HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
jagenjo
litegraph.js
JavaScript2018–2024
jagenjo / litegraph.js

litegraph.js

A graph node engine and editor written in Javascript similar to PD or UDK Blueprints, comes with its own editor in HTML5 Canvas2D. The engine can run client side or server side using Node. It allows to export graphs as JSONs to be included in applications independently.

Developer ToolsWeb DevelopmentSystems & InfrastructureAutomation & Workflows
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
7Distinct people
11Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
8.2KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A graph node engine and editor written in Javascript similar to PD or UDK Blueprints, comes with its own editor in HTML5 Canvas2D. The engine can run client side or server side using Node. It allows to export graphs as JSONs to be included in applications independently.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year11 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2018-10-07 16:12:17 UTC to 2024-12-19 16:38:18 UTC.

012342018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312

What Hacker News says

11 sources
Immortalin·Nov 20, 2018
In the early days of KloudTrader, we attempted to use Visual Programming too. https://web.archive.org/web/20171006072839/http://www.kloudt... The main difficulty was scale and tradeoffs between power vs ease-of-use. We spent a lot of time creating "subroutine blocks" for the most commonly used functions and optimizing for UI/ease of use that we weren't doing much else. Furthermore, pretty much every integration, library etc. had to be converted into its visual equivalents for the language to be of any use and all the linear algebra/candlestick libraries were taking up so much time that the rest of the product was suffering. Stuff that often makes sense to a professional programmer had to be "simplified" so the UX is more optimal. E.g. data structures. If you look at VPLs in production, there's a reason most of them tend to be "imperative
Read the rest
commands only" i.e. a glue language that mainly strings together other subroutines. The concept of objects, or even structs is completely eliminated in the VPL. http://www.ni.com/getting-started/labview-basics/data-struct... There are exceptions to this however, the Unreal Engine's Blueprints is a lot more flexible than most. If you want to get started building your own version of Google's Blockly, here's a good guide: http://www.aosabook.org/en/500L/blockcode-a-visual-programmi... Throw in an immediate-mode UI library like React and you might even scale up indefinitely with plain HTML (most browser VPLs stick with SVG/Canvas). For prettier node-based types of languages, try these libraries: https://github.com/retejs/rete https://github.com/slothking-online/diagram https://github.com/jagenjo/litegraph.js Bonus tip for anyone looking to implement any: use code generators. AST -> Visual programming component conversion may save you lots of time (assuming that the language has mature enough tooling and labour is extremely expensive)
In Visual Programming – Why It’s a Bad Idea

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.