Text may shift while rotating molecule on Chromebook

[Nancy-Salpepi]

Test device Chromebook (Lenovo 100e)

Operating System ChromeOS 114

Browser chrome

Problem description For https://github.com/phetsims/qa/issues/956, on the Three Atoms Screen, when rotating molecules with large dipole moments the text in the electronegativity panels moves. I have only seen this with the Chromebook so far.

Steps to reproduce

1. On the Three Atoms screen, in the Electronegativity panel for Atom B, move the slider all the way to the right.
2. Move Atom C closer to Atom A.
3. Rotate Molecule Around

Visuals

https://github.com/phetsims/molecule-polarity/assets/87318828/84478963-de15-4ac4-8b05-e3c7dc720111

Troubleshooting information: !!!!! DO NOT EDIT !!!!! Name: ‪Molecule Polarity‬ URL: https://phet-dev.colorado.edu/html/molecule-polarity/1.3.0-rc.1/phet/molecule-polarity_all_phet.html Version: 1.3.0-rc.1 2023-06-15 19:01:21 UTC Features missing: applicationcache, applicationcache, touch Flags: pixelRatioScaling User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/114.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Language: en-US Window: 1583x773 Pixel Ratio: 1.7999999523162842/1 WebGL: WebGL 1.0 (OpenGL ES 2.0 Chromium) GLSL: WebGL GLSL ES 1.0 (OpenGL ES GLSL ES 1.0 Chromium) Vendor: WebKit (WebKit WebGL) Vertex: attribs: 16 varying: 31 uniform: 1024 Texture: size: 16384 imageUnits: 16 (vertex: 16, combined: 32) Max viewport: 16384x16384 OES_texture_float: true Dependencies JSON: {}

[arouinfar]

Good observation @Nancy-Salpepi. Does it also happen in the published version of the sim?

This looks like it could be a case of https://github.com/phetsims/scenery/issues/1289.

[pixelzoom]

Molecule Polarity is not currently applying the preventFit: true workaround to its ScreenViews. So this is almost certainly due to https://github.com/phetsims/scenery/issues/1289.

Options: (1) Fix https://github.com/phetsims/scenery/issues/1289 (2) Apply the preventFit: true workaround for the Nth time. (3) Do nothing.

I'm inclined to do (3) so that we don't keep avoiding (1). But I have the feeling we'll end up doing (2).

@arouinfar @kathy-phet thoughts?

[kathy-phet]

I would vote for (2) and move on.

[arouinfar]

I agree with @kathy-phet, let's go with (2) and apply preventFit: true.

[pixelzoom]

https://github.com/phetsims/scenery/issues/1289 usually happens on Chrome, but that's not the case here. I can't reproduce it on macOS 13.4 with Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. I can't reproduce it on iPadOS 16.5 with Safari. So I can't even verify that the preventFit: true workaround is appropriate without iterating with QA. That will not happen before my vacation, so will delay the next RC until at least July 5.

This is a very minor graphics artifact that does not affect usability of the sim, and it only happens in specific cases. And it does not seem like it's worth the cost (and delay) to address during RC. So unless this problem is present on Windows, my recommendation is (3) --- "do nothing". But if @arouinfar and @kathy-phet really want to do (2), I'll proceed.

[pixelzoom]

@arouinfar and I discussed. Adding preventFit: true is not just a matter of just adding a line of code and moving on. Using preventFit: true can have negative performance implications, and requires re-testing on all platforms. And the fact that I can't reproduce it in this case increases the probability that this is not the same problem as https://github.com/phetsims/scenery/issues/1289, makes it harder to verify, and more time-consuming to fix. So we agreed that if it's only a problem on Chromebook, then it's not worth the cost and delay for this sim, and we will do nothing.

I've verified that it does not occur on lastest macOS and iPadOS.

@Nancy-Salpepi have you seen this problem on Windows and its supported browsers?

[Nancy-Salpepi]

I can't reproduce it in Windows or on the Mac.

[pixelzoom]

Thanks @Nancy-Salpepi.

Closing as "won't fix".