I implemented this in a test branch! Took me some time.

Documented in this github issue:
https://github.com/L5lua/L5/issues/7

The branch is here:
https://github.com/L5lua/L5/tree/print-in-window

To use, add the showPrint() command to your skech, and it will now display all debug print statements in the window.

The goal is to make #L5 easier to use for those not using the command line.

I'd love some feedback on this! Should this be added to L5 officially? (And where should these kinds of discussions be held?)

Worked more on this today.

showPrint() now uses the default font no matter what other user fonts are loaded. The default size of the onscreen text is 16, but you can now specify an optional textsize argument.

Download L5 from the print-in-window branch and add showPrint() to you setup() to test:
https://github.com/L5lua/L5/tree/print-in-window

I think this is a big improvement especially for beginner users but would love feedback.

#L5

There's now an L5 category on the Processing Foundation's forum? Still not sure where else to start or create a forum for L5 (still thinking Cerca might be nice!) but thought it's a good idea to post there as well.

https://discourse.processing.org/t/about-the-l5-category/47800/2

wow i was way too excited and stayed up another hour. shader tests i've done have worked! neeed to document more and test the complete API. basically we are running love2d 11.3 instead of 11.5 so it's possible some things could break due to this?? not sure.

I also merged the shader-fallback code branch and the new printToScreen() branch I developed and been testing this week. Feeling good! Now to sleep.

Also exciting: Jessica wrote a Contributors guide intro https://l5lua.org/contributing/

and I've now merged code or tutorials or typos, bug fixes from at least 10 folks I think.

Added a Mac install guide for beginners. Fixed some bugs.

https://l5lua.org/tutorials/install-mac/

Corrected printToScreen() so that color and fill state are saved and restored after printing print() text to screen (which is optional and can be turned on with new printToScreen() function ). Also, printed text is drawn on top of filter() if one is applied to the canvas window.

Huge overhaul of install instructions and many improvements to the https://L5lua.org website today.

Worked with a friend and carried on in the evening before bed.

Added step-by-step install instructions for Mac, Windows, Linux.

Added GUI and cli instructions for running programs.

Improved some tutorials, adding printToScreen() functionality/description.

Added photos to Mac install instructions.

Created new getting-started page for after install.

And more subtle improvements.

I created a page about L5 on the permacomputing wiki

https://permacomputing.net/L5/

Added to my weekend project list:
Test if I can get L5 library to run with this Love2d implementation for Windows XP.

https://github.com/PANCHO7532/love2d-xp

New blog post:
What's cooking with L5? New events, documentation and printToScreen - February 2026

https://leetusman.com/nosebook/whats-cooking-feb

Added a new example to the L5 website's examples:

https://l5lua.org/examples/min-span-tree/

An example of a minimum spanning tree, which I learned about today from watching a video about implementing generating pathways between rooms for a roguelike game

I'm giving a talk on L5 this coming Thursday for WordHack at Wonderville in Brooklyn, NYC.

Tonight I wrote my presentation as well as the slideshow software, in L5.

A little preview.

(Music from Biesentales 102 on Cashmere Radio, hosted by @jayrope )

I added a development branch HOTRELOAD for testing out new hot reloading functionality in L5.

More info and how to install for testing:
https://github.com/L5lua/L5/issues/10

Looking for feedback, bug-testing, etc.

mostly engaged in academic stuff this week, though i did go to my friend's experimental turntablism concert tonight! On the L5 front we received a pull request to improve the efficiency of drawing text to screen; i am in-process improving the custom shape functions, and i continue to test hot-reloading on a test branch. Also fixed a typo on a reference page title on the website.

In free time I was hacking around on an exercise tracking app but it's very ugly (see screenshot) so far.

I'm also formulating a larger idea about the languag that I am thinking may be useful to codify: just as p5.js has the "access statement" that all features/development of p5.js will only be taken if it increases access, maybe we want a similar statement for L5 that the language features only get developed if they support concepts relating to permacomputing, broadly writ. Still brainstorming on this and the implications and doing some behind the scenes expository writing to work it out.

Lots of L5 work but it's behind the scenes

Met with Usability Studies teams from University of Washington to get feedback on website and L5 itself. Lots of useful info came back. I immediately put it to use and fixed some parts on the Mac install instructions. But i still need to implement more navigation fixes. I added a video tutorial for Mac users on how to install L5.

Merged code and received advice from other contributors fixing some bugs, improving efficiency, and adding missing functionality.

Spoke with prospective fellows who want to work on a L5sound and L5video libraries this summer. I created some code examples on how these could work and explained "idiomatic Lua" with functions and tables rather than a OOP library approach.

