Introduction

When 2 users are using their own computers, they can collaborate on the same project remotely, using a new feature called “remote edit”. This is a fun experience that allows 2 people to write code together. When one person makes a change, such as adding a block or changing an input value, the other person sees the change right away. This is similar to how 2 people can edit the same Google Doc at the same time.

How to start a “remote edit” session

Here are the 4 steps for two users to start a remote edit session:

1. Owner User shares a new project. There are a few ways to share a project, such as sharing with everyone, sharing with friends only and sharing unlisted (no one can see it unless they have the project URL). The owner user then gives the project URL to the guest user, maybe through email or text message.

2. Guest User opens the project and clicks “Look inside” to open the project in the playground. The guest user selects the “Edit” menu on top, and then select “Request to edit”, then wait for the owner user to accept the request.

3. Owner User receives a request from the guest user, and clicks “Accept” button.

4. Guest User will receive the approval, and their project will automatically reload. This is to make sure the guest user starts with exactly the same project content as the owner user.

Here is a screen recording for what the 2 users would see on their computers (the left half is for the owner user and the right half is for the guest user):

 
After the 4 steps above, both users will be able to see and change the same project at the same time.

Making Changes

After the remote edit session has started, both users can make changes, such as adding/removing blocks, changing input values, etc. When one user is changing a block, that block will become greyed out on the other user’s screen, which indicates the remote user is making some changes. Users should try to avoid making changes to the same block at the same time, since the changes may conflict with each other, and only one change will be saved.

Limitations

There are some limits put in place to ensure the 2 users are always in sync:

1. No New Sprites: Currently, neither user can add new sprites once the session has started, and the “add sprite” button is hidden. Therefore, it is suggested that the owner user first creates all the sprites they need before starting the session.

2. Only Owner can save the project: Only the owner user can save the project, since that user still owns the project. The owner user should save the project whenever some important changes have been completed.

How to end a “remote edit” session

To end a “remote edit” session, either the owner or the guest user can click the red “End” button at the bottom.

Best Practices

Here are some suggestions on how to make use of this feature effectively:

1. Voice Communication: When the 2 users are not in the same room, it is better to have a voice communication channel, such as a zoom meeting or a phone call on the side. This can make it much easier for the 2 users to decide who will do what.

2. Division of Work: Although these 2 users can both make changes at the same time, they can not change exactly the same block at the same time. For example, if one user is updating the input parameters in a block, and the other user is deleting that block, then the result may be unexpected. It is recommended that the 2 users work on different blocks or stacks of blocks to avoid conflicts.

FYI this issue is fixed now.

Hi all,

Sorry there was an outage on our platform earlier this morning. Sorry about the inconvenience. Now we are back online.

CreatiCode

@tyller_

Please give it a try. I would love to hear your feedback. It is always a challenge to know when to give out the answer and when to hold it back, even for human teachers. Our current setting is to make the AI keep providing more hints when the user struggles. Hopefully, that will be good enough for most situations.

Introduction

When you need to explain how a project should work, the best way is to make a screen recording of the stage. This short article will explain which tools you can use to record the screen, and also how to share the gif file to get a URL for it.

Screen Recording on Windows

If you are using a Windows computer, we recommend a free tool named “ScreenToGif”, which you can download here: https://www.screentogif.com/

Here is a short video explaining how to use it: https://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=ELfCBzN1Mtc

Screen Recording on Macbook

If you are using a Macbook, you can use a free tool called “Giphy Capture”: https://giphy.com/apps/giphycapture

Here is a short video showing how to use it: https://www.yo utube.com/watch?v=m-4cJMBGfS4

Share your gif file

Once your gif file is ready, you can share it this way:

