NodeBox is a new software application for creating generative art using procedural graphics and a new way to approach graphic design.

Highlights:

• Node based -- the software uses a non-destructive workflow where every operation is represented by a visual block of code.
• Open to extend -- look and change the source of every code block.
• Python or Clojure -- Nodes can be written in popular dynamic programming languages.

For downloads, documentation and the forum, visit the website:

https://nodebox.net/

Build matrix: JDK 25 only (other JDK versions are not supported).

Developer and project docs live in docs/:

• docs/README.md (index)
• docs/development.md (build/test workflow)
• docs/architecture.md (system overview)

Run the UI end-to-end suite with a graphical session available:

NODEBOX_E2E=1 ant test-e2e

Artifacts (screenshots + stack traces) are written to build/e2e-artifacts by default. You can override this with NODEBOX_E2E_ARTIFACTS=/path/to/dir.

NodeBox requires a recent Java JDK (baseline: JDK 25), and Homebrew (for Ant and Maven)

NodeBox uses Ant and Maven to build a running version. Install these first:

brew install ant maven

Then from the Terminal, run:

git clone https://github.com/nodebox/nodebox.git
cd nodebox
ant run

# To create a full app (the build will be in dist/mac):
ant dist-mac

• Install Git.
• Install a recent Java SDK.
• Install Ant.
• Install Wix Toolset.

From the command prompt, run:

# Setup the correct environment variables
# (Modify these paths to your installation directories.)
set JAVA_HOME=c:\java\jdk
set ANT_HOME=c:\java\ant
set WIX_HOME=c:\java\wix
set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin;%WIX_HOME%\bin

git clone https://github.com/nodebox/nodebox.git

cd nodebox
ant run

# To create a full app (the MSI will be in dist/windows):
# Set the correct version in src/main/resources/version.properties
ant dist-win

Or other distributions based on APT package system:

sudo apt install git openjdk-11-jdk ant
git clone https://github.com/nodebox/nodebox.git
cd nodebox
ant run

Or other distributions based on YUM package system:

sudo yum install git java-11-openjdk ant
git clone https://github.com/nodebox/nodebox.git
cd nodebox
ant run

Nodebox has an aur package for distributions based on Arch linux : nodebox-git

yaourt -S nodebox-git

or

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/nodebox-git.git
cd nodebox-git
makepkg
sudo pacman -U nodebox-git-[version-number]-any.pkg.tar.xz

You can then launch nodebox as any desktop application, or by running the nodebox command on terminal.

Just use pkg:

sudo pkg install git openjdk-11 apache-ant
git clone https://github.com/nodebox/nodebox.git
cd nodebox
ant run