Questions about canvas component and gaming assets

Questions about Thunkable Issues / Bugs
1

I’ve been teaching Scratch for years. It’s devoid of a single bug and is incredibly easy to make your first “wow” project. I love the idea of Thunkable and have started learning it to teach. I’m just getting stuck in the mud constantly and can’t tell if it’s my error or bugs.

  1. When I try to upload a SVG or PNG it doesn’t work. The sprite thumbnail just says “sprite” and doesn’t show anything or work. I tried creating and exporting them from Google Drawings and Scratch.

  2. I’m amazed at all the functions Thunkable seems to be able to do, but does it really not have its own SVG editor? I can’t find it anywhere. If I want to make a sprite that is just a square do I really have to create that image outside of the website (or find it online) and import it?

  3. I’m trying to make Flappy Birds. When I live test it, it works on my phone, but when I try “web preview” it shows nothing. I can’t figure it out!

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I’ve used Scratch quite a bit as well and also teach both Scratch and Thunkable. I moved to Thunkable from GameSalad which was a no-code editor that worked really well for making games. The physics engine was great, you could easily manipulate sprites, etc. It also did not have a built-in graphic editor, however, besides rudimentary shapes (rectangles, circles and lines).

Thunkable does not have a way to create graphics internally so you will need to import them. I have used plenty of PNG files as buttons or images. I haven’t done a lot with sprites so I don’t know if there’s an issue with PNG files there. I would not expect Thunkable to handle SVG files well.

I’m a huge proponent of Thunkable. I’ve been around here a couple years and I’ve found it to be powerful and flexible in ways that other similar tools are not. GameSalad had many limitations (lack of easy-to-use cloud based data sources) and a diminishing user base.

But the one thing I cannot recommend about Thunkable is the Canvas component. I find it clunky, counter-intuitive and buggy. I have yet to see more than one or two examples of very basic games that work in Thunkable. I’d like to see it overhauled completely!

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Canvas loading is a long standing issue in the web preview. It does not make it to the screen all the time. If you try it 2 - 3 times it will show up.

I use the mobile to test as it has better rate of success showing up.