If I were to independently develop an interactive beadwork application... | Robin Brink

If I were to independently develop an interactive beadwork application...

Were I to develop this project in my own time I would start prototyping my concept in Processing, a language and IDE which I am becoming familiar with. The first thing I would develop is a class of bead objects.

This class would define a bead object of a particular size, with mouse click interactivity for changing colours. I would use mouseX and mouseY coordinates in conjunction with a mouseClicked function to determine whether the user has selected a bead to change its colour.

I would initialise the bead object in an ‘off’ state, by which I mean the fill value would be undefined (or blank). When the user clicks the bead it would cycle through an array of fill colour options, eventually leading back to the ‘off’ state. A simple application of this idea would be hovering over a bead, clicking it to fill with a colour, clicking again (repeatedly) to cycle through the available colours, and clicking back to the blank state if need be.

Once this bead object has been developed I would declare a two dimensional array (or matrix) which is made up of an even number of bead objects (in their blank states). The user could then begin clicking different beads in the ‘grid’ and start developing their design. Processing features a very simple ‘save’ function which could be used to save a .jpg or .png to the cache.

The benefit of this approach is that the user can begin working on their design from any point within the ‘canvas’ - as opposed to working from top to bottom. The ability to cycle through colour options (in place) would also allow for creative improvisation and flexibility.

I have described a theoretical approach to this assignment within the programming framework of Processing. I would thus have to invest some time in learning how to write this program in Javascript as it is more widely implemented on the internet.