Canvas Code Generator finally launching, after I shelved it for 11 months
Canvas Code Generator is finally live: https://canvascodegenerator.com a
free, MIT-licensed generator for 12 animated HTML5 canvas effects (fireworks,
particle networks, matrix rain, snow, animated gradients, neon trails,
hexagon mesh, sine waves, flow lines, starfield, dynamic blobs, animated
noise) that exports to standalone HTML, plain JS, React component, embed
iframe, or PNG. The first version was a Next.js monorepo with React
components and a "plugin registry" — it looked architectural but half the
controls didn't actually work, two effects broke in ways I couldn't trace,
and I shelved the whole thing for 11 months. Came back, scrapped it, and
rewrote everything in vanilla JavaScript: no React, no framework, no build
step, ~200 KB total page weight, every slider verified to produce visible
change. Two broken effects from v1 cut from launch — better to ship 12
polished than 14 broken.
hipping 12 polished over 14 broken is the right call every time. We learned a version of this the hard way building a particle editor for Three.js and PixiJS: the editor preview and the runtime have to run the exact same simulation code, or the tool quietly becomes a liar and every slider needs to be reverified by hand. Sounds like your vanilla JS rewrite bought you the same guarantee. Did dropping React actually simplify debugging, or did it just move the complexity somewhere else? platform/tool is nixieFx
Shipping 12 polished over 14 broken is the right call every time. That decision alone probably saved you months of support headaches. Eleven months is a long shelf what finally made you come back to it?