Tick Tock

Wrapper around requestAnimationFrame that allows for various helper functions to manage timers.

Installation

This is a self-registering module so just require it to gain access to the singleton that controls timers.

The examples here assume that the module has been assigned to the raf variable.

var raf = require( 'tick-tock' );

Use

var tick = raf
  .register( 'game:tick', function( step ) {
    events.emit( events.APP.TICK, step );
  })
  .start();

Tick-tock is implemented with a chainable API so registering a new timer will return an instance of itself so that it can be started immediately, which is usually what you want to do.

This instance can be kept and used later on.

tick.stop();

Or, you can use it to remove itself.

raf.remove( tick.id );

API

Register

raf.register( callback );

This registers a new timer that will fire the callback function each frame. There are a few ways to register a new timer.

The callback function will be called with delta function that describes the time between frames in ms.

raf.register( 'game:tick', callback );

This specifies the id of the timer to be game:tick. Other raf commands can then be specified to run on the timer references by game:tick, although register will return a pointer to the instance so it can be kept track of that way too.

raf.register( 'game:logic', { frameRate: 30 }, callback );

Options can also be specified.

frameRate defaults to 60. Determines the frequency of the timer.

useNative defaults to true. Prefers native methods for requestAnimationFrame.

Start

raf.start( id );

Starts the timer referenced by id.

Stop

raf.stop( id );

Stops the timer referenced by id.

Remove

raf.remove( id );

Timers that are registered are held in memory, remove stops and gets rid of a timer completely.

Get

raf.get( id );

Returns an instance of a timer.

List

raf.list();

Convenience function which logs a list of registered timers and their current status.

treihadwyl/tick-tock