feature request: Scratch project version history

[cwillisf]

If we gave users access to historical versions of their project, they could in at least some cases:

• roll back if they make a mistake that's hard to undo
• recover their work if they encounter a problem causing data loss, such as the recent SVG question-mark issue
• "fork" a project from some point in its history
• use the backpack to copy work from an earlier version of a project into the current version, or another project
• etc.

We'd need to carefully consider how and where to present this feature:

• It should be hard to accidentally save an old version of a project over the current version
  • Maybe loading a historical version should load in a state similar to loading a project owned by someone else, where you can remix it / save a copy, but not save it directly?
  • Maybe there should be an explicit button in the project history view to copy an old version and make it "current"?
• Should project history be accessed from the "My Stuff" page, from inside the editor, or somewhere else?

Also, the recent Blockly summit included a demo of the MakeCode / PXT feature to diff block-based code. If we choose to implement user-visible project version history, we could consider a similar diff feature as an add-on in the long term.

[jeffalo]

as a long time user of scratch, i am really glad this is something being considered. 😃 i really hope this makes it to scratch.

not only is the ability to rollback a project a gamechanger, but simply having the backups would be really cool to see how your project evolved.

one quesiton though, are these project histories already stored? the wording of your first sentence sounds like it's already being collected. if so, how often are the backups made?

[apple502j]

I think Scratch Team already did recover some from the backups during the question mark bug.

[Accio1]

one quesiton though, are these project histories already stored? the wording of your first sentence sounds like it's already being collected. if so, how often are the backups made?

IIRC, Paddle2See had a tool at one point that he could use to make copies of older versions of projects. His Fix-It account is full of restored projects. So my guess is that there is currently something that saves backups of projects, but I'm not sure how often though.

[jemunm378]

This actually sound like a great idea! It would be better if it’s in the editor! Like it could mark "history" or something.

[OftenUser]

@jemunm378 same dude

[AmazingMech2418]

I think this would be a great idea! Also, version history could save revisions that could allow for automatic attribution. Metadata tags could even be saved in scripts and assets themselves so that someone backpacking something will still keep the attribution metadata which could then be automatically added to the project page so people don't accidentally forget to give credit. The only issue though is, I'm not sure if the Scratch servers could handle all of this, given how it would require much more data to be saved per project.

[gosoccerboy5]

I can attest. Too many times have I had "game.sb3", "game2.sb3", "game_final.sb3", "game_final_final_version.sb3". I would love to see this. Git is good at efficiently tracking changes so we could track project.json

[AmazingMech2418]

I can attest. Too many times have I had "game.sb3", "game2.sb3", "game_final.sb3", "game_final_final_version.sb3". I would love to see this. Git is good at efficiently tracking changes so we could track project.json

I do think implementing Git into Scratch would definitely be a good way to handle this! And maybe then we could even have branches for Scratch projects, or even issues and PRs!

[apple502j]

Thing is, project.json can change randomly and is not very effective at detecting the changes (if it's just text); it's much better to compare screenshots

[gosoccerboy5]

Thing is, project.json can change randomly and is not very effective at detecting the changes (if it's just text); it's much better to compare screenshots

oh