cycl
v1.1.0
Published
A process manager running on a unified requestAnimationFrame loop
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Cycl
A 1.5kb process manager running on a single requestAnimationFrame loop. Every process has a callback that, when active, fires once per frame.
Install
NPM + Browserify (recommended)
First install Cycl in your project root.
$ npm install cycl
Then include in your module using require().
var cycl = require('cycl');
File include
Download the latest cycl.global.min.js from http://github.com/InventingWithMonster/cycl and include it in your HTML document with a script tag, ie:
<script src="/path/to/cycl.global.min.js"></script>
This will load Cycl to the global scope as window.cycl, accessible in any script executed subsequently.
Use
Example process
var process = cycl.newProcess(function (framestamp) {
console.log('hello world! ' + framestamp);
});
process.start(); // Will output 'hello world' and the timestamp of the executing frame
To run a function with Cycl, we first have to create a new process. Active processes are fired once per frame.
Create a new process
The method newProcess takes the optional parameter scope, and a callback. If scope is provided, our callback executes in its context (this refers to scope). Otherwise the process itself is used as the context.
var process = cycl.newProcess(scope, callback);
Start a process
On creation, a process is not active. To start it, we simply call .start().
process.start(); // Our process runs
Stopping a process
We can stop this process with .stop().
process.stop(); // Our process stops
Run a process for a specific amount of time
Processes can be set to stop after a predefined period of time by passing start() a duration argument (in ms).
process.start(1000); // Our process runs for 1000ms
Run process every x seconds
Processes can be set to fire at regular intervals, like a framerate-locked setInterval().
process.every(100); // Our process runs once every 100ms
Change scope and callback
The scope and callback of a process can be changed with .setCallback() and setScope(). All these process methods can be chained.
process
.setScope(newScope)
.setCallback(newCallback)
.start();
Kill a process (for garbage collection)
To remove a process from memory, you first need to run .kill(), which will delete it from cycl's internal tracking. Then delete any references to that object.
process.kill(); // Process is removed from Cycl, but still exists
delete process; // Now references to process are removed, garbage collection can take place.