# Paper.js - The Swiss Army Knife of Vector Graphics Scripting [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/paperjs/paper.js.svg?branch=develop)](https://travis-ci.org/paperjs/paper.js) [![NPM](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/paper.svg)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/paper) ![Bower](https://img.shields.io/bower/v/paper.svg) If you want to work with Paper.js, simply download the latest "stable" version from [http://paperjs.org/download/](http://paperjs.org/download/) - Website: - Discussion forum: - Mainline source code: - Twitter: [@paperjs](https://twitter.com/paperjs) - Latest releases: - Pre-built development versions: [`prebuilt/module`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/prebuilt/module) and [`prebuilt/dist`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/prebuilt/dist) branches. ## Installing Paper.js The recommended way to install and maintain Paper.js as a dependency in your project is through the [Node.js Package Manager (NPM)](https://www.npmjs.com/) for browsers, Node.js or Electron, as well as through Bower for browsers. If NPM or Bower is already installed, simply type one of these commands in your project folder: ```sh npm install paper # Or: bower install paper ``` Upon execution, you will find a `paper` folder inside the project's `node_modules` / `bower_components` folder. For more information on how to install Node.js and NPM, read the chapter [Installing Node.js and NPM](#installing-nodejs-and-npm). ### Which Version to Use? The various distributions come with two different pre-build versions of Paper.js, in minified and normal variants: - `paper-full.js` – The full version for the browser, including PaperScript support and Acorn.js - `paper-core.js` – The core version for the browser, without PaperScript support nor Acorn.js. You can use this to shave off some bytes and compilation time when working with JavaScript directly. ### Installing Node.js and NPM Node.js comes with the Node Package Manager (NPM). There are many tutorials explaining the different ways to install Node.js on different platforms. It is generally not recommended to install Node.js through OS-supplied package managers, as the its development cycles move fast and these versions are often out-of-date. On macOS, [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) is a good option if one version of Node.js that is kept up to date with `brew upgrade` is enough: [NVM](https://github.com/creationix/nvm) can be used instead to install and maintain multiple versions of Node.js on the same platform, as often required by different projects: Homebrew is recommended on macOS also if you intend to install Paper.js with rendering to the Canvas on Node.js, as described in the next paragraph. For Linux, see to locate 32-bit and 64-bit Node.js binaries as well as sources, or use NVM, as described in the paragraph above. ### Installing Paper.js for Node.js Paper.js comes in three different versions on NPM: `paper`, `paper-jsdom` and `paper-jsdom-canvas`. Depending on your use case, you need to required a different one: - `paper` is the main library, and can be used directly in a browser context, e.g. a web browser or worker. - `paper-jsdom` is a shim module for Node.js, offering headless use with SVG importing and exporting through [jsdom](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom). - `paper-jsdom-canvas` is a shim module for Node.js, offering canvas rendering through [Node-Canvas](https://github.com/Automattic/node-canvas) as well as SVG importing and exporting through [jsdom](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom). In order to install `paper-jsdom-canvas`, you need the [Cairo Graphics library](https://cairographics.org/) installed in your system: ##### Installing Cairo and Pango on macOS: The easiest way to install Cairo is through [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/), by issuing the command: brew install cairo pango Note that currently there is an issue on macOS with Cairo. If the above causes errors, the following will most likely fix it: PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/X11/lib/pkgconfig/ npm install paper Also, whenever you would like to update the modules, you will need to execute: PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/X11/lib/pkgconfig/ npm update If you keep forgetting about this requirement, or would like to be able to type simple and clean commands, add this to your `.bash_profile` file: # PKG Config for Pango / Cairo export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/opt/X11/lib/pkgconfig After adding this line, your commands should work in the expected way: npm install paper npm update ##### Installing Cairo, Pango and all other dependencies on Debian/Ubuntu Linux: sudo apt-get install pkg-config libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev libssl-dev libjpeg62-dev libgif-dev You might also need to install the build-essential package if you don't usually build from c++ sources: sudo apt-get install build-essential ##### After Cairo has been installed: You should now be able to install the Paper.js module with jsdom and Canvas rendering from NPM: npm install paper-jsdom-canvas ### Installing Paper.js with Node-Canvas for Electron [Node-Canvas](https://github.com/Automattic/node-canvas) is a native dependency. In order to build it for use of `paper-jsdom-canvas` in Electron, which is likely to use a different version of V8 than the Node binary installed in your system, you need to manually specify the location of Electron’s headers. Follow these steps to do so: [Electron — Using Native Node Modules](https://electron.atom.io/docs/tutorial/using-native-node-modules/) ## Development The main Paper.js source tree is hosted on [GitHub](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/). `git` is required to create a clone of the repository, and can be easily installed through your preferred package manager on your platform. ### Get the Source git clone --recursive git://github.com/paperjs/paper.js.git cd paper.js To refresh your clone and fetch changes from origin, run: git fetch origin To update the `jsdoc-toolkit` submodule, used to generate the documentation, run: git submodule update --init --recursive ### Setting Up For Building As of 2016, Paper.js uses [Gulp.js](https://gulpjs.com/) for building, and has a couple of dependencies as Bower and NPM modules. Read the chapter [Installing Node.js, NPM and Bower](#installing-nodejs-npm-and-bower) if you still need to install these. In order to be able to build Paper.js, after checking out the repository, paper has dependencies that need to be installed. Install them by issuing the following commands from the Paper.js directory: npm install It is also recommended to install Gulp.js globally, so you can easier execute the build commands from anywhere in the command line: npm install -g gulp ### Building the Library The Paper.js sources are distributed across many separate files, organised in subfolders inside the `src` folder. To compile them all into distributable files, you can run the `build` task: gulp build You will then find the built library files inside the `dist` folder, named `paper-full.js` and `paper-core.js`, along with their minified versions. Read more about this in [Which Version to Use?](#which-version-to-use). ### Running Directly from Separate Source Files As a handy alternative to building the library after each change to try it out in your scripts, there is the `load` task, that replaces the built libraries with symbolic links to the `scrc/load.js` script. This script then load the library directly from all the separate source files in the `src` folder, through the [Prepro.js](https://github.com/lehni/prepro.js) JavaScript preprocessing library. This means you can switch between loading from sources and loading a built library simply by running. gulp load And to go back to a built library gulp build Note that your PaperScripts examples do not need to change, they can keep loading `dist/paper-full.js`, which will always do the right thing. Note also that `src/load.js` handles both browsers and Node.js, as supported by Prepro.js. ### Other Build Tasks Create a final zipped distribution file inside the `dist` folder: gulp dist And since `dist` is the default task, this is the same: gulp ### Branch structure Since the release of version `0.9.22`, Paper.js has adopted aspects of the Git- Flow workflow. All development is taking place in the [`develop`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/develop) branch, which is only merged into [`master`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/master) when a new release occurs. As of version `0.9.26`, the `dist` folder is excluded on all branches, and the building is now part of the `npm publish` process by way of the `prepublish` script. We also offer prebuilt versions of the latest state of the `develop` branch on [`prebuilt/module`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/prebuilt/module) and [`prebuilt/dist`](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/tree/prebuilt/dist). ### Building the Documentation Similarly to building the library, you can run the `docs` task to build the documentation: gulp docs Your docs will then be located at `dist/docs`. ### Testing Paper.js was developed and tested from day 1 using proper unit testing through jQuery's [Qunit](https://qunitjs.com/). To run the tests after any change to the library's source, simply open `index.html` inside the `test` folder in your web browser. There should be a green bar at the top, meaning all tests have passed. If the bar is red, some tests have not passed. These will be highlighted and become visible when scrolling down. If you are testing on Chrome, some of the tests will fail due to the browser's CORS restrictions. In order to run the browser based tests on Chrome, you need to run a local web-server through Gulp.js. The following command will handle it for you, and will also open the browser at the right address straight away: gulp test:browser You can also run the unit tests through PhantomJS in Gulp directly on the command line: gulp test:phantom To test the Node.js version of Paper.js, use this command: gulp test:node And to test both the PhantomJS and Node.js environments together, simply run: gulp test ### Contributing [![Open Source Helpers](https://www.codetriage.com/paperjs/paper.js/badges/users.svg)](https://www.codetriage.com/paperjs/paper.js) The main Paper.js source tree is hosted on GitHub, thus you should create a fork of the repository in which you perform development. See . We prefer that you send a [pull request on GitHub](https://help.github.com/articles/about-pull-requests/) which will then be merged into the official main line repository. You need to sign the Paper.js CLA to be able to contribute (see below). Also, in your first contribution, add yourself to the end of `AUTHORS.md` (which of course is optional). In addition to contributing code you can also triage issues which may include reproducing bug reports or asking for vital information, such as version numbers or reproduction instructions. If you would like to start triaging issues, one easy way to get started is to [subscribe to paper.js on CodeTriage](https://www.codetriage.com/paperjs/paper.js). **Get the source (for contributing):** If you want to contribute to the project you will have to [make a fork](https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/). Then do this: git clone --recursive git@github.com:yourusername/paper.js.git cd paper.js git remote add upstream git://github.com/paperjs/paper.js.git To then fetch changes from upstream, run git fetch upstream #### Creating and Submitting a Patch As mentioned above, we prefer that you send a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/about-pull-requests/) on GitHub: 1. Create a fork of the upstream repository by visiting . If you feel insecure, here's a great guide: 2. Clone of your repository: `git clone https://yourusername@github.com/yourusername/paper.js.git` 3. This is important: Create a so-called *topic branch* based on the `develop` branch: `git checkout -tb name-of-my-patch develop` where `name-of-my-patch` is a short but descriptive name of the patch you're about to create. Don't worry about the perfect name though -- you can change this name at any time later on. 4. Hack! Make your changes, additions, etc., commit them then push them to your GitHub fork: `git push origin name-of-my-patch` 5. Send a pull request to the upstream repository's owner by visiting your repository's site at GitHub (i.e. https://github.com/yourusername/paper.js) and press the "Pull Request" button. Make sure you are creating the pull request to the `develop` branch, not the `master` branch. Here's a good guide on pull requests: ##### Use one topic branch per feature: Don't mix different kinds of patches in the same branch. Instead, merge them all together into your `develop` branch (or develop everything in your `develop` branch and then cherry-pick-and-merge into the different topic branches). Git provides for an extremely flexible workflow, which in many ways causes more confusion than it helps you when new to collaborative software development. The guides provided by GitHub at are a really good starting point and reference. If you are fixing an issue, a convenient way to name the branch is to use the issue number as a prefix, like this: `git checkout -tb issue-937-feature-add-text-styling`. #### Contributor License Agreement Before we can accept any contributions to Paper.js, you need to sign this [CLA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement): [Contributor License Agreement](https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/paperjs.org/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dENxd0JBVDY2REo3THVuRmh4YjdWRlE6MQ) > The purpose of this agreement is to clearly define the terms under which > intellectual property has been contributed to Paper.js and thereby allow us to > defend the project should there be a legal dispute regarding the software at > some future time. For a list of authors and contributors, please see [AUTHORS](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/blob/master/AUTHORS.md). ## License Distributed under the MIT license. See [LICENSE](https://github.com/paperjs/paper.js/blob/master/LICENSE.txt) fo details.