yoob.js

Version 0.11. Everything subject to change. For version history, see the file HISTORY.markdown.

yoob.js started out as the HTML5 counterpart to yoob, but has since grown to include several generally-useful facilities for making animated and interactive HTML5 pages.

Like yoob, yoob.js:

• provides a set of components for implementing visual interpreters for esoteric programming languages (esolangs).
• is written amateurishly.
• has an API that is not particularly good, finalized, or stable.

Unlike yoob, yoob.js:

• is written in Javascript which assumes HTML5 capabilities in the browser (mainly support for the <canvas> element.)
• does not provide a single canonical overarching framework which "knows" how to interpret and display and run an esolang implementation. Instead, more fitting with the dynamic approach of the Javascript language, yoob.js provides the constituent parts, and it's up to the developer to string them together into an esolang interpreter (or whatever else) and to lay it out on a web page.
• is not limited to providing support for esolang interpreters; it might be better described as a set of components for implementing esolangs "and other bizarre things".
• does not support unbounded integer values (yet; see "Planned", below).
• provides components which are meant to be used as starting points for further modification. (It's all public domain, so mangle it up!) For example, yoob.SexpParser is meant to be used as an example or basis for a specific grammar of your choice.

Other things you should know about yoob.js are that it:

• requires features from HTML5 and related "modern" web standards. With the exception of a few simple "shims" for a few critical things, it does not try to do any feature detection or polyfilling. If it doesn't work in your browser, it doesn't work in your browser. Try another browser.
• does not rely on jQuery or any other front-end web framework.
• does not come minified or agglomerated or anything. I mean, this isn't production web development, we're not trying to optimize page load time here, we just want to run us some esolangs, right? You're free to do this yourself. May we suggest cat yoob/*.js > yoob.js? (Note: there may one day be a small script to do this sort of thing for you, more intelligently, respecting dependencies and whatnot. Especially if you write it and send a pull request.)

Used in

yoob.js is currently used in the HTML5 implementations of:

• Gemooy
• Wunnel
• Etcha
• noit o' mnain worb
• Super Wumpus Land
• REDGREEN
• Circute
• Braktif
• Jaccia and Jacciata
• Cyclobots and many other HTML5-Gewgaws

API

Each yoob.js class is defined in some .js file, and each .js file inserts the class[es] it defines into the yoob namespace (which it will create as a new, empty, global namespace if it has not already been defined.)

The classes are currently:

• yoob.Playfield, in yoob/playfield.js

  A two-dimensional Cartesian grid of values which dynamically expands as needed. Objects of this class are suitable for representing programs in two-dimensional esolangs such as Befunge, as well as cellular automata, and suitable for use as a backing store for a text-terminal simulator.

• yoob.Cursor, in yoob/cursor.js

  An object representing position and direction in some space, which may be one-dimensional (typically a yoob.Tape, where it serves as a tape head) or two-dimensional Cartesian space (typically a yoob.Playfield). The direction aspect need not not necessarily be used.

• yoob.PlayfieldCanvasView, in yoob/playfield-canvas-view.js

  A view (in the MVC sense) which associates a yoob.Playfield with a <canvas> element in the DOM. The playfield will be depicted on the canvas, which can also dynamically expand as needed.

• yoob.PlayfieldHTMLView, in yoob/playfield-html-view.js

  A view (in the MVC sense) which associates a yoob.Playfield with any element which supports innerHTML, although typically a <pre> element. Compared to the canvas view, this view will allow text to be rendered more nicely in some browsers, be selected for copying/pasting in the browser, and so forth.

• yoob.SourceHTMLView, in yoob/source-html-view.js

  A view (in the MVC sense) which associates a program text with any element which supports innerHTML, although typically a <pre> element. This supports displaying cursors on a linear program text.

• yoob.TextTerminal, in yoob/text-terminal.js

  A crude simulation of a text-based addressable console, including some functions (which need not be used) which understand simple terminal control sequences, such as LF and backspace. Requires yoob.Playfield and yoob.Cursor and, if you actually want to render the terminal in a browser DOM, yoob.PlayfieldCanvasView or a compatible playfield view class.

• yoob.LineInputBuffer, in yoob/line-input-buffer.js

  A crude simulation of a buffer into which the user can type a line of text. Typically it is associated with a yoob.TextTerminal object, on which the text is displayed as the user types it.

• yoob.Tape, in yoob/tape.js

  A (theoretically) unbounded tape, like you'd find on a Turing machine. It can also be used as a push-down, first-in-first-out stack of values, like you'd find on a push-down automaton.

• yoob.TapeCanvasView, in yoob/tape-canvas-view.js and yoob.TapeHTMLView, in yoob/tape-html-view.js

  Like yoob.PlayfieldCanvasView and yoob.PlayfieldHTMLView, except for yoob.Tapes.

• yoob.Tree, in yoob/tree.js

  A multi-purpose, n-ary tree, with optional node name (String identifier) and payload (arbitrary value.) Children are indexed by integer, 0-based. It's meant to serve two main purposes:

  • as an AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) for the (initial) intermediate representation(s) of a program in an interpreter or compiler, in which case the node name is the node type and the payload is anything that might be handy, such as what the tree evaluated to; and
  • as terms, roughly as defined in the science of term rewriting. In this case the node name is the "constructor" and the payload is probably not used. For this purpose, the tree.js module should eventually include facilities for matching and unification.

