Custom color picker (feature request)

[brianharvey]

I would like to be able to associate a picture with my user account that will be displayed when I click on a color input slot. I guess a prior feature would be the ability to store things other than projects in my cloud, but we should have that anyway for the sake of sprites, libraries, etc.

That way I can have this color picker

even if nobody else likes it. :)

Note: All I personally want is a color picker slightly different from the standard one. But of course if we do this other people will soon ask for a script as their custom color picker, so they can make the kind with half a dozen different modes.

[jmoenig]

good idea!

Even better, though, if you could make your own input slots. For this we'd only have to extend the v12 custom types with another "_slot" key that would return a picture to be displayed as input slot.

[brianharvey]

That'd be cool too, but no, I want my picture to be used whenever a color picker appears, e.g., in the costume editor.

[jmoenig]

I know you want to customize everything :)

We're working hard on letting educators and curriculum designers make customizations that support different lessons. One example that keeps coming up is angles, compass bearings vs. "math" angles. For this I've added another special input slot that lets you make blocks featuring "math-geometry" angles. But you can only use them in your own blocks (unless, of course, you overload Snap's built-in ones, which you also can do). Point is, we also want to make sure teachers don't get overwhelmed by wildly different Snaps in their classrooms.

For this matter we've also had a big discussion whether or not to take out the HSL-pen-color-model setting again, or to at least hide it or make it temporary.

[cycomachead]

Some of these requests really belong in the @snap-cloud/snapCloud repo. :)

I think we need to do libraries and other forms of project-like things first.
I would also put cloud settings higher up on that list, especially now that settings are getting an upgrade.

[brianharvey]

at least ... make it temporary.

How would that help?

---

I haven't forgotten your impassioned explanation of why it's important for teachers to use Snap!. And I agree! But I think our finest hour was when we gave Dan and Josh what they needed (unevaluated inputs) instead of what they asked for (reporter IF as a special case kludge), and what they needed was what everyone else needed too. We knew we were right because we both independently had the same idea. Now it feels more like, things that don't excite you are too complicated for teachers to handle, whereas things that do excite you (such as metaprogramming, which excites me too) can be incredibly complicated, with no effort to make them comprehensible.

I'm not sure how I feel about having a "math angle" input type, vs. having a mode. I take it you don't like having a checkbox in the options menu because people can be confused about what mode they're in. But I'd be more worried about being in both modes at once, so people use the custom blocks to turn but then use the primitive DIRECTION block and get confused at the result they get. I would consider trying having the checkbox, and having it change the primitive blocks so that they start with ⦬ for Logo mode vs. ⦨ for math mode, maybe even changing the glyph color for one of them. And maybe if you switch modes when you already have some relevant code in your project, those blocks glow or something until you change their inputs to make up for the mode change -- or of course we could just automagically change their inputs all at once.

(I'm surprised the math teachers aren't asking for radians, or are they?)

(Actually, as I'm thinking more about it, don't you have to change the sprites' default direction to 0 instead of 90 in order to keep costumes rightside up? How do you do that if you just have a new input type?)

Sorry, I'm rambling. Also today for some reason everything from my waist down hurts, so if I'm being rude you can blame that. :/

[brianharvey]

Some of these requests really belong in the @snap-cloud/snapCloud repo. :)

I did say that the ability to store data other than projects in cloud accounts (a cloud feature) has to come before this one. But this one is entirely about the editor's behavior. :)

[brianharvey]

P.S.

I know you want to customize everything :)

What I want is for my color picker to be the standard! But I'm trying to negotiate a compromise.