Support for Top-Level Global Mode

qashto · October 14, 2025, 1:23pm

Hi everyone!

Kit has requested further discussion from the community on this issue.

Please let us know if this feature from Processing is something you’d like to see in p5.js!

github.com/processing/p5.js

Support for Top-Level Global Mode

opened 03:53AM - 15 Apr 25 UTC

quinton-ashley

Feature Request Area:Core Help Wanted

### Increasing access Parity with an existing feature in Processing. Also impro…ves ease of use in ESM sketches especially. ### Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js? - [ ] Accessibility - [ ] Color - [x] Core/Environment/Rendering - [ ] Data - [ ] DOM - [ ] Events - [ ] Image - [ ] IO - [ ] Math - [ ] Typography - [ ] Utilities - [ ] WebGL - [ ] Build process - [ ] Unit testing - [ ] Internationalization - [ ] Friendly errors - [ ] Other (specify if possible) ### Feature request details Ideally p5 could support top-level global mode. `createCanvas` would be available globally and could be used to start p5 in top level global mode and create a canvas. ```js createCanvas(200, 200); rect(20, 20, 50, 50); ``` There's a precedent for this in Processing. The Processing editor supports running sketches like this without a `setup` or `draw` method. ```java size(200, 200); rect(20, 20, 50, 50); ``` There's also a broader precedent in the many programming languages that used to require some kind of `main` method, that now can run top-level code. This would be especially useful in the context of improving usability of p5 in an ESM (issue #7670), because it'd make it easy to define functions like `draw` but also not have to prefix everything with the instance variable. ```js let p = new p5(); createCanvas(200, 200); p.draw = () => { rect(mouseX, mouseY, 100, 100); }; ``` It's also just nice in general to be able to declare and define variables on the file level. https://github.com/q5js/q5.js/wiki/Top%E2%80%90Level-Global-Mode

Topic		Replies	Views
Transitioning to p5.js from Processing. Maybe. Begrudgingly p5.js	1	316	November 2, 2018
Saving variables to global environment Libraries	17	842	December 3, 2019
What's going on under the hood with p5js? p5.js	7	1028	November 20, 2018
How do you combine canvases in p5j weather you overlap or organise them Coding Questions	8	1551	April 20, 2019
How i extends class in p5.js? Coding Questions	17	5688	November 27, 2019

Support for Top-Level Global Mode

Related topics