  Trees, with only two children, could also be used as lists a la Lisp. In this case the node name and payload would both go unused.

• yoob.Scanner, in yoob/scanner.js

  A simple, inefficient lexical analyzer, parameterized with a table of regexps. Can also serve as a starting point for writing your own, less simple, inefficient lexical analyzer.

• yoob.SexpParser, in yoob/sexp-parser.js

  A simple recursive-descent parser which parses S-expressions. Uses yoob.Scanner to analyze the input string and yoob.AST to create the parsed version. Can also serve as a starting point for writing your own recursive-descent parser for some other, more complex language.

• yoob.Controller, in yoob/controller.js

  A controller for animating the evolution and animation of a state (such as an esolang program state or a cellular automaton configuration). Can be hooked up to DOM elements in the UI (typically buttons.)

• yoob.SourceManager, in yoob/source-manager.js

  An object for managing the editing and registering (generally, to a yoob.Controller) the textual source of a program or configuration.

• yoob.PresetManager, in yoob/preset-manager.js

  An object for managing a set of "presets" — which, for an esolang, might be example programs; for an emulator, might be ROM images; for a control panel, may be pre-selected combinations of settings; and so forth. May be used to populate the source of a yoob.SourceManager and/or a yoob.Controller,

• yoob.Sprite and yoob.SpriteManager, in yoob/sprite-manager.js

  A set of classes for (somewhat crudely) managing independent things which can be placed, moved, be clicked, and be dragged around a canvas.

• yoob.Turtle, in yoob/turtle.js

  For Turtle Graphics. This is a "model" rather than a "view"; movement of the turtle generates a yoob.PathList (see below) which can then be drawn on a canvas (or not.)

• yoob.Path and yoob.PathList, in yoob/path.js

  A Path is an abstraction of a path (a list of connected, two-dimensional points.) Think of it as a model that also contains a convenient default view (i.e., it knows how to draw itself into a 2d drawing context.) A PathList is an ordered list of paths along with some convenience methods.

• yoob.FullScreenDetector, in yoob/full-screen-detector.js

  A shim (of sorts) which detects when the user has toggled their browser's full-screen mode (usually but not necessarily by pressing the F11 key) and fires an 'onchange' event, in which you can resize DOM elements of your choosing to suit the (non-)full-screen display (or whatever else you wish.)

  Note that this is unrelated to the idea of programatically asking the browser to go into full-screen mode. That isn't supported (but if you do do that by some other means, the detector should still detect it.)

• yoob.Joystick, in yoob/joystick.js

  Emulates a joystick, with some finesse. Be default, this is with the cursor keys as directional control, and either control key as the fire button. However, this is configurable.

• yoob.Chargen, in yoob/chargen.js

  An object for producing bitmapped-character-like displays, such as those found on 8-bit retrocomputers. A monochromatic image, with the character patterns in a regular grid, must be supplied. Chromatic versions of the character patterns, in each of the given colours, will be automatically created. The character data may also be modified programatically.

• yoob.Animation, in yoob/animation.js

  An object which manages animations. It is given an object to operate on, and can be initialized in one of two modes. The quantum mode calls the given object's draw() method on each animation frame, and calls the object's update() method as necessary to ensure that update() is called once every given number of milliseconds (default being 1/60th of a second.) The proportional mode calls the object's draw() method on each animation frame, passing to it the amount of time that has elapsed (in milliseconds) since the last time it was called.

  This object uses the requestAnimationFrame API to conduct the animation, or falls back on its included setInterval-based shim in browsers which don't support requestAnimationFrame (or support it only under "their" name.)

  This object is a replacement for the deprecated *AnimationFrame functions which appeared in an earlier version.

• yoob.Varier, in yoob/varier.js

  A small wrapper on top of yoob.Animation which varies a variable from one value to another, automatically stopping the animation when the final value has been reached.

• yoob.CanvasResizer, in yoob/canvas-resizer.js

  An object which attempts to intelligently resize a canvas element, to make it fit inside the browser window at all times, resizing it or making it disappear if necessary, and retaining a maximum size or aspect ratio, if requested.

Plus some functions which aren't classes:

• yoob.showSplashScreen, in yoob/splash-screen.js

  An adapter-type thing which displays a div element with some inner HTML (typically containing a message or logo or such) and a "Proceed" button, all in place of a given element. When the button is clicked, the div is hidden, the given element is revealed, and a callback is invoked.

  The intention is to allow a "splash screen", which may contain a disclaimer or similar, before the "main stage" is actually displayed and started.

• yoob.make*, in yoob/element-factory.js

  Convenience functions for creating DOM elements. Some of them create groups of elements that co-operate to provide a functionality in the UI (e.g. spin controls.)

Planned

• yoob.Environment

  A scoped associative structure, suitable for implementing a symbol table or an evaluation context.

• yoob.Error

  For error handling. Scanning and Parsing should accumulate a list of these objects before choking and dying. They should be displayable nicely somehow.

• unbounded integer support

  Although yoob.js will likely not ship with an unbounded integer implementation (unless someone wants to contribute one), certain classes (Tape, Playfield) should probably, one day, have limited support for working with objects which conform to a subset of the API exposed by Matthew Crumley's Javascript BigInteger class, which is unastonishing.