sketch.js is a tiny (~5k) boilerplate for creating JavaScript based creative coding experiments. The demo shows what can be done with just a few lines of code.

It handles all that tedious but necessary stuff that would normally slow you down - setting up an animation loop, creating and managing a graphics context for Canvas or WebGL, cross browser and device event binding and normalisation for mouse, touch and keyboard events, handling window resizes… You get the idea.

When creating a sketch, you specify a type (the default is Sketch.CANVAS) and what you get back is an augmented instance of a CanvasRenderingContext2D, WebGLRenderingContext or Node / HTMLElement. This gives you direct access to all the usual properties and methods of your chosen context, as well as some new and useful ones added by sketch.js

It also provides fast global access to useful math functions and constants and extends random to handle ranges and arrays. Check out the wiki or the source for the full API.

###A Basic Example

If you’ve used libraries like Processing and Open Frameworks before, sketch.js will be especially quick to get going with. You can simply hook onto methods like setup, draw and mousemove to start playing:

var ctx = Sketch.create();

ctx.draw = function() {
	ctx.beginPath();
	ctx.arc( random( ctx.width ), random( ctx.height ), 10, 0, TWO_PI );
	ctx.fill();
}

Or if you prefer the syntax, you can also pass all the methods you want to use directly to the create method:

Sketch.create({
		
	draw: function() {
		ctx.beginPath();
		ctx.arc( random( ctx.width ), random( ctx.height ), 10, 0, TWO_PI );
		ctx.fill();
	}

});

###Events

Mouse, touch and keyboard events are augmented for convenience and certain properties are also stored in the sketch for when you need them outside event handlers.

The x and y properties are the mouse / touch coordinates relative to the window (clientX / clientY).

ctx.mousemove = function( e ) {
	ctx.lineTo( e.x, e.y );
}

If you're supporting touches, just handle them - on the desktop, the 0th element will be the mouse so your code will work the same accross devices and platforms.

ctx.mousemove = function( e ) {
	for ( var i = 0, n = e.touches.length; i < n; i++ ) {
		ctx.arc( e.touches[i].x, e.touches[i].y, 10, 0, TWO_PI );
	}
}

Touches and mouse position are also stored in the sketch for access outside event handlers.

ctx.draw = function() {
	for ( var i = 0, n = ctx.touches.length; i < n; i++ ) {
		ctx.arc( ctx.touches[i].x, ctx.touches[i].y, 10, 0, TWO_PI );
	}
}

Previous x and y values ox, oy and the deltas dx, dy are also sent in events and stored in the sketch

ctx.mousemove = function( e ) {
	ctx.moveTo( e.ox, e.oy ); // or ctx.mouse.ox, ctx.mouse.oy
	ctx.lineTo( e.x, e.y ); // or ctx.mouse.x, ctx.mouse.y
}

All keys ennumerted and common function keys are mapped to constants.

ctx.keydown = function() {
	if ( ctx.keys.SPACE ) ctx.reset();
	if ( ctx.keys.C ) ctx.clear();
}

###Build

If you modify the source and want to produce your own build, install UglifyJS with CLI then run the following command from the sketch.js directory.

uglifyjs -o js/sketch.min.js js/sketch.js