Processing.js - Listing files from sketch directory

Question

I'm new here, so hello everyone!

I wrote a few things in Processing language and now I need to switch to Processing.js. I need to write an app that first scans the sketch folder to prepare a list of provided files. And what was straightforward in Processing is not in PJS.

I'm currently searching the web but I only found solutions for classic Processing. I know that JavaScript has restrictions and in general can't access the user-side files, but is there any way to list the sketch-itself files?

The only way that comes to my mind is to list them on server side via PHP and generate the .pde file dynamically depending on the sketch folder. But the catch is to not use any other language.

Thanks in advance for help!

Answer 1

Processing.js running on a website can only get information that URLs can provide it, and since there are no "dir listings" on the web, it can't grab dir listing content for a URL for you work with. However, depending on what you really want to do, there might be a way to make it work without resorting to PHP.

Assuming you have your Pjs page running on www.example.org/index.html, and you want to list content for www.example.org/sketch/, one option is to simply have a file www.example.org/sketch/list.txt containing all the filenames that the sketch can access, and simply grab that with a

String[] fileNames = loadStrings("./sketch/list.txt")

instruction.

If you can give an example of what you mean with "I need to write an app that first scans the sketch folder to prepare a list of provided files", a more specific solution is probably possible (i.e., what are the files, what does the user need them for, etc)