I used to study processing but then had a stroke – which damaged my left hand so typing accurately is extremely difficult. Because of previous work as web designer, I am familiar with Bluefish and Brackets. I have got Brackets up and running with processing (ver 4.x) and it is very helpful for typing issues, but I cannot run a sketch. I am told to" Open an HTML file . . . to launch a live preview."
When I used processing a few years ago the ide that came with processing was fine. Now it is not.
Is there any way that Brackets can run the sketch either within the split brackets window or totally outside? Would appreciate any help on this, or even suggestions of some other editor that understand processing and will help with typing.
Thanks much.
I’ve recently had the same need (ALS, grrrr) and switched from the IDE to Atom. I don’t know the exact details for Brackets, but they should be similar enough to get you going.
You need two things:
The command-line version of Processing - processing-java.exe - that is in the directory where you installed the Processing IDE
A Brackets extension that will execute that program with the appropriate paths and command-line switches when you want to run your sketch from within Brackets
In Brackets go to File… Extension Manager… and type ‘Processing Support’ into the search field. That extension says it helps create and run Processing sketches. It will need at least one piece of information: the location of the processing-java.exe executable on your system. Then you’ll likely want to set a hot-key combination to run your sketches.
Note: that extension hasn’t been updated since 2017. It should still run files correctly, and the template for a new sketch hasn’t changed, but the keyword highlighting won’t know anything about Processing features that have been introduced or changed since 2017. In Atom (which has ‘Packages’ rather than ‘Extensions’) sketch-running and syntax-highlighting are in separate packages, but it doesn’t look like any of the highlighters have been updated since Processing 4 was released.
(The differences between Processing 3 and 4 have more to do with changes in the version of Java SDK used behind the scenes than they do with changes in Processing. Using an editor instead of the IDE takes some of the ‘training wheels’ off of Processing and allows you to use features of Java that aren’t supported by the IDE, but for such things it is the editor’s Java syntax-highlighting that is important, not its Processing support.)