[p5.js 2.0 Bug Report]: millis() now includes time loading assets

[davepagurek]

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• Accessibility
• Color
• Core/Environment/Rendering
• Data
• DOM
• Events
• Image
• IO
• Math
• Typography
• Utilities
• WebGL
• Build process
• Unit testing
• Internationalization
• Friendly errors
• Other (specify if possible)

p5.js version

2.0.3

Web browser and version

all

Operating system

macOS

Steps to reproduce this

In both 1.x and 2.x, we record the system time right before setup runs, and then future millis() calls subtract that from the system time. However, in 1.x, this happened after preload, but in 2.x, this is before preloads, since they now occur in setup.

I think this is a problem because millis and frameCount, to me, should be equivalent except for one difference. Both are used to control animations, but frameCount always draws every frame of your animation, running slower than your target frame rate if need be, while millis will skip frames to make sure your animation's timing always matches real time. In 2.x, a new difference has been added, which is that they start at different points in the sketch's lifecycle. In 2.0, you would have to manually record the time at the end of setup and subtract it everywhere you use millis in draw in order to achieve the same behaviour as 1.x. If you make no change, animations that worked in 1.x look like their beginnings are cut off in 2.x.

We could possibly:

• only set up millis after setup, so times don't work within it
• reset millis after setup, so timing still works in setup but starts from 0 again when your draw loop begins
• something else?

I personally lean towards that second option, to allow you to possibly roll your own loading animation in setup.

[limzykenneth]

My initial thought is to go with the first option to start millis after setup, what would be the downside of this?

[davepagurek]

I don't have too strong an opinion on this, but I was thinking that we might want to give you the ability to do a "preloader" sort of animation while your assets load within setup, kinda like the art of Flash preloaders back in the day on e.g. Newgrounds. That still mostly works if you don't set a time offset yet if you're just animating a sine wave or something, but you could maybe want your preload animation to start from 0 (e.g. to fade in) as well as your regular draw loop to start from 0.

[limzykenneth]

I guess it depends on eventually how we'll do #6795. I don't have an idea on the API just yet though.

[davepagurek]

Right, I guess we can still call whatever happens in setup undefined behaviour for now, as long as we enforce it starts at 0 when setup finishes?

[limzykenneth]

Yes I think we can start there since both solution aligns.

[perminder-17]

Resolved from #8005 , hence closing this issue.