Feature Requests

In the sprite editor, I'd love the option of being able to add text. That would make it very easy to make sprites that function as buttons / get students to do projects involving text (such as animating spelling words to make combine spelling and coding). It is especially helpful for allowing students to get started on projects quickly without having to make program assets. Also, it would be really helpful if snap had an inbuilt costume and background library (similar to what is available with scratch). Perhaps allowing community members to contribute to a library (using public domain images) would be a way of quickly populating the library with resources that can be used without breaching copyright.

Another feature that is currently available in scratch is that when an object is moved around on the stage, the 'go to' block updates with the co-ordinates of the sprite. Having that (or some indication of where a sprite is located on the stage in terms of x and y) would be really useful.

Finally, Scratch has a 'backpack' feature which allows users to drag scripts into a holding area and then use the scripts in other projects. Currently scratch does not allow users to rename scripts which is a problem.

I prefer snap over scratch as it is easier to use (the search functionality is really good). I love that I can drag the size of the stage to customise it and also appreciate how easy it is to embed snap projects into websites.

Thanks in advance & keep up the good work.

If it helps, I'm a Computer Science teacher in New Zealand and in the next two weeks I'll be delivering a workshop to my primary school colleagues to support them in teaching coding in their classrooms. Currently, scratch is the system of choice but I'd love to be able to recommend snap as I think it is a better option in many respects (the missing backpack and sprite libraries are a sticking point though).

:slight_smile:

Click in the File icon and you'll see a costumes options down the list

Been requested a few times but not seen as a priority feature yet

Hi! Welcome to the forum.

Yes, it's embarrassing that we haven't gotten around to text in sprites yet. But we do have a workaround: There's a "text costumes" library consisting of a single block that takes a text input and a size input and reports a new costume with that text. It works by using the WRITE block (in Pen).

We do have some built-in costumes, stolen from Scratch. We haven't stolen their entire collection because (also embarrassing) loading the costume thumbnails is really slow. We know how to fix it, and just have to get around to it. I don't think we could take user contributions because we'd have to be sure they're free of copyright. Well-intentioned users could still get that wrong.

For the sprite position, just check the checkboxes next to X POSITION and Y POSITION. It's not elegant, because watchers are big, but it works.

About using scripts in other projects, we don't have that for toplevel scripts, but in the File menu you can "Export blocks" and choose which custom blocks to export. That makes an XML file in your downloads. Also, by right-clicking a sprite in the sprite corral you can export the entire sprite, scripts and all.

Ooh, invite us down for the workshop! :~)

I'm glad Snap! is working well for you.

Thanks so much for that. It really helped. I was excited to find out that costumes are available. Maybe in the next iteration you could put a tab next to the camera tab at the the bottom right of the sprite area which would allow users to access the sprites. If you put things where users are expecting to see them, it really helps. Those used to scratch are probably not going to realise that the costumes are in the files area.

Also, it took me a while to figure out the 'libraries' option. It's really great but I am wondering why the options are not ordered alphabetically. This is probably super low on the list of priorities but having a filter / sort button for libraries might help newbies.

For the sprite position, I ended up ticking the mouse x, mouse y boxes in the sensing area and that gave me what I need. It lets me see what the co-ordinates are at a given point. Not quite as convenient as having the block filled in automatically but certainly workable.

The more I play with snap, the happier I am - you are doing a great job.

Were you keen to have a 'snap' workshop in New Zealand? I can put you in touch with our 'CS4HS' people (who run events towards the end of the year) and they might be able to help / incorporate workshops into a larger event. Maybe.

Thanks again!

I'm keen for somebody to pay to fly me to visit New Zealand! :~)

I agree that we should add a costumes button next to the camera button.

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