Regl-component interface

[dy]

Within all regl- components there is shareable pattern of code.

• [x] takes list of options with aliases - covered by pick-by-alias
• [x] provides only actual passed options in update, handles only provided params
• handles default viewport, range params
• translate and scale as pixel alternative to range
• evals functional params
• expose state of rendering, passing that to evaluated option properties, and letting read params, like draw.range or draw.viewport
• cache calculated state properties for corresponding input values
• cache drawing function
• destroy method? or just update(null)? Or update({destroy})?
• batch options argument to update.

[dy]

Implemented in https://github.com/dfcreative/regl-line2d/commit/8cc53f3d1daba994ee82092b00a1f3c0bd5f8c90 by obj-map-prop and pick-by-alias

[dy]

Some additional changes after practical work w/scatter plot

• [x] class interface: allows for extension/inheritance, reusing methods, naturally provides internal properties (unlike defined on some returned function), provides static methods/props (caching included), provides generic interface for related components, allows for generic methods.
• [x] batch should be better off as update(a, b, c) rather than update([a, b, c]) - for nested options complacency. That simplifies draw(els, els, els) vs draw([els, els, els]). It is not batch in fact, that is multiple passes. Doing update(a) after update(a, b) removes b pass, in that update fully redefines state. (see immutability-helper for inspiration)
  • [ ] adding new items: ``
  • [ ] removing i-th item: ``
  • [ ] updating (extending) i-th item: ``
• [ ] common regl-component interface for external regl-batch: a set of layers/areas with attached renderers. Methods/props: update, draw, destroy, viewport, render.
• [ ] shaders should be shared class-wise, ie. if we have multiple regl-scatter instances, only buffers/textures/resources get recreated, but shader keeps as static instance. That is doable through context binding.
• [ ] make sure after resizing screen it is not necessary to call update to recalc viewport.

[etpinard]

Thanks for writing this down. Very helpful.

[dy]

Full gl-component interface is implemented by gl-waveform. Main changes:

• no batching. Use multiple instances instead - that reduces code/API complexity significantly.
• render method instead of draw, for compatibility with virtual-dom
• viewport → clip, flip
• caching shaders
• regl is implicit - users don't care if that is regl or any other, besides it can be replaced with gl-util one day.