?

Windows

Web browser and version

any

Actual Behavior

p5.PolySynth has a documentation page but it seems the constructor doesn't exist

https://p5js.org/reference/p5.sound/p5.PolySynth/

Expected Behavior

a working example

Steps to reproduce

No response

Would you like to work on the issue?

yes

[davepagurek]

Looks like the issue here is that the current website has reference for both the old p5.sound, and the new one, but the example runner is only importing the new p5.sound. I believe this is because the old p5.sound is included still in the main branch of the p5 repo, so its docs are getting parsed. So one solution could be to update the reference parser to exclude the lib/addons folder if it exists.

@ksen0, I think there was some discussion from educators around the old p5.sound, is it worth instead trying to keep those docs around but in a more dedicated/non-broken spot? Since we're setting up a separate 2.0 site shortly, a possible solution here could be to just use the new p5.sound in the 2.0 site, and only use the old p5.sound on the old site if we go this route.

[mvicky2592]

I'm fine with only having documentation for the new p5.sound on the new website but having both is very confusing for my students. It makes it impossible to tell what's part of the new p5.sound library and what's not unless you try to run the examples.

I based a big portion of my p5.js curriculum on the p5.sound library and I found out a lot of the reference pages are broken, not just the one for p5.PolySynth.

Was this due to a recent change or has it been an issue ever since the new p5.sound was released back in October? 😓

@ksen0 What would you reccommend that educators do in the meantime? Keep using the old p5.sound library and the old p5.js website?

[ksen0]

The old p5.sound which is in 1.x will still be around as 1.x is, so for about a year (until Aug 2026), so both the old library and the old website should be usable. Unfortunately, I don't have much to add beyond that.

Here's another thread about these changes processing/p5.sound.js#45 which links to an overview of them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pL0EVOlRTtfc6kcmK2rd9tZXpZal8FkJKALPb7app28/edit?gid=0#gid=0

That might be useful, however I don't see PolySynth on there, so I reopened that discussion to clarify what the intent was.

Following p5.js 2.0 initial release in a few weeks, I'm looking forward to turn a lot more attention to p5.sound.js. As @davepagurek there's been a bit of discussion about the old and new p5.sound.js, but not extensively, and the teaching materials have not yet been extensively updated, so that will be a major priority shortly.

[davepagurek]

Right, I forgot that p5.sound will stay bundled with the 1.x release, so maybe that could be a good reason to only show docs for the new p5.sound on the 2.0 site, and just show the old p5.sound docs on the 1.x site?

[ksen0]

This issue will be addressed by this PR; so once that is merged and live, this thread will be closed too. Thanks everyone!

EDIT: it's live, 1.x sound reference should be ok!

[ksen0]

Although PolySynth example is not working, it's related to a different bug #790