The biggest bear is the least obvious one: finished and submitted huge
academic article that was due Thursday and took most of my time over the past three weeks. I have one more due next week.

I led an hour workshop on L5 for CCFest today. It was held online. We recorded it. If it's any good maybe it can be put up on the website. Next week is Algorithmic Art Assembly v3 for a more in-depth workshop on computational poetry and art with L5, at Grey Area.

This thread is turning into a monster. The Usability studies from University of Washington are completed and super useful. Next steps will be to turn them into a series of action items, but I'm currently bogged down in other work! Linked from this thread: https://discourse.processing.org/t/l5-usability-testing-for-creative-coders-coming-from-processing-and-p5-js/47903/5

I participated with a workshop and a talk at Algorithmic Art Assembly at Grey Area in San Francisco. I had a lot of fun attending other talks and performances and meeting lots of folks, including online friends I had never met irl before.

Continuing behind-the-scenes L5 documentation work. Trying to finish something up by end of week.

Was also brainstorming how to share L5 sketches that people make. It would be nice to have a gallery. One that I like is from livecoding library Hydra by @ojack where you can submit your sketch through a form, there's moderation/approval, and then it goes live on the garden page https://hydra.ojack.xyz/garden/
That's one approach.

I talked with a collaborator about a possibly decentralized idea, partly inspired by @rostiger 's ocular, @m15o 's Neon Kiosk and other projects. In this approach, you would submit your sketch via an RSS feed.
Why do it that way? One of the topics we've been discussing is a usecase of L5 of helping folks (particularly those coming from p5.js) to understand how computers work, how networking works. I still think some moderation is probably needed to prevent spam.
Anyway...just an idea for now.

There's also another approach, for example, Decker has a forum on itch.io where people can ask questions and get support and share their own work.
https://internet-janitor.itch.io/decker/community Though i'm wary of non-self-hosted solutions. For example, previous problems with itch de-platforming or de-indexing folks.

We're currently using Discourse for a forum, unfortunately I find just a bit clunky/bland. We're piggybacking on Processing self-hosted infrastructure. I think it "works" but I wonder how to get more engagement/make it more useful for folks in the growing community.

i still need to post the code sketch that is slideshow software and the slide content from my talk for the berlin permacomputing meetup. i will try to do this tomorrow. in the meantime, here are my quick notes of questions and suggestions from the audience (overly summarized. there were so many good ideas):

geany + installer script as a minimal starter ide system
vs code extension
jpg tricks (low resolution) instead of webp (wider support older machines)
L5 package with love2d dependency, maybe also a program launcher
minimal IDE made in L5 itself
tutorial showing how L5 works and can be modified
add comments for all functions for autodocumentation
tool to export L5 sketch as a self contained rom (like a p8.png, bundled oldskool processing applet, or embedded html snippet)
more exposing of the seams

i am unfortunately probably leaving out some great ideas right now . will add more potentiolly later.

how to share "code sketches" / little programs made in L5:

maybe just the code is listed and users have to copy and run locally. or maybe a gif or screenshot shown.

(also a joke idea i had earlier about converting to p5 behind the scenes to show on a website).

there was also a suggestion to package a whole web VM with love (running windows vista? can't remember what was stated) as a way of sharing online!!!

also discussed how the Uxn JS emulator says it's NOT permacomputing !

L5 was included in the State of LibreGraphics 2026 in Nuremberg this week (I wasn't there but sent in slides to be presented)

https://media.ccc.de/v/lgm-2026-110659-state-of-libre-graphics#t=1275 (video link)

My talk on the L5 creative coding library I initiated, at Algorithmic Art Assembly v3.0 last month at Grey Area, is online here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyk1q5cMawk

NEW: ADDED mask() to L5. Thanks to @tomasteck for asking about it!

Latest download has it implemented.

And I've added a new reference page:
https://l5lua.org/reference/mask

I followed a p5.js-like (alpha channel) implementation in Love2d rather than use shaders or Processing's blue channel. If you spot any bugs, let me know.

I've just finished a number of big deadlines and the semester of teaching is winding down, so expect more L5 library improvements, tooling, examples, and documentation to come this summer.

Coming soon:
hot-reloading.

Soon-ish: pushMatrix to hold styles (to align with Processing/p5).

Some debugging of fullscreen and screen resizing also.

I will also update library comments so that folks using auto-complete in VSCode-likes have better autocomplete examples.

y mucho mas

And here's the new example up on the L5 examples page. Thanks to @tomasteck

https://l5lua.org/examples/metaballs/

I've just published a blog post covering all the recent work on the L5 creative coding library from this spring, including work and feedback from a huge amount of contributors. Many thanks!

https://leetusman.com/nosebook/l5-dev-spring2026

#L5 #creativecoding #Lua

to keep this megathread going or not? maybe i'll retire it on the one year anniversary of starting L5 (in july). in any case, sometimes i forget to add L5 doings to this thread anyway.

