Canvas renderer not properly set on Edge for navbar/menu/homescreen

[jonathanolson]

Causes phetsims/joist#321, and is due to an incomplete (buggy) fix of phetsims/molarity#24. Edge 25 seems to have even worse SVG text rendering (things get cut off), see https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/Feedback/Details/1571965, https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/1567173 and most notably https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/Feedback/Details/2240792.

This should be fixed by setting the default root renderer to Canvas (this will also allow it to be overridden).

[jonathanolson]

@ariel-phet, this is the primary cause of phetsims/joist#321 (except for the buggy Neuron text in the play area, that will be handled by #516).

This seems like a good candidate for maintenance releases, due to how buggy the appearance of the sims look in Edge 25 (latest version).

Thoughts?

[ariel-phet]

@jonathanolson - can you give a time estimate for performing maintenance releases? Also, before Neuron is published, should this patch be made by @jbphet?

[jonathanolson]

can you give a time estimate for performing maintenance releases?

Depends on how much of the testing I'd need to do. Now that I know the lay-of-the-land, I'd guess 1 hour up front, 5-10 minutes per SHA that needs to be patched (for translatable sims) with 5 minutes per translatable sim, and 2 minutes per non-translatable sim (+15 minutes of testing by myself or QA).

My preferred plan would be to:

1. branch for each SHA (and test)
2. backup current website sims
3. apply maintenance releases for translatable sims (brief personal test, the recommend short QA testing of live sim)
4. apply the patch replacement for non-translatable sims on a copy ("rootRenderer:'svg'," => "rootRenderer:platform.edge?'canvas':'svg',"), or the equivalent depending on the minified version
5. recommend 10-15 minutes of testing on the copies of non-translatable sims
6. replace non-translatable sims, similar to the Hewlett procedure

Also if we are doing these patches, there are some sims that would benefit from the fixes for #510. @phet-steele noted it really affected one or two sims in particular. Adding in that patch would probably increase total time by 30% (unlike having to do it in another maintenance release process, which would be 100%).

Also, before Neuron is published, should this patch be made by @jbphet?

Yes! Also I either need to fix #516, or @jbphet will need to remove boundsMethod: 'fast' on the readout text.

[jonathanolson]

Also, the 5 minutes per translatable sim is something I could totally multi-task, as it's mostly "kick something off to run for 4 minutes, then spend 1 minute doing checks".

[ariel-phet]

@jonathanolson please get in touch with the other developers, specifically @jessegreenberg and @jbphet about patching their sims before they publish them (Neuron, BASE, Ohm's Law)

Second, please get in touch with @phet-steele to see if this work could be coordinated early next week (perhaps on Monday)?

[jonathanolson]

@jonathanolson please get in touch with the other developers, specifically @jessegreenberg and @jbphet about patching their sims before they publish them (Neuron, BASE, Ohm's Law)

Talked with both. Here's the plan:

1. Created a neuron-1.0 branch of Joist. @jbphet will be performance testing to see whether Text boundsMethod 'fast' should still allow Canvas rendering (but prevent fitting) #516 needs to be accomplished now, or whether we can omit the boundsMethod. (Then new RC).
2. Ohm's Law is safe to move to master of Joist. Presumably will just be a bump in SHA (no branch needed) and a new RC.
3. John Travoltage isn't RC'ed, so can use master. Recommended using 'webgl' flag for electron particles, and will need a change to stop overriding with 'svg' renderer (instead using null, or canvas for Firefox). Performance testing possibly needed on Win8 Firefox.
4. Balloons and Static Electricity is safe to move to master of Joist, like Ohm's Law.

[jonathanolson]

Deployments for translatable sims done.