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The Chandler Visual Programming Model

eternityforest 3y ago
I saw some discussion of visual programming recently, so I thought I'd do a writeup of the (very) domain specific visual rules engine I've developed over the years for media playback, interactive art, and digital signage. It pretty much combines state machines with restricted flowchart rules in every state, plus spreadsheet-style =expressions that can be used almost anywhere.
- ToJans 3y ago
  Tiny feedback that shouldn't take too long: I think a screenshot might help here...
  - eternityforest 3y ago
    Yeah, that's a great idea for sure! GitHub doesn't exactly seem to have a particularly good way to share lots of screenshots, but here's a few over at Hackaday. https://hackaday.io/project/25370/gallery#88828d4dd7e62feb95afb6f72446384f https://hackaday.io/project/25370/gallery#88828d4dd7e62feb95... The Wiki in general is a new addition to the project, as part of the general transition from mostly an internal tool to a document product, so there's definitely lots of room to improve.
smitty1e 3y ago
Not to be confused with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I did not know about that app, it actually looks really cool! If it had survived into the Android era I wonder what it would look like? I might have just named it the "Scenes Page" or something if I was starting over(Maybe I will for 1.0). It was originally meant to just be an optional addon that acted as a very simple DMX lighting controller, and the name comes from the historical profession of making candles. The original Kaithem concept was just a web IDE for Python and HTML, with some APIs to help with live coding. Then Chandler expanded to be the main feature of the whole thing, I merged it into the core, and simplified a lot of the other stuff .
ginko 3y ago
Doing a writeup on visual programming without a single screenshot or image is just.. baffling.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I was thinking of keeping it more abstract, but I think everyone in this thread is probably right. Screenshots added!

I saw some discussion of visual programming recently, so I thought I'd do a writeup of the (very) domain specific visual rules engine I've developed over the years for media playback, interactive art, and digital signage. It pretty much combines state machines with restricted flowchart rules in every state, plus spreadsheet-style =expressions that can be used almost anywhere.

ToJans 3y ago
Tiny feedback that shouldn't take too long: I think a screenshot might help here...
- eternityforest 3y ago
  Yeah, that's a great idea for sure! GitHub doesn't exactly seem to have a particularly good way to share lots of screenshots, but here's a few over at Hackaday. https://hackaday.io/project/25370/gallery#88828d4dd7e62feb95afb6f72446384f https://hackaday.io/project/25370/gallery#88828d4dd7e62feb95... The Wiki in general is a new addition to the project, as part of the general transition from mostly an internal tool to a document product, so there's definitely lots of room to improve.

smitty1e 3y ago

Not to be confused with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)

eternityforest 3y ago
I did not know about that app, it actually looks really cool! If it had survived into the Android era I wonder what it would look like? I might have just named it the "Scenes Page" or something if I was starting over(Maybe I will for 1.0). It was originally meant to just be an optional addon that acted as a very simple DMX lighting controller, and the name comes from the historical profession of making candles. The original Kaithem concept was just a web IDE for Python and HTML, with some APIs to help with live coding. Then Chandler expanded to be the main feature of the whole thing, I merged it into the core, and simplified a lot of the other stuff .

ginko 3y ago

Doing a writeup on visual programming without a single screenshot or image is just.. baffling.

eternityforest 3y ago
I was thinking of keeping it more abstract, but I think everyone in this thread is probably right. Screenshots added!