pdjs: JavaScript for PD

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Thu, 12 Nov 2020 18:31:43 GMT

mganss — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 18:31:43 GMT

Hey, I've made pdjs, an external that executes JavaScript using V8 and tries to emulate Max's js object.

It lives at https://github.com/mganss/pdjs and is available through deken for x64-windows, x64-linux, and arm64-linux currently (x64-macos planned).

Most core functionality is there so a lot of code written for Max js that doesn't use any extra objects (like LiveAPI, Buffer, Dict, etc.) should run unchanged.

Please report any issues or missing features at GitHub.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sun, 15 Nov 2020 10:09:43 GMT

dom1817 — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 10:09:43 GMT

That's great!
Will try it as soon as the OSX binaries are available.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 13 Nov 2020 15:37:50 GMT

EEight — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 15:37:50 GMT

@jancsika

Nice! Very nice.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sat, 14 Nov 2020 22:39:03 GMT

emviveros — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 22:39:03 GMT

What's missing for compile pdjs for OSx?

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sun, 15 Nov 2020 12:02:51 GMT

mganss — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 12:02:51 GMT

@emviveros Not much, hopefully. If all goes well I just need to set up a development environment on a Mac and build V8 and pdjs. I'll try to get this done early next week.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sun, 15 Nov 2020 15:36:43 GMT

emviveros — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 15:36:43 GMT

Great! Thanks a lot for your work! If you need a mac machine to compile pdjs stuff I'm at your disposal.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Mon, 16 Nov 2020 19:00:53 GMT

mganss — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 19:00:53 GMT

The macOS version has been released on deken

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Mon, 21 Dec 2020 05:10:27 GMT

tabache — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 05:10:27 GMT

I'm just starting out with Pure Data, but this thing it looks really interesting to me.
I would love to see some patches with pdjs.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:46:24 GMT

mganss — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:46:24 GMT

@tabache You can find a few patches in the test-* directories of the pdjs repo here: https://github.com/mganss/pdjs/tree/master/test
These are part of the automated tests for pdjs so don't reflect real use cases but might be helpful to get a feel for how pdjs can be used. You'll probably need to add [declare -path pdjs] if pdjs isn't in PD's default search paths.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:27:09 GMT

lacuna — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:27:09 GMT

@mganss said:

an external that executes JavaScript using V8

Really nice work!

Could you please give a brief summary of how to implement such an engine or library in PD?
What have been the steps to embed it in PD?

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 12 Feb 2021 12:32:15 GMT

mganss — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 12:32:15 GMT

@lacuna Thanks. Here's a nice HOWTO about writing externals for PD: https://github.com/pure-data/externals-howto
Documentation about embedding V8 can be found here: https://v8.dev/docs/embed

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 02:51:50 GMT

ingox — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 02:51:50 GMT

@mganss @jancsika Following some ideas from this thread, i made a simple wrapper for pdjs, with which you can write javascript code directly into objects. It is not very pretty and you have to use [] instead of {}, but it is some fun:

javascript.zip

As the script file is rewritten and the code compiled each time the wrapper is called, this could also work as an extension, where javascript.pd and script are within an extension folder and can be called from everywhere.

This is just experimental and an early idea. No idea if this could go somewhere.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:32:27 GMT

mganss — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 10:32:27 GMT

@ingox Very nice! Perhaps pdjs could be extended by allowing script to be provided in the [js] object's arguments, thereby circumventing the requirement for a script file.

Max has the ability to edit the script using an internal editor. Is there a way to provide something similar in PD? Perhaps using a separate editor object and passing the text to pdjs via a message?

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 14:01:52 GMT

ingox — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 14:01:52 GMT

@mganss It would be possible to open a [text] from click. Problem is that Pd freezes if curly brackets are inserted into [text] and saved. The impulse would be to copy/paste Javascript code into the [text] and that would be dangerous...

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 14:31:42 GMT

Jona — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 14:31:42 GMT

@ingox it is possible to use curly brackets in the "textwindow" from ofelia, but no idea how to implement that in another external...

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:02:06 GMT

60hz — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 19:02:06 GMT

That's great!
For characters limitation in GUI, like curly braces, there was a PR on the road
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/953

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sun, 20 Jun 2021 07:46:43 GMT

eeropic — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 07:46:43 GMT

Fantastic work! I've been working with pyext and pdlua before, but still most proficient with js

Regarding having an editor inside PD - perhaps the underused Tcl/Tk GUI plugins could come in help with this, will look into this!

will try to add maybe simple REPLish input first, some examples of the possibilities:
https://puredata.info/docs/guiplugins/GUIPlugins/
https://github.com/pd-externals/tclprompt-plugin
https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/9960/tcl-for-a-rainy-day

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Sun, 20 Jun 2021 09:30:47 GMT

mganss — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 09:30:47 GMT

@eeropic FWIW here are two more things I'd love to have:

Autowatch. Here's a small cross platform solution: https://github.com/FigBug/Gin/blob/master/modules/gin/utilities/gin_filesystemwatcher.cpp
Chrome Developer Tools integration (debugging): https://hyperandroid.com/2020/02/12/v8-inspector-from-an-embedder-standpoint/
Not sure if this would allow debugging from VS Code as well.

Reply to pdjs: JavaScript for PD on Mon, 21 Jun 2021 18:43:07 GMT

emviveros — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 18:43:07 GMT

I wrote a patch to document a little pdjs external in:
https://forum.pdpatchrepo.info/topic/13510/modules-in-pdjs/4

Open to contributions.