minor mistake: WebGL error FAQ page link poinks to Scratch and not CreatiCode and improvement for the error text
-
Edit: to clarify, this post is not about the fact that I got an error but rather that the error message could be improved for users that don’t know what this means
The link at the bottom (the text “FAQ”) brings you to https://scratch.mit.edu/3faq rather than a FAQ page on the CreatiCode site. Also you may want to make it more apparent/obvious to the user that this doesn’t mean their browser doesn’t actually support it, but that it could be that, or that the browser doesn’t support it at the moment (like the browser’s webGL crashing due to having a gigantic 3D scene beyond the computer’s limits). A naive or non-technical user might see this and get worried or take unnecessary action, like installing a new browser because all of a sudden 3D stopped working. I also feel that although the way it’s worded is simple, it wouldn’t make sense to the average user because “WebGL” and “this technology” (in the context of a Web API) are terms that they probably wouldn’t know or would misunderstand. You might want to give an example in a case of when/why this would happen, like attempting to load 10 avatars every second and keeping them there (putting too much stress on the 3d renderer). The back button also should link to My stuff or creaticode.com rather than that same page since clicking the back page gives you no actual way to go back, since you get the same error again and again (and the popup disallows you from using the topnav to go back as well).Edit: I also forgot to mention that this can occur without 3D as well, you could simply be loading a normal Scratch project that’s a big file and then it hangs your WebGL renderer. Having multiple tabs open (especially complex ones that use stuff taking up more RAM, like YouTube videos, 3D, something happening every second, etc.) also makes projects more likely to crash due to the computer not having a decent amount of RAM left to do more complex stuff. This happens alot with (school) chromebooks and it would be great to explain this better since the target audience of CreatiCode is teachers and students, and they commonly have low end computers like chromebooks that can’t handle as much as an actual computer like Windows or Mac and are more likely to run into an issue like this.
-
Good points. Thank you.