1. Go to the “My Stuff” page at https://play.creaticode.com/mystuff, and make sure you are logged in.

2. Select “My Files” tab on the bottom left

3. Click the “+Share a New File” button on the top right

4. In the pop up window, click “Click to upload file”, and then select the gif file from your computer.

5. Click the green button that says “upload and share with the CC Attribution license” at the bottom.

After that, you will see the new file in the list of files, and then you can click “Copy file URL” button for that file, which will copy the URL to the clipboard, which would look like this: https://ccdncreaticodecom.b-cdn.net/user-files/BfemEPCxatY6MMAPs/castfireball.gif

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

Acknowledged. This will be fixed soon. Thanks

Introduction

In the costumer editor, when the costume is in bitmap mode (as opposed to vector mode), you can use the magic wand tool to select an area with similar colors, then delete the designated area or fill it with a new color.

Making a Selection

To make a selection, you simply need to select the magic wand tool, then click on the area you would like to select. It can be of any shape, and may even contain holes in it:

 
Behind the scenes, it uses a “flood fill” algorithm to expand the selected area into neighboring points, so long as their colors are similar to the point you have clicked.

Note that if your computer is slow or if the costume is big, then it will take longer for this tool to determine the selected area.

Changing the Tolerance Threshold

When the magic wand is selected, you can specify a tolerance threshold value. Its value is between 1 and 255, and by default, it is 5. This value represents how much difference in color it would tolerate when it tries to expand the selection area:

• When the value is low, it will make sure the selected area only contains points very similar to the point you have clicked;
• As the value increases, it will include more points even if they are more different from the starting point.

As shown, when you change this value, the selected area will be updated automatically:

Delete or Fill the Selected Area

After you have made the selection, there are 2 operations you can do with those points:

• You can click the “Delete” button or press the DELETE key to delete all of those points;
• You can also pick a color from the “Fill” dropdown, then click the “Fill” button to fill the selected area with that color.

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

You are right. We should allow users to submit new extensions.

However, the code snippet library should be more like backpack than extension, since it will allow users to modify the code blocks after a snippet is imported. If it is an extension, then users won’t see its implementation and also won’t be able to customize it.

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

There are already packagers like Turbowarp, which works well for generic Scratch projects. And since most of the new CreatiCode blocks don’t work offline, most likely this new packager won’t do much more compared to a Turbowarp packager, right?

So the question is whether it will be justified to dedicate manpower on this feature (as opposed to others) if it is not going to add much additional value.

@attractive-milk

Maybe you can try these ideas?

1. Click the trash bin again to make it stop yelling
2. Make random garbage items fly out of the trash bin
3. Drag and drop garbage items into the trash bin
4. Make the trash bin move to random places on the stage
5. Add multiple clones of the garbage bin of different looks.

@wollowtaff

Thank you for the suggestion. We will be adding a few new languages over the next few months. We will consider Japanese as one of the candidates.

@白刃の亡霊

The broadcast block should be working fine. You can try this simple test:

play.creaticode.com/projects/68b650671f1f6c01bf5cf461?version=1

When the green flag is clicked, it will broadcast the message. And when it is received, the variable will increase by 1. If there is an issue like what you described, you should see the variable increase by more than 1 each time, right?

 
To find out the real issue, I suggest you simplify your program to bear minimum, and also try to debug it using the “print” block in the “control” group.

@白刃の亡霊

Have you tried to hold down the SHIFT key and select multiple items?

@notjaldolfyt
See this: https://www.forum.creaticode.com/topic/1997/newly-enhanced-cloud-variables

@dreamsmp_luck

Great

@dreamsmp_luck

Have you tried to use our AI assistant?

https://www.forum.creaticode.com/topic/1093/creaticode-xo-ai-assistant-explain-to-me

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

How about this?

@sirbots

Very likely that’s the reason.

@sirbots

The image generation tool is working fine, but it has a strict safetey check, so it might be your requests are failing the test.

@jeffreyrb03-gmail

Maybe you can split each item in the list by SPACE, then the first part will be the emoji? And the rest of the item will be the name?