We have some exciting new developments to share. We’ve added React.js support in Flowhub and built consensus around the the Flux application architecture as the pattern to use when building client-side applications with NoFlo FBP. With Flowhub 0.1.11 we also released a few visual and audio component libraries for NoFlo and show how to combine both visual and audio in a single FBP program.

React.js Support on Flowhub

We added React.js support using the React components for NoFlo library. React is a battle-tested JavaScript library for building composable high performance user interfaces. Instagram.com is built on React, both public site and internal tools, while some big names such as Github’s new Atom editor, Khan Academy, New York Times, and Airbnb, are all using React in production. React is also used in Flowhub’s graph editor.

Flux Application Architecture

As you may already know, Flux is the flow-based application architecture that Facebook has adopted for building client-side web applications.

It’s not a framework, but a set of guiding principles for building scalable, maintainable applications on the Web. Flux solves a big complexity problem over the traditional MVC approach by paying more attention to data flow.

"This structure allows us to reason easily about our application in a way that is reminiscent of functional reactive programming, or more specifically data-flow programming or flow-based programming, where data flows through the application in a single direction — there are no two-way bindings." - Facebook

Henri implemented the Flux pattern using NoFlo and as he put it, “it just worked.” You can play around with the runnable demo on Flowhub:

Flux Demo on Flowhub

Here is a simple example graph and the React JSX file. For a more detailed explanation of Flux, head over to Facebook’s React page on Github.

We are growing confident in the Flux approach and believe it to be a big step toward nailing down a commonly agreed upon architecture pattern for building client-side applications using NoFlo FBP, a big milestone for the maturity of NoFlo and Flowhub, and another guiding point for those eager to build software using our FBP tools.

Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD) Support

We added Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD) Support so you can now load external dependencies to your client-side Flowhub projects. This makes it easier to work with non-NoFlo JavaScript libraries like React.js. You can find the NoFlo-AMD components on Github.

Algorithmic Design in FBP

On the more creative side, Vilson Vieira released a Canvas implementation for NoFlo inspired by Grasshopper, an algorithmic modeling tool for Rhino. You can read more about algorithmic design in FBP using the Noflo-Canvas component library on the Meemoo blog.

Here is a runnable demo of a Bezier Curve.

Canvas to NoFlo Bezier Curve Demo

For more complex shapes, Vilson brings us Noflo-Geometry which implements Voronoi Diagram and Delaunay Triangulation, canonical algorithms in Computational Geometry that were made classic for generative art or creative coding. These algorithms are useful to create textures or meshes.

NoFlo Geometry - Delaunay Component

Combining Audio and Visuals in Flowhub

Vilson also shows us how to connect both Audio and Visual in a single FBP application using Noflo-Canvas and Noflo-Webaudio, a wrapper of the Web Audio API.

Be sure to check out the runnable demo on Flowhub.

Open, hack, bend, rewire, fork, and mod

Forrest Oliphant talks about FBP and design for hackability at Assembly Helsinki Summer 2014. You can view the replay and read a follow up post on Forrest’s blog.

Flowhub tutorial in Russian

To wrap things up, there is a nice tutorial in Russian on working with Flowhub posted by Vladimir Minkin.