p5i

p5.js, but with more friendly instance mode APIs

• ES6 Destructurable
• Declare first, initialize / reuse later
• Cleaner setup
• TypeScript type definitions
• Accessing instance context on setup and draw
• Flexible ways to defining your sketches

Motivation

p5.js in global mode is simple, consice and easy-to-use. However, injecting to the global window makes it less flexible in the modern web environment which you may have multiple pages and components with their own lifecycles, that's the reason we have the instance mode. Unfortunately, it isn't prefect, in the instance mode, you have to prefix every single function with xxx., make it a bit verbose and misaligned with the global mode.

new P5((sketch) => {
  sketch.setup = () => {
    sketch.createCanvas(720, 400)
    sketch.frameRate(30)
  }

  sketch.draw = () => {
    sketch.background(0)
    sketch.stroke(255)
  }
}, document.getElementById('canvas'))

To get rid of it, you may think of destructuring, but it won't work

new P5((sketch) => {
  // NO! you can't!
  const { frameRate, createCanvas } = sketch

  sketch.setup = () => {
    // `this` gets lost
    createCanvas(200, 200)
  }
})

p5i is a wrapper for p5.js to make the API more flexible and friendly to the modern world. It makes the functions in p5 independent from the this context and being destructurable. This makes the instance mode more like the global mode while keeps the ability to be isolated and reuseable. See the following example and the type definitions for more details.

Install

npm i p5i

CDN

<script src="http://unpkg.com/p5i"></script>

Functions will be exposed to the global variable P5I.

Usage

Before

import P5 from 'p5'

const myp5 = new P5((sketch) => {
  let y = 100

  sketch.setup = () => {
    sketch.createCanvas(720, 400)
    sketch.stroke(255)
    sketch.frameRate(30)
  }

  sketch.draw = () => {
    sketch.background(0)
    y = y - 1
    if (y < 0) {
      y = sketch.height
    }
    sketch.line(0, y, sketch.width, y)
  }
}, document.getElementById('canvas'))

After

import { p5i } from 'p5i'

let y = 100

function setup({ createCanvas, stroke, frameRate }) {
  createCanvas(720, 400)
  stroke(255)
  frameRate(30)
}

function draw({ background, line, height, width }) {
  background(0)
  y = y - 1
  if (y < 0) {
    y = height
  }
  line(0, y, width, y)
}

p5i({ setup, draw }, document.getElementById('canvas'))

Or

import { p5i, P5I } from 'p5i'

const { mount, createCanvas, stroke, frameRate, background, line } = p5i()

let y = 100

function setup() {
  createCanvas(720, 400)
  stroke(255)
  frameRate(30)
}

// with TypeScript
function draw({ height, width }: P5I) {
  background(0)
  y = y - 1
  if (y < 0) {
    y = height
  }
  line(0, y, width, y)
}

mount(document.getElementById('canvas'), { setup, draw })

Or

import { p5i } from 'p5i'

const sketch = p5i(() => {
  let y = 100

  return {
    setup({ createCanvas, stroke, frameRate }) {
      createCanvas(720, 400)
      stroke(255)
      frameRate(30)
    },
    draw({ background, height, width, line }) {
      background(0)
      y = y - 1
      if (y < 0) {
        y = height
      }
      line(0, y, width, y)
    }
  }
)

// you can mount it later
sketch.mount(document.getElementById('canvas'))

Or if you are fine with non-strict JavaScript

The with keyword:

p5i((sketch) => {
  let y = 100

  with (sketch) {
    function setup() {
      createCanvas(720, 400)
      stroke(255)
      frameRate(30)
    }

    function draw() {
      background(0)
      y = y - 1
      if (y < 0) {
        y = height
      }
      line(0, y, width, y)
    }

    return { setup, draw }
  }
}, document.getElementById('canvas'))

Sponsors

This project is part of my Sponsor Program

License

MIT