Immediate issues as a first-time user

[Nicholas Smith]

I really like the idea of Apparatus but I've been hitting walls every couple of seconds so far:

• When I first discovered the app I was using Firefox. After playing with Bret's tree demo, suddenly no further demos, nor a clean editor, would work, they were just giving blank pages. Console output revealed there was infinite recursion happening somewhere. Eventually I figured out I needed to clear the page's local storage with localStorage.clear() in the console. If I wasn't a programmer the app would have been permanently dead and I would have abandoned it. Gotta watch out for that. Steps to reproduce (in Firefox):

1. Start with an empty local storage using localStorage.clear().
2. Go to Bret's tree demo.
3. Use the browser back button to return to the home page.
4. Pick another demo.
   

• I've been randomly crashing when playing with attributes. I haven't identified all the causes of crashing, but it's clear the big one is accidentally making a recursive definition. This is so easy to do accidentally, because often I've been entering a value, and then clicked on the attribute's name with the intention of renaming it. Sometimes this copies the attribute into the input area, and that's when it crashes. I've seen this is already a Github issue. Obviously mutual recursion is also a problem.

Other than that I LOVE the concept and I'd be happy to help contribute, starting in a few weeks after I finish writing a thesis ;_;.

[William Taysom]

I can confirm Nicholas:

1. Drag in a square.

2. Click on the value of X.

3. Click on the variable X.

4. See and identifier replace the value.

5. See the call stack size exceed maximum.

Love the concept Toby.  Trying to resist the urge to clone and get hacking – in order to procrastinate deadlines.

Best,

William

[Toby Schachman]

Thanks for the report. Yes, the editor should error but not crash when there's a self-reference. Github issue is here. It's not too hairy a fix, just needs to be done.

I haven't done much testing in Firefox yet. We will need to figure out a better way to "clear localStorage" if the autosaved diagram crashes...

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