The AC Story#

In 2020 during COVID I released the free No Paint software as a website and iOS app[0].

When No Paint users began to reach out with a desire to submit custom pixel stamps I would receive their PNGs and add their images to No Paint's Construct 3 [1] project build under mock social @handles to index them as part of the stamp brush.

And when they expressed interest designing and publishing custom brushes, I provided them with a minimal Construct template project that they would work in and send back to me for integration.

No Paint had a wide variety of non-technical users who learned a lot about computing through this process of contributing to and grokking a toy they enjoyed. But my process for accepting contributions was manual and slow. I had to add every asset manually to a statically built product which added hours or days to the iteration time for users who wanted to see their work integrated into the larger whole.

One of the reasons I was driven to building No Paint in Construct 3 was its great cross-platform (mobile) browser support and the ability to work on my project entirely in-browser and then export to native webview based apps or a static build I could upload to the web server.

In JavaScript courses and workshops for art and design students I often used a combination basic HTML and CSS with the Canvas2D API, Processing via the p5.js web editor[2], and Glitch [3] to achieve a fast iterative loop where student work was always live so they could test on any device in the classroom by just visiting a URL on that device.

During COVID I explored outlying technologies and for one assignment used Roblox which offered beginner friendly 3D development and baked in multiplayer so we could all experience the work together remotely. Even though Roblox had these nice platform features, the engine and editor was not elegant like a basic HTML file or Processing sketch and offered too many distractions to try it again.

Throughout COVID I noticed crossover with the No Paint userbase and my art and design students. Non-technical No Paint users from around the world were learning more about dynamic media, entering commands, and contributing to software they loved, and my students wanted to be able to publish their own software experiments from class to their families and friends without friction.

I realized that if I built my own system with sane mobile-first defaults; a "creative coder" compatible JavaScript API I could teach in; networked multiplayer; and a social handle system for keeping track of and automatically integrating published media and software from users; then I could squash some of these errands of my trade in one integrated system. This is why I started writing Aesthetic Computer.

[0] No Paint iOS Reviews: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/no-paint/id1107427275

[1] Construct 3 Engine: https://construct.net

[2] p5.js Web Editor: https://editor.p5js.org

[3] Glitch editor: https://glitch.com