All (and especially @muneer@tatiang@codeswept and others who are sometimes first-line user support around here),
I was sitting here thinking about what a “block status tracker” would look like (mostly because my mind isn’t in the mood to think about the work I’m actually supposed to be doing). I’m imagining listing each block (probably as pictures because we don’t all call them exactly the same thing) and designer component with current status on each platform, known bugs (with links), known workarounds (links), etc. That’d make it really easy (particularly if @domhnallohanlon were to pin the tracker to the top of the forums) to rapidly inform users of current issues with blocks. Developing for Android? You might need to know that invisible webviewers cause crashes and that elements with absolute positioning can’t be invisible in snap to position.
Definitely! This would be so much more helpful than trying out a block, the app crashing, getting frustrated and then coming on the forums to scout for another instance of the same behavior/ making a GitHub report.
No, definitely not, but knowing that a block is down (or component!) saves you so much more time than making a GitHub request and waiting days for a response.
Brilliant idea.
It saves a lot of time and effort and if any member raised an issue, one can just make a reference to a specific post in the tracker instead of explaining it again and again.
And then the question is: Do we build it in Thunkable, or do we build it in something ELSE, so that it still works in case Thunkable is having a Very Bad Day.
I was inclined to the idea of using the forum and with the help of one of Thunkable staff to open a new category and in it, each post will deal/explain/list issues of a single specific block or component.
The issue with this is, should this category be left open for anyone to comment or should it be closed like the test categories?
That’s just a thought, waiting for the input of others.
UI is horrible, but it’s a Google sheet. If the data lived here, there’d still be access if something was preventing a Thunkable web app from working, and then there could be a prettier interface on top of it.
Firebase would be better - it’d allow having multiple links as separate items, etc, but everyone can easily open a Google sheet, while Firebase would /have/ to have a functional front end for many users to get any use at all out of it.
This would certainly be a useful thing to have. My concern is that people, especially new users, might report something as a “bug” or broken component that’s actually just a misunderstanding. But I guess that can just as easily happen with the current GitHub/forum system.
Yeah, there’d probably need to some confirmation/validation of submissions. But it happens on GitHub too - one of the bugs filed this week was an api parsing error.
I love this idea. I think having this would help Users AND the Thunkable Staff. I do like the use of Google Sheets because it is easy to use and most people have access to it. Something else I was thinking about could be the use of something like a Google Site? Google Sheets integrates with Sites, so that could help with the UI. Anyone else have any other ideas?
The Sites idea is also great! But we’re going to need to have to sort it every time since Set variable to 0 block has no relation to When Button Touch Down. Also, are we going to need to keep solved entries after marking them and providing a solution, or are we going to delete the solved ones and only show existing bugs/ outages?
I see the site as having a navigation for Components and Blocks. And in each there is a dropdown for each category of each. I can make a quick example site.
Here is a through together I made for a site. It really have any data on it, but It gives the layout idea for what I was thinking about. Under Blocks>Control, there is one example I put on there. Just some basic info. This would also be a great place to add doc links. Let me know what you think.
