Contraptor

NEW • Welded loops warning: when a closed loop of pieces has more welds than it needs, the extra welds can fight each other, making the shape slow down, jerk to a stop, or spin out of control. Contraptor now tells you during the run and offers to change just enough welds to Joined (Undo puts them back), or Show Me circles the welds so you can pick one yourself. • "Good First" sort in Community: hand-picked easy Challenges first, marked with a student on a gold coin. New players start there. • Every Community Challenge now says what it takes to win right on its card, and Take the Challenge opens with a How to Win panel. • Arrange the Tool Palette your way: drag buttons into any order. Your palette setup survives even a delete and reinstall. • Swipe the Tool Palette down, or tap the small bar on top of it, to tuck it away for more room to build. It also fades out of the way while you drag, pinch or pan. On a Mac it stays solid instead; a switch brings the fade back. • The buttons down the right side can be moved anywhere or tucked away. • A fire extinguisher button puts out flames during a run. • The Community banner shows how many Challenges are left for you to solve, and its numbers are tappable filters. • Separate Snap Align switches for Challenges and Solutions. • Never post with Trace on: posting asks first, with one tap to turn Trace off, or post with Trace just this once. • On a Mac, the mouse wheel zooms the scene and two-finger trackpad scrolling slides it. New Settings > Mouse & Trackpad lets you choose what each does, zoom toward the pointer or the screen center, and reverse the zoom direction. • The Mac menu bar's Contraptor > Settings (Command-comma) opens Contraptor's Settings. The same shortcut works on an iPad with a keyboard. IMPROVED • Community Challenges and Solutions always open at the view their author chose. • Back from Inspection returns to that Challenge's card. • Help is simpler: press and hold anything for help, with a slider to set how long you hold. • Clearer wording across Community, the Leaderboard and Home. • Lighter Challenge and Solution cards, which should end rare long freezes on the Community screen. • Motors now really deliver Torque up to 500. Machines already built work exactly as before. • Posting a Solution restarts its "Built in" time. FIXED • Community could look empty, saying "No community challenges yet," when the newest posts needed an app update. It now keeps loading and tells you how many need the update. • On a Mac, the Home button was missing from the top left of Community, My Challenges, My Solutions and Tutorials. • On a Mac, pinching on the trackpad zoomed toward the top-left corner. • A crash when a machine fell a long way and its pieces went out of control. • A rare crash in the sound effects. • A black screen after quickly tapping a Home button. • The first Mass you set could land at 1/16 of the number you typed. • A saved copy of a Proof that didn't solve could be posted as if it did. • Opening the app while iCloud was busy could sign you out. • Typing a rod's angle or length while solving could put it outside the Work Area. • "Unsolved by me" could show only a handful of Challenges. • The app switcher showed a blank Contraptor.