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The "Python mode for Processing" file Tutorials/overview/index.html states "Advanced programmers need not use the PDE, and may instead choose to use its libraries with the Python environment of choice."

Unfortunately, it doesn't say how to do this, and I can't find any additional information in their documentation, or on here, or anywhere else.

My environments of choice are the PyCharm Community Edition, and Jupyter notebooks. If it's relevant, I'm on a Mac running OS X 10.11.5 (El Capitan).

Can anyone please tell me what must be done so that I can write and run Python code in those environments, using the "Python mode for Processing" libraries?

Andrew
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  • I don't know anything about Python, but you would use it exactly like you would use any other Python library. Just find the library files and use them however you'd use any other library files. This is more a general "how do I use libraries in Python" question than it is specific to Processing. – Kevin Workman Jun 21 '16 at 15:58
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    Thanks for the response, but it's not that simple. Though they refer to "its libraries," (and I quoted their language) Python for Processing is a Jython construct, structured as a mode plug-in for the Processing IDE. It doesn't contain an implementation of Processing, but instead it somehow communicates with another process that is running Processing's Java-based core. So this is not merely about using a standalone Python library. I wouldn't have thought you could use it outside of the Processing IDE, but they explicitly say you can - they just don't say how. – Andrew Jun 22 '16 at 00:08

2 Answers2

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It's not really obvious, but you can run Processing sketches through the command line using the processing-py.jar file. Following the tutorial:

  1. Java has to be installed on your system (you can check by running java -version in the terminal).

  2. Download and extract a .tgz file for your system from the link above. Among other files it contains a processing-py.jar file.

  3. Edit your sketch in whatever editor you are used to, and when done just do: java -jar <path to your processing-py.jar file> <path to your sketch file>. This runs your sketch in a new window.

    For convenience you can can copy the jar file (or maybe make a symbolic link with ln -s <source> <target>) to your project directory, so you can just do: java -jar processing-py.jar sketch.py

This approach is editor independent. I don't know much about pycharm, but you can just run your sketches from the pycharm terminal (View -> Tool Windows -> Terminal). I guess there must be a way of executing custom commands in pycharm (for example: builidng sketches in Sublime Text) but I'm not sure how to do it.

Community
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jjj
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In vscode there is an extension that allows you to run custom terminal commands. You can use it with the processing-py.jar file to run processing.py sketches. There is a tutorial that goes through the process here.

fenjalien
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