Hi everyone! What do you think about the newly announced update to project thumbnails?
I love the idea, it gives you control over the thumbnail and you won't change it accidentally anymore!
From what I get, when you press the button it sets the current still as the thumbnails, so you can make a thumbnail manually, make it go to the front at the start of the project, set it as the thumbnail as later delete it.
This is very convenient, but just one problem is you can't set GIFs as thumbnails anymore. Though it's not that big of a problem.
What do you guys think?

CoolLock wrote:

(#1)
This is very convenient, but just one problem is you can't set GIFs as thumbnails anymore.

You never could in vanilla Scratch. (Existing external methods to upload custom thumbnails, including gifs, will still work as usual, and maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

CST1229 wrote:

maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

Not very sure about that, didn't they say every new project without a set thumbnail would be the default scratch cat thumbnail? Don't know if external methods would override that though.

CoolLock wrote:

CST1229 wrote:

maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

Not very sure about that, didn't they say every new project without a set thumbnail would be the default scratch cat thumbnail? Don't know if external methods would override that though.

but it won't go about setting your already set thumbnails to the default scratch cat thumbnail, it should only do that when you create the project (or maybe they'll just change the default image on the numbnail server from the default profile picture to the default scratch cat thumbnail)

MonkeyBean2 wrote:

CoolLock wrote:

CST1229 wrote:

maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

Not very sure about that, didn't they say every new project without a set thumbnail would be the default scratch cat thumbnail? Don't know if external methods would override that though.

but it won't go about setting your already set thumbnails to the default scratch cat thumbnail, it should only do that when you create the project (or maybe they'll just change the default image on the numbnail server from the default profile picture to the default scratch cat thumbnail)

Yeah, that's what I meant by “new” projects, sorry if it wasn't clear. So projects created from then on will have the scratch cat thumbnail except if changed using the button. I don't know if external methods to make it a GIF or something can bypass it

CoolLock wrote:

MonkeyBean2 wrote:

CoolLock wrote:

CST1229 wrote:

maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

Not very sure about that, didn't they say every new project without a set thumbnail would be the default scratch cat thumbnail? Don't know if external methods would override that though.

but it won't go about setting your already set thumbnails to the default scratch cat thumbnail, it should only do that when you create the project (or maybe they'll just change the default image on the numbnail server from the default profile picture to the default scratch cat thumbnail)

Yeah, that's what I meant by “new” projects, sorry if it wasn't clear. So projects created from then on will have the scratch cat thumbnail except if changed using the button. I don't know if external methods to make it a GIF or something can bypass it

as CST1229 said, this shouldn't affect it in any way. They have no reason to change the server side uploading mechanism whatever, they can just send the set thumbnail request when you click the button instead of when you save the project. The GIF uploading method just works by sending such a request.

MonkeyBean2 wrote:

CoolLock wrote:

MonkeyBean2 wrote:

CoolLock wrote:

CST1229 wrote:

maybe even benefit from not having automatic thumbnail uploads on project saving)

Not very sure about that, didn't they say every new project without a set thumbnail would be the default scratch cat thumbnail? Don't know if external methods would override that though.

but it won't go about setting your already set thumbnails to the default scratch cat thumbnail, it should only do that when you create the project (or maybe they'll just change the default image on the numbnail server from the default profile picture to the default scratch cat thumbnail)

Yeah, that's what I meant by “new” projects, sorry if it wasn't clear. So projects created from then on will have the scratch cat thumbnail except if changed using the button. I don't know if external methods to make it a GIF or something can bypass it

as CST1229 said, this shouldn't affect it in any way. They have no reason to change the server side uploading mechanism whatever, they can just send the set thumbnail request when you click the button instead of when you save the project. The GIF uploading method just works by sending such a request.

Yeah you're right. I honestly don't know how it works.

I feel like the button could be made a little less intrusive, but I think it's overall a good decision. Maybe a tutorial on how to use it in the Tutorials section in the editor would be nice.

Redstone1080 wrote:

Maybe a tutorial on how to use it in the Tutorials section in the editor would be nice.

It shows an explanation when you first click on it – I think that's enough.

new change: there'll be a confirmation with the project thumbnail before sharing a project


(ignore the dark mode, it's not a part of scratch. the screenshot is from someone else (specifically Maximouse))

i assume this is a way to prevent people from unknowingly sharing a project without ever setting a thumbnail for it and then getting confused, but it also works well as an actual share confirmation. nice!

CST1229 wrote:

new change: there'll be a confirmation with the project thumbnail before sharing a project


(ignore the dark mode, it's not a part of scratch. the screenshot is from someone else (specifically Maximouse))

i assume this is a way to prevent people from unknowingly sharing a project without ever setting a thumbnail for it and then getting confused, but it also works well as an actual share confirmation. nice!

That's good! I assume some users might be unaware of the new feature, so this will be useful. I also like it working as a regular confirmation! Hopefully the tutorial is clear enough on how to set a thumbnail too.

CoolLock wrote:

Hopefully the tutorial is clear enough on how to set a thumbnail too.

If you click “No, change thumbnail”, it highlights the Set Thumbnail button:



And when the button is clicked for the first time, it shows a popup explaining how to use it, as shown in the announcement.

On the development side the Scratch Team said the main reason for the change was to reduce the number of thumbnail update requests.

bump