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This pattern animator isn’t really ready for general use, but it handles 2-hand and 4-hand siteswaps well enough to preview. Leave a note if you poked the animator and have comments about it! -Jesse Millikan

Pattern Format – Pattern functions
Hand list format – Hand list functions

View Controls: Click and drag on the image to rotate (sort of), and right-click and drag on the image to pan around (sort of.) The + and – at the bottom right of the image zoom in and out (sort of).

Pattern List: Select any pattern in the pattern list on the right hand side of the window and click the “Run” button underneath the list to view it. Click “Edit” (slightly bad wording) to copy the selected pattern into the editor window. Once it’s in the editor window you can adjust the beat length and dwell length too, but you can’t save the pattern back to the list at the moment.

Easy Pattern Controls: Easy-mode controls are hopefully self explanatory. Enter or select a pattern in a combobox for that type of pattern. The next two text boxes are beat length and dwell hold time in seconds. Click “Run” to run the pattern. Select something from the “Object” list at any time to change what kind of object is displayed.

Example:

1. Select “996” (which is 8-club PPS) from the 4-hand SS Combo-box.
2. Click the “Run” button on the 4-hand SS line.

Hard Pattern Controls: Right now, this isn’t very useful except for previewing some advanced features. Pick a pattern you want to see from the Scheme List combobox, then set the Juggler/Hand List to an option that looks like it matches the number of jugglers in the pattern. (pair-of-jugglers or back-to-back will work nicely for any two-juggler pattern.) Change beat and dwell lengths if you want, then hit “Run” on the Scheme line.

Example:

1. Set the Juggler/Hand List to the “#;(40-man ‘canoe’…” option
2. Set the Scheme List combobox to the “#;(40-man 5p 3…” option
3. (Optional: Set object to “club” to see real backdrops.)
4. Hit the “Run” button on the Scheme List line.
5. Enjoy fighting the poor view controls. See above.

Example 2:

1. Set the Juggler/Hand List to “pair-of-jugglers”
2. Set the Scheme List combobox to the “#;(7 singles” option
3. Hit the “Run” button on the Scheme List line.
4. Witness clubs flying straight up into the air.
5. Change beat length to 0.10 to match funky six-beat siteswap.
6. Hit the “Run” button the Scheme List line.

Pattern Editor: Accessed through View menu. Only for those who are adventurous and have a little grasp of programming and notations. This serves the same function as the hard mode Scheme List line, only with a nice text editor window and no dropdowns for the examples. The top editor area accepts the juggler list and the bottom editor area accepts the throw list. If you want usable values to begin with, try picking a juggler list and pattern that already work together from the Hard Mode tab, or selecting a pattern from the pattern list to edit.

Editor mode has a convenience for “blowing up” pattern and juggler list descriptions (or any Scheme sub-expression) into their expanded form. Select any Scheme form and blow it up. It is under the Scheme menu, and can be used with Alt-s-e. Through the built in functions 4hss→sexp, passing-ss→sexp and sync-ss→sexp, you can get a nice blowup of some simple patterns. For example, enter (4hss→sexp “7777266”), highlight it, and hit Alt-S-E to get a blowup of slow mild madness to look at and mess with.

Developer’s list of things to do, vaguely in order of importance:

• Make pattern list and other lists editable, importable, exportable etc.
• Get basic File operations working in pattern editor
• Get at least some arm movement
  • Internal: Change segement format from a closure to something with more exposed data
• Fix appearance of balls and rings and split out support for different object types.
• Add more special throws and explicit support for number of spins.
• Fix dwell holds before special throws e.g. tomahawks
• Fix speed issues with patterns with large object paths
• Improve speed with large numbers of jugglers
• Get a new name – “Yet Another Juggling Program” has already been used.
• Support JoePass! or Jongl files.
• Have a causal diagram editor of some sort.