NICHOLAS BROWN

Welcome to the first article in a series on creative sound design in the web browser using the JavaScript library, p5.js.

P5.js is a web-oriented interpretation of Processing—a Java-based language for learning how to code by creating sketches in the context of visual art and design.

JavaScript is the language of the web browser. P5.js is a JavaScript library. This means it’s a collection of pre-written computer code you can use in your web apps.

There are basically two ways you can get started coding with p5.js—either use the online editor or set up a development environment locally, on your computer, using a code editor like the free Visual Studio Code.

There is a handy guide to both approaches here on the p5.js website. This page also includes information about setting up a local server, in combination with a code editor. Setting up a local server lets you run your code in a browser and make the browser show updates every time you save any changes in your code editor.

Let’s take a look at running p5.js locally. First, I download and unzip a copy of the complete p5.js library and open up Visual Studio Code. Next, I drag the p5 folder onto the main editor window.

The folder and its contents are now listed in the ‘Explorer’ panel. Looking at the list of content, we see two folders (‘addons’ and ‘empty-example’), two javascript files (‘p5.js’ and ‘p5.min.js’) and a README text file. The README gives an overview of the files in the complete library download.

The two p5.js files provide the complete p5 library in two versions. One of these has the extension .min.js. This is a minified version of the library that is optimized to save file space. You can read more about what this ‘minimization’ means in the README.

The addons folder includes the p5.sound files, which adds Web Audio functionality to p5.

The folder called ‘empty-example’ includes an index.html file, which provides some pre-written code to display and style your P5 sketch in the browser window.

Notice that the script tag on line 16 is commented out. We need to uncomment that in order to use the sound functionality in our sketch (i.e. by removing the comment marks!).

Also, notice that the html code gives relative paths (‘../’) for the location of the p5 javascript library files. This means they specify the location of the file starting from the current directory location. The double dot means ‘the directory above the current directory’.

Finally, we come to the sketch.js file itself, which is where we write our JavaScript code. Let’s check everything is working by writing a few test lines, as follows:

function setup() {
    createCanvas(800, 600);
    background(0, 0, 125);
}

In line 2, we create a canvas with dimensions 800 x 600 pixels. A canvas is a designated area of the browser where our p5 sketch will be rendered.

In line 3, we give it a mid-blue background using RGB color values: Red equals zero, green equals zero, blue equals 125.

To see this in the browser I need to open the index.html file. This is where it’s really useful to install a live server. You can search for a live server of your choice via the ‘Extensions’ tab in VS Code.

Once a suitable live server running and the index.html is loaded in the browser, the browser will update automatically every time changes in the code are saved.

In Part Two, we’ll look at playing some sound in the browser window. We’ll also see how to write an algorithm that divides a programme into small steps and how it can be useful to write those steps out in plain language, before writing any computer code.