Pathlace Studio 0.5

Visual programming that is still code.

Wire blocks for data, buttons, 2D and 3D games and a free cloud. Underneath, every program is a short text file you can read, diff and let an AI edit.

Download for desktop Try it in the browser

macOS, Windows and Linux. The browser edition runs on sample data and skips a few desktop features on purpose.

Pathlace Studio with the Game section open: blocks for a paddle game on the left, the running 2D canvas on the right.

App

Buttons, sliders and tables that feed straight back into the graph.

GUI blocks. ui.button, ui.slider, ui.input and ui.toggle draw a widget and return its current value, so a click or a drag is just another input wire.
Data blocks. Fetch JSON, filter, sort, map, take, and check the shape at the boundary with a typed http.getJson<T>.
Replay. Every run records a trace. Drag the slider to see each value on each wire at each step.

Open the Counter example in the browser

The App section: a counter program with a button, slider and text box in the preview, and the value flowing through the blocks.

Game

A 60 fps loop with 2D and 3D blocks.

2D. draw.rect, draw.circle, draw.text and canvas2d.show paint a canvas every frame. input.axis and input.pointer read keys and the mouse.
3D. mesh.box, mesh.sphere, mesh.ground and scene3d.show render a small three.js scene with a camera that orbits.
State. game.tick gives time and delta, game.state and game.setState carry values between frames, pick is the if.

The Game section running a 3D scene: a teal cube and a rust sphere on a grey floor, driven by math blocks.

Code

Inside is the program. Outside is the language.

Inside. The text form of what is on the canvas. Edit it as a draft and apply; the blocks follow. Nothing is lost between the two views because the text is the only source of truth.
Outside. Define new blocks in JavaScript with defineBlock. They get typed arguments, join the palette under Your blocks and save as blocks.js next to your program.
Lacey. The AI for Pathlace works through a small set of checked, atomic edit operations. Dry-run a batch, see the diff, apply it. A bad batch is rejected whole.
Export. File → Export compiles a program into one .html page that runs anywhere, or into a real app for Windows, macOS or Linux that opens by itself, no Studio needed. The plc command line does the same: plc build game.plc and plc pack game.plc --target windows-x64.

Read the language reference

The Code section with the Inside tab: the program text beside its blocks.

pathlace 0.1

flow main() -> Text {
  #1 @n_c1aa clicks = ui.button(label: "Add one")
  #2 @n_c2bb step = ui.slider(label: "Step", min: 1, max: 10, default: 1)
  #3 @n_c3cc name = ui.input(label: "Your name", default: "friend")
     @n_c4dd total = text.concat(a: "Total for ", b: name.out)
     @n_c5ee msg = text.concat(a: total.out, b: clicks.out * step.out, sep: ": ")
  #4 @n_c6ff show = ui.text(value: msg.out, title: "Counter")
  return msg.out
}

How to read it

#1, #2 mark actions that run in order. A line without a number is pure and runs when something needs it.

@n_c1aa is a permanent id. Rename a block, move it, or let Lacey rewrite half the program, and the wires still hold because they point at ids, not names.

Box positions are kept in a separate layout file, so moving things around never shows up in a diff of the program.

Cloud

A free key-value store, webhooks, sharing, and a place for your programs.

Pathlace Cloud is a small hosted service behind the cloud.* blocks. Sign up free, pick a space name, save values, list them, publish any program as a webhook URL, and share any program with a link that runs it in the browser. Data spaces, webhooks, files and saved programs belong to your account and follow you to any computer.

Store

cloud.put, cloud.get, cloud.list and cloud.delete read and write JSON under /kv/:space/:key. Values up to 64 KB, 500 keys per space. The first write claims the space for your account.

Webhooks

Publish a program from Studio and get a URL. POST any JSON to it; webhook.payload hands the body to the program and the response carries the result, the views and the logs. Hooks run as you, so they can write to your spaces on behalf of anyone who calls them.

Your account

Sign up with an email and password in Studio or on the account page. Reads of public data need no account; storing anything does. Programs are private to you, and you decide per space whether its data is public or private.

Share with a link

Account → Share link gives a saved program a page at pathlace.com/p/… with App, Game and Code tabs. Visitors run it, read the code, and open their own copy in the Studio. The gallery lists what people shared.

Lacey, when you are stuck

Ask in plain words in the Code section: add a score, make the ball bounce, explain this. Lacey proposes new program text, the Studio checks it, and nothing changes until you press Apply.

Honest limits

Only the owner can write to a space, but public spaces are readable by anyone who knows the name. Flip a space to private on your account page when it holds something that should stay yours. Webhooks can carry a secret; every account has fair daily limits.

Cloud API reference · Sharing · Gallery

Download Pathlace Studio

Installers are built for every release by the project's own CI and published on the public releases page; the same files are mirrored at pathlace.com/dl.

macOS 10.15+

Apple silicon or Intel

Universal .dmg for each chip. Open it, drag Pathlace Studio to Applications.

Get the .dmg

Windows 10+

Installer or MSI

A per-user setup .exe and an .msi for managed installs.

Get the installer

Linux

AppImage, .deb or .rpm

The AppImage runs anywhere; the packages install the usual way.

Get the package

Desktop versus browser
Feature	Desktop	Browser edition
App, Game and Code sections, replay	Yes	Yes
GUI, 2D, 3D and cloud blocks	Yes	Yes
Live network data	Yes	Sample data only
Open and save .plc files on disk	Yes	No
Your own blocks (Outside)	Yes	Read-only catalog
Export a program as a web page (.html)	Yes	Yes
Build a runnable app (.exe, Linux binary, macOS .app)	Yes	No
Accounts, cloud saves, data spaces and webhooks	Yes	Yes
Publish a program as a webhook	Yes	No
Lacey edit operations	Yes	No