I have been wanting to write a series of posts on threejs for a while now, and I do not care to put it off any longer. I have fiddled with threejs in the past, but never really got into it, that is until now. I have enough experience with it to know that it helps making projects that involve 3d objects very easy, yet it is still something that takes a significant investment of time to get fairly solid with. Also there is not just what there is to know about the various features of the library, but also what there is to known when it comes to working with 3d in general. For example when it comes to really getting into 3d at some point sooner or later I am going to want to also learn a thing or two about using blender as a way to go about making external files that I can then load into a scene.

Also threejs is one of those javaScript projects that is just plain awesome. Working with solid geometric space is one of the main reasons why I got into programming in the first place, so of course I need to write about this one, how can I not? So this will be a getting started post, that will kick off at least a first few additional posts on this subject, and I can see myself going beyond that easy.

Read More

These days there are a ton of options for scripting http requests with javaScript when it comes to modern native options like fetch, as well as popular user space options like axios that seems to be a popular solution for this sort of thing. Many developers go so far as to make there own http clients themselves when it comes to yet another option, but even then a native method of one sort or another will have to be used in order to do so. There is using a modern browser built in feature like fetch, but I would still go with the old fashion tired yet true XMLHttprequest for these tasks in many simple pet projects at least.

It does have it’s draw backs, compared to more modern solutions, but it is not that hard to quickly make a solution that makes use of more modern javaScript features like promises. It is true however that if I am going to start to invest a great deal of time into making my own http client, I should probably stop and take another look at where there is in terms of user space options for http clients. There are many great solutions out there all ready and I am not sure if I really need to be yet another developer inventing the wheel again by making yet another http client.

Still if I do choose to make my own custom tailored http client I will most likely use XMLHttpRequest as a way of making the request. Often I just go with it for examples where I just need to make a request for an example when working out a simple client system for an examples that has to do with a back end framework, or something to that effect as to not complicated the process any father than it needs to. In this post then I will be going over some very basic use case examples of the XMLHttpRequest method, as well as any additional topics that might come up when using the method.

Read More

In late specs of client side javaScript there is the fetch method that is a way of making http requests in browser that is introduced in the whatwg living standard . It is like the tired yet true XMLHttpRequest method, but may prove to be a little easier to use, and returns a promise out of the box. However one draw back might be browser support for older platforms, depending on the situation with that the fetch method might have to be polyfilled, and is thus not necessary a native replacement for user space http clients like axios.

So then the js fetch method makes use of promises, and provides an updated response api for better handling common tasks like parsing json to a workable object which is a nice feature. So in many respects it is a little more user friendly compared to the tired yet true XMLHttpRequest method that would need to be used with much additional javaScript code around it to end up with similar functionality. It might still be a smarter play to go with a user space option that makes use of XMLhttpRequest to provide the same functionality still tough, at least that is what I would do more often then not.

So the fetch native client side javaScript method is like a browser built in modern http client. However because fetch is still a new feature relative to XMLhttprequest at least, it might be to soon to regard it as a replacement for a user space http client. However the fetch method can be added to older platforms by making use of a polyfill for the fetch method. Still in my projects in generally prefer to use a user space http client, or the tired yet true XMLHttprequest method.

In any case the fetch method is still without question a feature in modern browsers that is worth a moment of my time to write at least one post on the subject. I have done so all ready with XMLHttpRequest, and axios after all.

Read More

As someone who has been a kind of windows, and Linux dual boot type person for over ten years now, it would be great to have some way of always having some of the commands I have grown to like when working in a Linux environment always with me regardless of the operating system environment that i am working with when making a node.js project. Lucky for me there is a project called shell.js that can help with this.

Read More

When making any kind of HTML canvas application there is often a need to have some kind of main update loop where the state of a model is updated, and then rendered using some code that can be thought of as a kind of view when drawing to the canvas elements context. Unless the project is completely event driven there will typically be a need to have a way to run the same method over and over again. There is more than one way to go about having a main app loop with a canvas project, but one such option that might be the best choice these days is the requestAnimationFrame method.

For the most part the request animation frame method is the one you will want to go with when it comes to anything involving canvas elements and an app loop. Generally the other options such as the setTimout and setInterval methods are only used for other environments outside of the main event loop of a front end project, such as webworker, or doing something with nodejs.

Read More