I’ve been using Tynker on mobile for a year or two now, and a little on PC. Over this time I have found many issues with Tynker. These apply to the mobile, IOS version of Tynker.
- Deleting a variable by dragging it from the blocks menu then pressing no leaves an image of the variable
- Having more than 4 clones can cause lots of lag even if the code they run is simple (there has to be a way to optimize this!)
- Finding other projects is very difficult because the only categories are recent and featured, and theres no filter in the search engine, which is also very literal
- Many blocks have somewhat vague descriptions, or lack one altogether
- Some blocks only exist on PC, such as notify, but work on mobile
- Some blocks do not work on mobile, such as any visual effect other than ghost
- Dragging blocks to the left to delete them can leave a “shadow block” if it is also shown connecting to another script while being deleted
- Projects that work and look fine on mobile dont work or look worse on PC. For example, tap equated to click on PC, but if touch down or mouse X/Y didnt work, and some text was not positioned properly
- Copying actors from other projects should have an option to also bring over global variables
- the moderation team has a “bad taste” in featured projects. Ive seen many projects that are complex and show off the person’s coding ability, but on featured i see dress-ups and bad drawings
- Importing images on mobile seems to downgrade their resolution so it can be almost unusable
- Object hitboxes with physics are very basic, only circle and rectangle
- Placing blocks inside of expandable if/else blocks with many if’s becomes offset from the visual
- Existence of the math blocks such as =, >, and <, even thought they exist in single math block
- The buttons to delete or edit actors can be pressed through the coding interface
- Audio cannot be imported to Tynker in any way
- Using false if statements sometimes doesnt work properly (i dont have an example as it happened only once to me. i just used if/else instead. I think repeat until touch down? is false does not work)
- Block to detect what platform (device) tynker is being run on, but no substitute blocks for tapping, tilting, and camera
- Some properties of actors changed when the code is run persists after it is stopped
- When UI sounds is off, music is still stopped on the device when connecting blocks
- Code blocks are not run very fast, and often limits me from creating more complex scripts
- There is no “backpack” that lets you bring code blocks or scripts between projects
- Comments on mobile are blocks in the control/flow category and color, but on PC are white sticky notes that can be put anywhere. They also cut off with … after a certain, short length
- Drawing blocks lack font options, and italic and bold dont work. Looks and Drawing are kind of connected but confusing
- Only some options for Say block with styles work
- Using move to top/bottom layer blocks messes with actor layers in the code, moving them to ridiculous values sometimes
- Similar to with physics, actor hitboxes for touching other actor is sometimes inaccurate compared to the actor
- No eraser in Drawing blocks
That concludes my list for now. I hope that Tynker can improve some of these over time. I want to see it become a powerful coding tool for kids like Scratch. The graphics seem more refined on Tynker, and it has a mobile app, but these issues seriously hold it back.