Request for input: block status tracker

(I don’t always like the thought of promoting workarounds, but they can be needed) Those could be like the workaround, or maybe an area for tutorials. Really anything people think other users could use.

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Awesome!

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@catsarisky @muneer @tatiang @codeswept
You four are always around and the information you give is always valuable. If the community were to hold a status page, what would you like it to look like? What would you like it to include? Who should be able to edit the status? I know I am new to the community, but I would love to get involved in making Thunkable better. How can we help you?

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:blush: Thank you for your kind words!
All of this depends on whether we want this to be entirely community-driven, or if we are doing our part but also are using this to make it much easier for staff to use this. I think that these are a few basics to include:

  • Separation of components and blocks (you’ve already done that)
  • Give a detailed breakdown of what isn’t working. To help users identify whether their app crashes are a bug with their code or a bug with a component block, we should also provide screenshots of what the crash will look like and example code to show users that if they have this code in their apps, this is a Thunkable bug and not theirs.
  • Provide workarounds and tips. There’s already a section for that in the website.
  • We’d also probably need to host this under its own domain name, as users will have to come back to the community every time to get the link. status.thunkable.com is already used so what about something like thunkablestatus.com?

If I think of more I’ll post them here. We must also have a small discussion area/ comments section at the bottom of each post there, in case somebody discovers a new method of workaround / has discovered a new bug and wants it to be added.

I think we can maybe appoint a ‘committee’ of sorts, and allow them to make changes to the website. We could have a poll here for that. Since we don’t want people messing the site up and posting random stuff/ spam/ posting stuff they think are bugs but actually their code, I think the committee should be able to add new members who can make changes. I don’t how Google Sites works but it might have some authentication that users can give to be able to unlock editing.

I’m going to make this a wiki people can add their suggestions to who can be members of the committee:

This poll is currently limited to those only Trust Level 2 and above, but if you want me to make it open, I definitely will. We could maybe have a head committee of 5 members. You can vote for 4 members currently, and at the end of this month, the top 5 shall be selected as the head committee. What do you all say? This is a wiki so you can make changes to the poll, add other names, and change the end date, etc. I think only trust level 3 and above can edit wikis?

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@codeswept With Google SItes, as long as the specific users who need editing privileges have a Google email (Gmail), you can add them as a site editor. Those users can make changes after that and publish them live. For a Google domain, it is $12 a year. There are ways to embed forums/discussions into Google Sites. I would need to look into the best system, but I know there are many ways.

Regarding the app crashing. We could also make some test apps of things we know might fail, and we can make them so people can copy them. That could also be our test to make sure everything is working. This is one I made for data sources. Simple but effective. Thunkable

We could maybe try adding something like a “Test Zone”, which will provide users with a variety of copyable project to test things. These would be put together by us, so we know they work (if the blocks are functioning correctly)

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Interesting. The Test Zone is a superb idea! People will be able to use those projects to replicate bugs and find workarounds.

If anybody wants their name/ suggestion for a name added to the poll, please tell me. Thanks!

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@bnice Would it be possible for you to add ‘Canvas Blocks’ to the Blocks section?
The next step would be to search GitHub for all the unresolved issues and sort them into the website.

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Done. I also added the ‘Test Zone’.

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Perfect!

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Why isn’t it possible to edit a poll after 5 minutes? I wanted to add a name but it’s not allowing me to.

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I have never made a poll before, so I am not aware of the specifics on it. Maybe we just grab nominations for now and create it after some time has elapsed? Something to keep in mind is if we are doing a committee, the members voted in do need to accept the role. So we could also wait until we get some feedback from @catsarisky @muneer @tatiang and whoever else has been participating in this thread.

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Oops. Sorry about that, just rushed in and did it. I’m going to close that poll unit we’ve received the names of everyone who wants to participate, and do it after around 2 days. Whoever’s interested can write their name in this thread.

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I would be interested in getting my name on the poll.

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Sure! Noting it down.

Hey Everyone! @codeswept and I are working on a site that we think could work as a status doc. Here is what we have thus far. It is just a frame, but you can see where we are going with it in the Blocks>Control tab. Here you go ! Thunkable Status Docs, Let us know what you think!

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Wow. I went to bed, and when I got up (not quite enough hours later), there was a LOT of activity on this thread! :slight_smile: Responses as I read…

I think organizing by programming palette might get us most of the way there.

If it’s a Google Sheet, it’s probably going to have be current status only. If we use an actual database (Firebase?), we could keep all the history, and I think that’d be a good thing.

Yes, absolutely!

There are some really good ideas in here for categories and layout. However, I really think we need to be pulling information from somewhere (database!), and I’m not sure Google Sites is the best tool for that. [It totally could be - tell me I’m wrong!]

I think I would pull the workarounds right into the same page with blocks or components. If you DO need a workaround, you probably need it right when you’re reading about the bug/deficiency.

Aw, thanks @bnice. But I’ve only been here since early '21, when I was learning Thunkable so that I could help my team of 5th and 6th graders who were building an app on Thunkable. (It was absolutely the blind leading the blind.) I’m still new, too!

I absolutely want a big summary status page of doom. If I could make one thing, it’d be that, so that you could look at one screen and see where the problems are. (And then click in to each individual page for lots more detail.)

That’s the question isn’t it? I think it should be pretty easy for users to contribute and I hope we can involve anyone (absolutely you @bnice!), but perhaps new contributor contributions are flagged in some way until confirmed?

I think we should assume no involvement from staff. If it turns out our tool is useful for them, WONDERFUL, but I would not want it to be another thing they’re expected to keep up with.

+1, and I’d link individual tests from the pages of the components.

@bnice , I very much appreciate the time you spent putting together the Google Site, but I’d like to make a case for not building something without a database (broadly defined) sitting behind it. There are a LOT of blocks and components - I’d advocate for not needing to make a bunch of edits on individual pages by hand to keep things synced up.

Actually, the more I’m thinking about it, the more I wonder if we should be leveraging Github’s existing set of features and API. Hmm.

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That’s a really good idea! I was pretty clueless about that ‘committee’ idea, but we can definitely do it this way too! But we don’t want new users here adding bugs that are actually faults in their own code.

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I would agree with this! I was just throwing together a UI with the site? I am a visual person, so I like to put my ideas out and then go from there. I have only used Google Sheets for data before, but I am all for learning more! So if you guys know how to integrate a database, let us DO IT!

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I’m sensing a Summer Hackathon topic… :wink:

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Hang on, I’m sorry for being so slow but @catsarisky were you suggesting that we used a Firebase/ Airtable/ Google Sheets within Thunkable or integrate them into Google Sites?