p5.js is now available in Spanish!

Aarón Montoya-Moraga
Processing Foundation
4 min readApr 13, 2018

Para ver la versión en español, haz click aquí.

What is p5.js?

p5.js is a JavaScript library that starts with the original goal of Processing: to make coding accessible for artists, designers, educators, and beginners, and reinterprets this for today’s web.

p5.js allows you to program interactive websites, digital interactive graphics, and interfaces with your mouse, keyboard, webcam, and the rest of the web. p5.js runs in the browser, so you can create an interactive website that can be shared directly on the web.

p5.js is a project by Lauren McCarthy, and part of the Processing Foundation, whose software and learning materials are created and used by an international community of artists, designers, educators, and institutions, including UCLA DMA and NYU ITP.

p5.js is now in Spanish!

The Processing Foundation is pleased to announce that both the p5.js website and the p5.js book are now freely available in Spanish.

The p5.js website

The p5js.org website contains tutorials, documentation, and other learning resources associated with p5.js. Every page is translated, including the tutorials, documentation pages, and reference materials.

To access the Spanish version, click on the upper-right button “ES,” or directly visit https://p5js.org/es.

[Image description: p5.js website switches language when clicking on the buttons EN and ES]

If you find any mistakes please let us know through an issue on the GitHub repository or email montoyamoraga@gmail.com.

Introducción a p5.js

The book Introducción a p5.js provides an introduction to the creative possibilities of today’s web, using JavaScript and HTML. It teaches introduction to programming, with an emphasis on beginners, artists, designers, and anyone interested. It was written by the lead developer of p5.js Lauren McCarthy, and the founders of Processing, Casey Reas and Ben Fry.

[Image description: Introducción a p5.js book cover]

The book is now available in Spanish, on the newly launched website processingfoundation.press. It is distributed in PDF as pay-what-you-want or as a print book. All the money goes to the Processing Foundation, and allows us to host the website and continue our educational mission of making creative programming accessible to beginners.

If you want to contribute to the book, it lives on this GitHub repository. It was built using Magic Book, developed by Rune Madsen.

Development

The project p5.js in Spanish was started by Maya Man in 2015 as part of the Processing Foundation’s participation in Google Summer of Code. She created an alpha version of the p5js.org website with internationalization (i18n) features, and she was mentored by Foundation Director of Advocacy Johanna Hedva.

The project was continued by Aarón Montoya-Moraga in summer 2016, who completed the i18n work of the website, started the translation of the book, and designed the workshop “Introduction to Programming Using p5.js.” He taught this workshop more than 15 times in Chile, reaching more than 150 people. He was mentored by Lauren McCarthy.

p5.js workshops in Santiago de Chile, July 2016 [Image description: pictures of students at p5.js workshops]

Aarón continued his work during Google Summer of Code 2017 and his current residency at NYU ITP, doing the final touches of the website and the book translation, mentored by Lauren McCarthy, Casey Reas, and Lee Tusman. Collaborators included Taeyoon Choi, who did the illustrations of the book, and Tyler Yin, who was in charge of the layout.

This project could not have been possible without the support of the Spanish-speaking community of media artists at NYU ITP, The Processing Foundation, CODED, Santiago de Chile, and New York City.

Processing Community Day, Cambridge MA USA, October 2017 [Image description: Processing Community Day group picture]

Further development and outreach

In 2017 Aarón and four fellow artists and educators — Natalia Cabrera, Camila Colussi, Guillermo Montecinos, and Christian Oyarzún — co-founded CODED, a media arts educational collective based in Santiago de Chile, whose mission is to share knowledge and experiences at the intersection between arts and technology. They have expanded Aarón’s original short workshop, and transformed it into a six-session course written and led by Guillermo Montecinos, who just teached it to seven students in Chile this March.

Guillermo teaching p5.js with CODED, Santiago de Chile, March 2018 [Image description: students learning p5.js in Santiago de Chile]

Thank you

Big thanks to Lauren McCarthy, Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Daniel Shiffman, Taeyoon Choi, Lee Tusman, Tyler Yin, Luisa Pereira, Andrés Colubri, and Miguel Elizalde, from the Processing community; and to Natalia Cabrera, Camila Colussi, Guillermo Montecinos, and Christian Oyarzún from CODED; and to Rune Madsen, Sejo Vega-Cebrián, Melissa Orozco Salazar, Paula Leonvendagar, Alejandro Matamala, Cristóbal Valenzuela, Francesca Rodríguez-Sawaya, Juan José Egusquiza, Nicolás Escarpentier, Sergio Mora-Díaz, Gabriel Andrade, and Sofía Luisa from NYU ITP.

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Aarón Montoya-Moraga
Processing Foundation

artist, programmer, educator. @medialab, @itp_nyu, @p5xjs @kinectron