@react-p5/core v1.3.0

First and Foremost

This package is a fork of Gherciu Gheorghe's react-p5 library. Even this documentation is nearly 1:1 with the original package, just with updated imports.

So why fork the project?

My reasoning behind forking the original was two-fold. One, it has gone largely untouched sinced 2020 and I wanted to upgrade the project to React 18, to use functional components instead of class components; I wanted to rewrite it in TypeScript, and implement modern build tools to improve the DX of this project.

The second reason was that I have a long term goal that relies on this core package. Over the past several months, I've been building up a p5 starter. There's a very handy wrapper I've written around the core <Sketch /> component from the original react-p5 package that mimics the functionality of Matt DesLaurier's canvas-sketch. I want to create a few packages under the @react-p5 organization that will enable artists to fold these patterns into their React sites, regardless of the meta framework they prefer.

The first three I have planned are this core package, sketch, and utils. I intend on fleshing out my ideas further in the roadmap in the coming months.

Installation

• npm

  npm i --save @react-p5/core

• yarn

  yarn add @react-p5/core

Usage

JavaScript

import React from "react"
import Sketch from "@react-p5/core"

let x = 50
let y = 50
export default props => {
  const setup = (p5, canvasParentRef) => {
    // use parent to render the canvas in this ref
    // (without that p5 will render the canvas outside of your component)
    p5.createCanvas(500, 500).parent(canvasParentRef)
  }

  const draw = p5 => {
    p5.background(0)
    p5.ellipse(x, y, 70, 70)
    // NOTE: Do not use setState in the draw function or in functions that are executed
    // in the draw function...
    // please use normal variables or class properties for these purposes
    x++
  }

  return <Sketch setup={setup} draw={draw} />
}

Typescript

import React from "react"
import Sketch from "@react-p5/core"
import type p5Types from "@types/p5" //Import this for typechecking and intellisense

interface ComponentProps {
  //Your component props
}

let x = 50
const y = 50

const YourComponent: React.FC<ComponentProps> = (props: ComponentProps) => {
  //See annotations in JS for more information
  const setup = (p5: p5Types, canvasParentRef: Element) => {
    p5.createCanvas(500, 500).parent(canvasParentRef)
  }

  const draw = (p5: p5Types) => {
    p5.background(0)
    p5.ellipse(x, y, 70, 70)
    x++
  }

  return <Sketch setup={setup} draw={draw} />
}

Tips

• If you need to get the browser event object inside your p5 methods like mouseClicked or others you can do it by accessing the second arg.

mouseClicked(_p5, event) {
  console.log(event)
}

Events that are accessed using props are always attached to window.

That means that events are triggered throughout the whole page (see the p5 docs for reference).

If you would like to attach events only to canvas see the example below. As an example limiting click events to the canvas:

const setup = (p5, canvasParentRef) => {
  cnv = p5.createCanvas(width, height).parent(canvasParentRef)
  cnv.mousePressed(event => {
    console.log("Clicked on the canvas. Event:", event)
  })
}

Using it in an SSR environment (Next.js or Gatsby)

Importing this package for example in a Next.js or Gatsby app may give you this error:

ReferenceError: window is not defined

This is because importing p5 requires window to be available, and it isn't when server side rendering.

For Next.js we can fix this using Next.js dynamic imports with No SSR.

import dynamic from 'next/dynamic'

// Will only import `@react-p5/core` on client-side
const Sketch = dynamic(() => import('@react-p5/core').then((mod) => mod.default), {
  ssr: false,
})

For Gatsby we can use loadable-components. See Gatsby docs: Load client-side dependent components with loadable-components.

import Loadable from "@loadable/component"

const Sketch = Loadable(
  () => import("@react-p5/core")
);

export default LoadablePage;

With p5.sound

I frequently see this question even if the implimentation is super simple)) The only needed thing is to import "p5.sound" lib. I created a Special CodeSandbox DEMO if someone needs to see the implimentation.

With p5.sound + next.js (or other framework which has support for SSR)

This question also is frequently asked and the only difference from the normal aprouch is that in SSR mode the react-p5 lib should not be loaded because p5 doesn't support SSR and there is no sense for it to be support. So, if you are using react-p5 plus next.js and you need also p5.sound then try to use dynamic imports as in the code bellow which definitelly will help you.

import dynamic from "next/dynamic"

// Will only import `react-p5` on client-side
const Sketch = dynamic(
  () =>
    import("@react-p5/core").then(mod => {
      // importing sound lib ONLY AFTER REACT-P5 is loaded
      require("p5/lib/addons/p5.sound")
      // returning react-p5 default export
      return mod.default
    }),
  {
    ssr: false,
  }
)

Props