Cloud Variables Limited to 128 Characters Now?

imfh

RaiderJacJac wrote:
The “multiplayer” concept is no longer active, because cloud variables require you to refresh. Oh well.
128 character limit, and no words. I wish it didn't have to be this way.

They are still live and don't require page refresh as far as I can tell. Multiplayer games can be made, you just have to be conservative. Here's a project that works and still has people play it from time to time(2 people on it at time of writing): slither.io by @griffpatch.

Archival

jacobsmash1 wrote:
Everybody stop saying cloud is bad! The only reason why the scratch team made cloud in the first place was for simple stuff like hi-scores!

so are you on the scratchteam?

Maybe somebody should ask them instead of arguing.

thisandagain

Archival wrote:
jacobsmash1 wrote:
Everybody stop saying cloud is bad! The only reason why the scratch team made cloud in the first place was for simple stuff like hi-scores!

so are you on the scratchteam?

Maybe somebody should ask them instead of arguing.

That is true. Cloud Variables were created to support simple things like high-scores. Because of this, the architecture of Cloud Variables is not well suited to high-performance use cases (like multiplayer games). That said, I think that some of the ways in which people want to use them are really interesting. If we ever get around to a complete rethink of the system I would want to redesign and rearchitect it with these high performance / high concurrency use cases in mind.

modrapetka

thisandagain wrote:
Archival wrote:
jacobsmash1 wrote:
Everybody stop saying cloud is bad! The only reason why the scratch team made cloud in the first place was for simple stuff like hi-scores!

so are you on the scratchteam?

Maybe somebody should ask them instead of arguing.

That is true. Cloud Variables were created to support simple things like high-scores. Because of this, the architecture of Cloud Variables is not well suited to high-performance use cases (like multiplayer games). That said, I think that some of the ways in which people want to use them are really interesting. If we ever get around to a complete rethink of the system I would want to redesign and rearchitect it with these high performance / high concurrency use cases in mind.

May I suggest (the suggestion board is ignored, so I post here) a post noting these limits to high-end projects? Since Scratch is not designed for anything complicated, let's at least stop people from wasting time.

AFocusOnLisp

thisandagain wrote:
Archival wrote:
jacobsmash1 wrote:
Everybody stop saying cloud is bad! The only reason why the scratch team made cloud in the first place was for simple stuff like hi-scores!

so are you on the scratchteam?

Maybe somebody should ask them instead of arguing.

That is true. Cloud Variables were created to support simple things like high-scores. Because of this, the architecture of Cloud Variables is not well suited to high-performance use cases (like multiplayer games). That said, I think that some of the ways in which people want to use them are really interesting. If we ever get around to a complete rethink of the system I would want to redesign and rearchitect it with these high performance / high concurrency use cases in mind.

So much for “low floor, high ceiling.”

Nambaseking01

thisandagain wrote:
Hi folks,
As many of you have noticed we have added some limits to the Cloud Variables system that previously did not exist. We have added a 128 character limit and we are now restricting cloud variables to be numbers only (no hexadecimal, E-notation, etc). These new limits were put into place to prevent abuse of the cloud variables system that was causing it to be unreasonable to maintain, scale, moderate, and support financially. In addition, these new limits help reduce the possibility of projects like “Chat Rooms” (which are incredibly difficult for the ST to keep safe). We recognize that these new limits may impact some projects, but hope the community will be empathetic in understanding that as a non-profit Scratch needs to make sure that the services we provide are sustainable. Thanks for understanding and sorry it took a few days for us to clarify the situation.

