What's new:

• py5 on mybinder

• Py5SketchPortal widget to view animations on mybinder

• New println method for correctly printing to stdout and stderr from Sketch methods when using Jupyter lab

Breaking changes:

• The IPython line magics such as %screenshot and %animatedgif are now ordinary functions in py5_tools. They never should have been line magics in the first place.

Also:

• Some improvements for OSX Users. The OSX issues are now reduced from critical problems to annoyances

• Lots of little bug fixes

What's Ahead:

• Coding trick to allow users to skip a settings() method, like what can be done in the Processing IDE

• Write Tutorials and How-tos

• Expand example code in the py5examples repo

What's new:

• New py5 logo

• Drawing helper tools such as render and render_sequence have a new use_py5graphics parameter

Also:

• Complete, accurate, and truthful docstrings for every field and method in every py5 class

• Correctly support print statements in Sketch methods when using Jupyter lab

• Code improvements in the service of producing better documentation

• Some improvements for OSX Users

• Lots of little bug fixes

What's Ahead:

• Continue to address platform specific issues

• Write Tutorials and How-tos

• Example Code

What's new:

• PDE Mode has been renamed to Imported Mode

• A new Jupyter Notebook Kernel devoted to py5

Also:

• Better support for OSX Users. Specifically, there are no more issues closing Sketch windows.

• Repairs to all of the existing Reference Documentation. All of the example code now works correctly and all of the descriptions are now factually accurate.

• Code improvements in the service of producing better documentation

• Lots of little bug fixes

• Lots of big bug fixes

What's Ahead:

• Continue to address platform specific issues

• Continue to fill in gaps in Reference Documentation

What's new:

• Upgrade to the Processing 4.0 alpha 3 release

• A new way of using py5: The render-helper-tools. This was a great idea suggested by Allison Parrish.

• Major cleanup of the IPython Magics to make the magic names and their parameters more consistent. Notably, the units for all time related parameters is now in seconds. Any code that used the magics will need to be updated. Refer to the jupyter-notebooks documentation or the magic docstrings for more information.

• An exciting new feature to simplify the creation of adhoc Java extensions to boost Sketch performance. I haven't had a chance to document it yet, but trust me, it is pretty neat.

Also:

• Lots of little bug fixes

• Code improvements in the service of producing better documentation

• Changes to the setup.py package requirements

What's Ahead:

• Fixing OSX-specific issues

• Documentation, documentation, and documentation

Happy Holidays!

This is the 3D animation I made for my holiday cards, using the open source library I've been building, py5. You'll need ChromaDepth glasses to see the 3D effect properly.

Music: This is Christmas by Scott Holmes Music.

The snowflakes are from the old and widely used WWFlakes font by WindWalker64.

The actual source code for this animation is available on github as a gist. This is a good example of how one can easily augment py5 with a Java Processing library.

This animation took some time to create because I first had to figure out how to implement ChromaDepth in Java. It's also the first time I did something notable in Processing using shaders, and that took some effort to learn. Shaders are a topic I've been wanting to explore for a long time and am happy I got the opportunity to do so while creating this. I'm also happy that py5 performed well during the development process. I didn't have to fix any bugs. Hooray!

Also have a look at the animations for 2015, 2016, and 2018. Those animations all require red-cyan anaglyph 3D Glasses.

This is my first py5 related post. The purpose of this series of posts is to document my progress developing the library. This includes the technical aspects of the library, such as the release schedule, and non-technical aspects such as documentation and community growth.

In addition, as the py5 community grows, I will post links to notable py5 projects. I'd like to highlight everything from student work to the work of professional artists to commercial applications. I do believe in the usefulness of py5 and I'm so excited for the creative community to start using it.