Hello Again, World!

We are happy to announce the (long-awaited) release of CreateJS version 1.0! This release introduces major improvements, wraps up features and bugs, and brings all libraries to the same version number!

It’s Been a While…

The 1.0 version was pushed to GitHub a few months ago, and Twitter subscribers to @createjs were quietly notified about the release, however, we have been waiting for all our CDNs to get updated prior to making official announcements.

Check out “CreateJS Retro” in the gskinner lab

Don’t misinterpret this lull between major releases as a lack of activity: it’s actually quite the opposite! There have been constant updates to all the libraries: adding new features, both big and small, addressing bugs, iterating on pull requests, and even a complete rewrite to a certain library (I am looking at you TweenJS)!

Moving forward we are aiming to be more transparent with major releases. We have a ton of ideas for 2.0 and taking our time with 1.0 has allowed us to do that… and there are big changes coming down the pipe!

Major Changes and Updates

Version 1.0 contains these updates:

• Minified Version Naming
  The naming of our minified libs and combined libraries has simplified. We dropped the version number, which is an often-requested change that will play more nicely with CDNs like jsdelivr and cdnjs, which have already been updated. Additionally, the CreateJS combined library is simply “createjs.js”, and available on the CreateJS CDN.
• StageGL
  Released to GitHub earlier this year, StageGL is our super fast and flexible rendering pipeline for EaselJS content and filters using WebGL. It replaces the more restrictive and less performant SpriteStage, and is included in EaselJS builds by default, so you can get started today accelerating your Bitmap, Sprite, and cached content with little-to-no effort. Read more in the release article, and stay tuned for more StageGL-specific posts!
• TweenJS Refactor
  TweenJS has been rebuilt to be much faster, and the plugin model revamped to be more flexible. We rewrote all the existing plugins, and have also added several new plugins, including an improved ColorPlugin (previously in extras), RelativePlugin, RotationPlugin (previously “SmartRotationPlugin”), and a much more useful CSSPlugin, which now works with computed styles.
• Font Preloading
  There has been a beta FontLoader branch since our last tagged version of PreloadJS (Nov 2015). It was officially integrated and battle-tested in 2016, and available by default in PreloadJS builds. This provides font preloading for Google fonts, CSS fonts, and font files.
• NPM “support”
  CreateJS is still a minified ES5 library living on a window.createjs namespace. Developers requested both NPM support, as well as module support (RequireJS, CommonJS, etc). The name change in this version-enabled publishing to NPM, however, you will still have to manually link to it, or find a workaround to include it in your ES6/module-based projects. Our next version aims for full module and ES6 support!
• More Getter/SettersTo make the API simpler, many of the getValue/setValue methods have been migrated to getter/setters, such as container.numChildren and Ticker.timingMode. For the time being, all deprecated methods will still work, but throw handy warnings in the developer console.

What Does this Mean for Current and Future Projects?

Will you have to rebuild your entire project? No, of course not… but you may have to tweak how you’re incorporating CreateJS. If you are using the hosted libs from a content delivery network (CDN) you’ll need to update your script paths.

<script src='https://code.createjs.com/createjs-2015.11.26.min.js'></script>

Changes to:

<script src='https://code.createjs.com/1.0.0/createjs.min.js'></script>

It’s just that simple.

Using the CDN provides many benefits when working with Javascript nowadays. Using the hosted versions of the CreateJS libraries in your project allows them to be downloaded quickly and cached across different sites using the same version of the libraries, which can reduce bandwidth costs and page load times.

If you are hosting your own versions of the libraries (exporting from AnimateCC) you can find all updated versions of our CreateJS GitHub repository. Once there you’ll be able to grab any versions of the libraries as needed and you should be good to go!

Using Animate CC

Adobe is planning to update Animate to use the latest libraries, but if you want to use the latest libs with content exported from Animate CC today, you can just update the CDN paths manually (and ensure you don’t overwrite the changes when publishing each time). If you use hosted libraries, you can find new versions on the CreateJS GitHub repositories . It is recommended you update all the libraries together, as using older versions with new versions may produce unexpected results.

After changing your CDN paths, Animate content should work as-is with the new libraries, but as always, feel free to log bugs to the EaselJS GitHub if you encounter problems.

You can update to use StageGL by changing the Stage instance in the exported code to StageGL, but note you must be using compatible content (Bitmaps, Sprites, and cached content). Vectors can be set to cacheAsBitmap, however, it may prevent animations from being applied.

var stage = new createjs.Stage("canvas");

changes to:

var stage = new createjs.StageGL("canvas");

Where Can I Find the Latest Versions?

The best place to look for the latest versions of CreateJS is on GitHub. You’ll find the latest stable version of the libs, but also NEXT versions, which provide relatively stable updates since the last tagged version, and are a good way of using new features and support immediately.

We recommend using the content delivery network (CDN), which provides additional benefits such as caching between websites.

• CreateJS CDN(hosted by Adobe), also the only CDN with the combined libs.
• CDNJS(a createjs combined version has not been updated as of this publication, however EaselJS, TweenJS, PreloadJS, SoundJS are all currently available)
• JSDelivr (updated to 1.0)

What’s Next?

We don’t want to reveal everything yet, but with major additions like StageGL in EaselJS and a complete rewrite of TweenJS, it might make sense that our other CreateJS family members get some love too… I mean, it’s only fair. Between some planned refactoring, full ES6 and module support, more filters and effects, and improved Adobe Animate features, we have a lot planned, so stay tuned!

Moving forward, we also want to:

• Aim for a more aggressive and consistent release schedule
• Provide more transparency with production roadmaps and discussion
• Increase our community presence and engage more with developers and content creators
• Trickle out tips, tricks, and content articles on a regular basis

Reach Out!

We want to hear from you! We read every comment and tweet out there, and yes, not just the good ones. We are genuinely interested in your feedback and criticism, and welcome your ideas, feature requests, bug reports, and show-and-tell projects. Without this, CreateJS would only be an internal tool for gskinner, and it wouldn’t benefit the countless developers that have been able to build incredible things with it. Don’t be shy. We want to grow and improve our libraries with every release, and we value your help in doing that!

Take CreateJS 1.0 for a spin today.

Helpful links

• Getting started with CreateJS
• How to get started with StageGL
• CreateJS CDN
• CreateJS GITHUB
• CreateJS on CodePen