I understand, but Helixable has still made a chat room, could you please see that project and tell me if that is necessarily allowed?

coolguy73921

cuddley

Cloud variables are now effectively useless

imfh

cuddley wrote:
Cloud variables are now effectively useless

Why do you say that? They seem to work quite well for games such as slither.io and have enough space to hold good leaderboards.

cuddley

Not really, and the Scratch team said that they don't like servers either

Nambaseking01

cuddley wrote:
Cloud variables are now effectively useless

They are useful for Hi-scores and stuff, but of course not for things like chat rooms and Scratch e-mails!

babalewla

I am not very experienced so I don't know if this would actually work but maybe instead of limiting cloud variables, you could restrict certain words from being in lists, in speech and thought bubbles, and in anything where they could be displayed to a user. I know there's also the costs and stuff of running the cloud variable servers, but I think that could be a solution for the regulatory side of things at least.

Sheep_maker

babalewla wrote:
I am not very experienced so I don't know if this would actually work but maybe instead of limiting cloud variables, you could restrict certain words from being in lists, in speech and thought bubbles, and in anything where they could be displayed to a user. I know there's also the costs and stuff of running the cloud variable servers, but I think that could be a solution for the regulatory side of things at least.

Blacklists are too easy to bypass, won't work for all languages, and it's still possible to hurt someone using acceptable words.

phoenixN1

right now for scratch 3.0 cloud data doesn't work. example: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/171305998/ spin it once, then refresh the page. nothing happens. My browser / operating system: MacOS Macintosh X 10.13.6, Chrome 72.0.3626.121, No Flash version detected

imfh

phoenixN1 wrote:
right now for scratch 3.0 cloud data doesn't work. example: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/171305998/ spin it once, then refresh the page. nothing happens. My browser / operating system: MacOS Macintosh X 10.13.6, Chrome 72.0.3626.121, No Flash version detected

That project changing the cloud variable ~15 times a second probably has something to do with it. It isn't quite as stable as it used to, but it still works. It's also possible it was just down earlier. I think there's also a problem with 2.0 projects that used cloud variables.

TheLogFather

phoenixN1 wrote:
right now for scratch 3.0 cloud data doesn't work. example: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/171305998/ spin it once, then refresh the page. nothing happens. My browser / operating system: MacOS Macintosh X 10.13.6, Chrome 72.0.3626.121, No Flash version detected

As imfh was suggesting above, old projects that were made with Scratch 2 appear to not properly collect their values from cloud. Changes to cloudvars from such projects do get through to cloud, though – so their cloudvars are effectively ‘one-way’.

I.e. if you want your old project to work with cloud, try resaving it under Scratch 3.

Also, as imfh was alluding to above, the cloud system currently places specific limits on how often cloudvars can change – the cloud server will reject a cloudvar change that's within 0.1s of the last change.

What that means in practice is that after a project changes any cloudvar you must make sure there's a clear 0.1s gap before it makes another change to any cloudvar (whether the same one or a different one).

You can read more about the reasons/issues around this here: https://github.com/LLK/scratch-gui/issues/4243

Last edited by TheLogFather (March 25, 2019 08:04:37)

csf30816

I have come up with a system that should work. I am going to try to make a fully interactive web browser with the new Scratch cloud limit. (and of course Scratch Team, it will have a serverside whitelist). I'll keep you informed

Have a nice day,
csf

csf30816

I got it working. Still, have some problems with it skipping lines. Heres a picture: https://pasteboard.co/I8kAaSX.png

Once I fix the skipping lines it will fill the whole page and the words will be legible.

Last edited by csf30816 (April 2, 2019 22:13:33)

wgyt

First of all, you can copy the cloud variable and move it into a separate variable in the project. Second of all how in the world do you get text into Cloud variables?

imfh

wgyt wrote:
First of all, you can copy the cloud variable and move it into a separate variable in the project. Second of all how in the world do you get text into Cloud variables?

I don't know if that would work to bypass the 10 variable limit. Have you actually tested it and looked at the cloud monitor to be sure? The cloud monitor can be accessed by clicking the cloud variable icon on the project page.

Text is put into cloud variables by first turning it into a number. E.g. A > 01, B > 02, Z > 26, 0 > 27, 1 > 28. As far as I know, there is no way to put text directly in a cloud variable and save it to the server.

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