Generate TypeScript definitions

[Zalastax]

I've added a grunt-task that generates TypeScript definitions from the YUIDoc. It's probably not perfect, but on a glance it looks fine.
It uses the code by @toolness from http://processing.toolness.org/general/2016/03/16/typescript-to-the-rescue.html and depends on and includes the fixes in processing/p5.js-sound#222.
Types that can't be modelled using YUIDoc could be manually modified using declaration merging.
I can maintain the type-generation in the future if there are missing features / enhancements needed.
Closes #1392

[Spongman]

I have a heavily modified version of that script that handles some of the typescript overloads and missing types better...

[Zalastax]

@Spongman it would be awesome if you could share the code here so I can incorporate it 😊

[Spongman]

yeah, i need to clean it up first so it fits better with what you have.

btw: here's what it generates: https://p5ide.azurewebsites.net/assets/p5.d.ts

[Spongman]

ok, i'm sorry, i have no idea how to get github to send a PR from my fork to yours, but here's my branch:

https://github.com/Spongman/p5.js/tree/typescript

[Zalastax]

Awesome @Spongman! I cleaned up your commits, which I hope is OK with you. I think this is ready to merge now, anyone I need to ping?

[Spongman]

i would exclude the p5.sound stuff from this PR as that's already been merged in another PR.

[Zalastax]

@Spongman anything else we need?

[Spongman]

yeah, you might want to merge with my fork again: https://github.com/Spongman/p5.js/tree/typescript. i added the param & return descriptions to the .d.ts doc comments.

i have no idea how to send a PR directly between different forks.

[Zalastax]

@Spongman time to bother you again 😁
I'm fairly happy, but there are some errors left to solve:

• in global-mode.d.ts, we have duplicate identifier log
• in d.ts, we have Class 'Noise' incorrectly extends base class 'Oscillator'
• MISSING: SoundObject
• MISSING: Tone.Signal

[Zalastax]

@Spongman fixing the MISSING definitions solved the rest of the problems. I don't think there is a pretty solution to those definitions so I'm OK with hard-coding them. Merge ready?

[Spongman]

it might be worth looking into how these would be deployed. there's some grunt scripts to do the deployment - see if you can work out how to place these alongside the .js files...

[emo-eth]

One thing I have noticed playing around with this script & others (at least last I checked, so forgive me if this has been resolved) is that it doesn't seem to include type definitions for the p5 constructor in instance mode, even though the constructor specs do seem to be in the json YUIDoc spits out.

[Spongman]

i fixed the missing p5 constructor in two commits:

• e285007
• fix documentation bug p5.js-sound#230

[Zalastax]

I had a look at the grunt tasks.
release-bower.js: doesn't make much sense to publish TS on bower.
release-docs.js: I don't think we need to change anything here. If we want to reference the types from the docs we should upload them as an asset on github.
release-github.js: This looks like the only change we might want to make. Does it make sense to add the typescript definitions as release assets? I've never seen that before. IF we want definitions as a release asset, what should its mime type be?
release-p5.js: already works and includes both .d.ts, both on npm and in the zip.

What do you think?

[Spongman]

yeah, i think adding them to the github release makes sense. (ec7d563)

also, automatically submitting a PR to DefinitelyTyped might be nice.

[Spongman]

ok, so it's not just my PRs that are failing eslint:test on travis. do the tests pass on your local machine?

[Zalastax]

They did not pass on my local machine, but the problem was still introduced by changes on master. Master has fixed that now though, so tests pass on my machine again.
It'd be nice to have Travis re-run the tests before accepting the actual merge, but status quo seems to work well in practice so I won't bother looking into that.

[jeffreykaufman]

Hey there, just wanted to pop in and ask how this project was going. I've been using p5 in JavaScript for awhile now, and would love to see a definition file created for it.

[Spongman]

Check my comment here for a recent .d.ts file: #1339 (comment)

[lmccart]

this is fantastic. sorry it took so long to review.

[dgennetten]

Is there any guidance documentation for getting started with TypeScript on p5?

[Zalastax]

@dgennetten we have gathered some example projects in ps.ts. I hope they can get you started! Otherwise, open an issue over there.
Typings are available via the @types/p5 package but there needs to be documentation in the main repo/website in place as well (if they are not already).