when you drag a block away and it becomes a comment, then change to Text mode, commented block is gone

[dmalan]

before:

after:

[dabbler0]

This one's tricky. The "comment" thing that you get when you drag a block into space was a Code.org idea -- it's not really a comment, instead just a scratch space where you can assemble stuff in two dimensions instead of being bound to the left side of the screen.

We talked a bunch about how we might incorporate them into the program itself, and decided that because we wanted a strict bijection between text and blocks, we didn't want to include the free-floating blocks in the program because it would need some coordinate metadata, which was no good. So it's just a temporary workspace for kids to assemble blocks in weird orders if they want or view code snippets side-by-side.

Code.org recommended that we wrap them in the comment symbol to show that they wouldn't be part of the program when it ran. Not sure if that's confusing -- I think it would be more confusing not to have them, though.

[dmalan]

Just to recap in-person chat, if a user has orphaned blocks in blocks mode and tries to switch to text mode, should first be prompted to confirm with, e.g.:

You currently have n blocks that aren't connected to the rest of your code. If you switch to text mode, those blocks will disappear. Are you sure you want to switch to text mode?"

[dmalan]

Best to listen for body.unload and tab closing so as to prompt the user too. Or, instead of former, store disconnected blocks' state in C9 storage.

[dabbler0]

I've hooked into close and toggle, and done a prompt on body.unload for now. @kzidane do you know how I would add extra session data to be preserved between reloads, like c9 does with Ace editor scroll data/unsaved edits?

[kzidane]

@dabbler0 see https://cloud9-sdk.readme.io/docs/creating-an-editor-plugin#section-serializing-and-deserializing!

[dabbler0]

@kzidane Thanks!

[dabbler0]

@kzidane @dmalan Branch https://github.com/cs50/harvard.cs50.droplet/tree/floating-block-restore has a prototype for all the functionality we want, but will depend on a pull to core cs50/core#1.

[dabbler0]

@kzidane @dmalan Update: the pull request to c9 core is c9/core#377.

[kzidane]

@dabbler0 I might have found a way to extend the state, that doesn't require changing ace's implementation, or PRing the core. Would extending the meta object work for you?

var doc = tab.document;

// retrieve current state
var state = doc.getState();

// extend state
state.meta.droplet = 42; // could be any value

// inform state's changed?
// state.changed = true; 

// update state
doc.setState(state); 

cc @dmalan

[dmalan]

@dabbler0 what do you think about @kzidane's proposal?

[dabbler0]

@dmalan @kzidane This should be resolved now; uses document.meta instead of depending on the pull to core.