Naming Sketches

Processing 4 includes the ability to change the names given to new sketches. For those who didn't enjoy the sketch plus underscore plus six digit date, your time has come. Visit the Preferences window and behold the naming options available in the dropdown menu. You can now use the “Friendly” naming scheme from Glitch that folks seem to love, as well as a pair of other less serious alternatives called Cosmos and Culinary Arts.

It's also possible to create your own naming schemes. Create a file named naming.json in your sketchbook folder. As an example, here's a drastically shortened version of the Culinary Arts scheme:

[
  {
    "name": "Culinary Example",
    "notes": "An extremely brief version of the Culinary Arts scheme from Paul Cronan",
    "prefixes": [
      "cooking",
      "grilling",
      "broiling",
      "barbecuing"
    ],
    "suffixes": [
      "eggs",
      "toast",
      "sea salt",
      "nutmeg"
    ]
  }
]

As seen above, just provide a name, a note about the scheme (this isn't currently used in the UI, but may be used later), a list of prefixes, and a list of suffixes. Save it and restart Processing, and if everything is formatted correctly, your new option will be available in the dropdown.

Be sure to include lots of prefixes and suffixes: you don't want to run out of combinations!

If you want to create more than one scheme to the example above, add put a comma after the last } and then add another block just like above, starting with { and ending with }. If you're confused, you can see the naming.json file that's included with the software here.