Today I particpated in Flip Table at Hex House (artist studios/tech-art peeps/DIY space) in Bushwick.

> Flip Table is an open-to-all celebration of "weird" databases: things that can read and write data, but with a twist of some kind.

people saved data to photos, to apple's alarm clock, to wifi network names, and the like.

i didn't have time to write a backend database in code so instead i used morse code to "save" data to an audience listening, a kind of "oral history" database. There were ham/amateur radio operators in the audience, but sadlly none of them knew morse code so i had to demonstrate decoding myself.

although i didn't win most blessed or cursed i had fun and people enjoyed it. at least one person said i got robbed of an award :) it was a fun event and i enjoyed meeting people there.

a first attempt at sizecoding in L5, in prep for #TweetTweetJam coming up in a couple days.

I tried to make a minimal 10print.

require'L5'function draw()textSize(48)c=frameCount text(random()>.5 and"\\"or"/",c%40*20,floor(c/40)*48)end

It is ALMOST elegant compared to BASIC, no? (maybe not).

One disadvantage of using L5 compared to Pico-8 for tweetcode: currently requiring L5 is required and setup() OR draw() are required to run L5. (Pico-8 does not need the equivalent). Have thought through some approaches to mitigat this by modifying the L5 library but i don't think that's a good idea since it's not at all important for core functionality of the library!

#L5

Starting working with Sam on their fellowship working on L5 with me this summer.

We're going to launch a L5 blog on Itch this summer. we also tried out an alternative, adding the blog to our L5 site directly but our ssg required more plugins than we wanted to fiddle with. i even tried hand coding the blog generator but i don't want to go too deep on that as it adds complexity for others that may want to contribute to the L5 documentation site.

trying out blogging / devlog'ing on Itch will go hand in hand with another little pilot this summer. we will use Itch as another place to host L5 and maybe even a mini forum, which i see practiced as well by decker and several fantasy consoles. we will be piggy backing on itch infrastructure.

We will also this week host a workshop and jam this thursday at ITP Camp together. We'll do an intro to L5 workshop and then a 1 hour jam to code little programs inspired by slime mold.

i made some example programs in the afternoon and evening to test out prior to the workshop.

L5 is now on Itch ( @itchio )

Find L5 here:
https://notapipe.itch.io/l5

In addition to the regular L5 website https://l5lua.org we thought Itch was a good place to find friends, keep a devlog, share projects and host jams. We'll be trying it out this summer.

Our Hello World blog post:
https://notapipe.itch.io/l5/devlog/1541314/hello-world-itch

Other likeminded tools and coding libraries we love on Itch include Decker by Internet Janitor, @bitsy by @ldx ,
cel7 by rxi, Bitty Engine and GBBasic by Tony Wang, Electric Zine Maker by @alienmelon and MANY MORE super cool tools, libraries, assets and more!

We love Itch and think it will be another great place to make friends.

I've also written a Welcome (b)log post for Sam, our paid summer of code contributor, with a bit about them and what they'll be working on.

https://notapipe.itch.io/l5/devlog/1542318/welcoming-sam-our-summer-of-code-contributor

in fun #L5 project coding i ignored fleeting thoughts of going to bed at a reasonable hour and instead pursued a late night idea i have for Noise Jam 3 to build a kind of noisy instrumnt idea in my head

little prototype I coded in L5 tonight. i should add some of this as example code of how to load a directory of images or sound files easily

working title for this is `smuba und lower contra bass bondjo'

the visuals will likely dramatically change. this is just a starting point. i'm thinking the idea is an instrument gets 'generated' / glitched out and is accompanied by sqonks of samples from my Alto Verona plugged into my modular synth. maybe i'll make a bunch of sound samples that can be played back.

here's the jam. 4 days left:

https://itch.io/jam/noise-jam-3

(audio sample is from Rotting Remains by Wolf Eyes)

update a couple minutes later. it's a joke only band kids will get. but the idea is to make a noise music "jamey abersold". like maybe it has a playlist of songs and you can select one to play and there's a noisestrument you play to accompany it as a solosit. or alternately maybe a Rock Band game with similar idea and you have to squonk (with up, down, left, right to control the instrument, i must have a makey makey around here somewhere).

hehe ok now i'm thinking it creates random sample skronks and a random noise track to accompany. it starts playing and periodically random difficult combos are thrown up on screen but it's more like a graphic score and it doesn't check if you follow with the right keys? not sure.

anyway, theme should be glitchy...