Hey everyone,
We wanted to share a handful of small updates that aim to make R2 inventions more powerful, easier to find, and more convenient to use. Recently, we made some improvements to invention tagging and gave “Beta” Inventions a bit of polish. Soon, it will get easier to find and use Inventions without hitting the download limit.
Tagging Improvements
When you create a new Invention or edit an existing one, you now have the ability to select tags. We ask you for one category tag - which controls which store carousel your Invention shows up in - and up to four custom tags, which you can use to include your Invention in more specific search results.
Tags, along with the other fields in the “edit” window - name, thumbnail, and descriptions - apply to all versions of an Invention, and can be edited at any time. Your changes will be reflected immediately, with no “republish” required.
Beta Inventions
Next, we’ve cleaned up Beta inventions to make them more useful.
“Beta” applies per-version
Previously, saving any Beta content into an Invention doomed that Invention to be marked Beta forever. Even if you saved new versions that didn’t have any Beta content, you couldn’t shake the restriction. Now you can!
Each version of an Invention is now individually marked as Beta or not when you save it. If you save a new version without any Beta content in it, the new version will not be marked as Beta - so you’ll be able to spawn it into non-Beta rooms.
While you’re in a non-Beta room, you won’t be able to select or spawn Beta versions. Inventions in your palette will default to their newest non-Beta version instead of the strictly newest, and they may be hidden entirely from your palette if there are no non-Beta versions at all.
Beta Inventions are now Publishable
You can now publish Inventions even if they have Beta content. They’ll show up in the store like normal. (As usual, our Beta content is subject to change as we work on it, so Beta Inventions might also break.)
Beta Inventions are more clearly marked as Beta
Inventions are badged as Beta on the store, in the palette, on the Invention Details page, and in search results. If you see the Beta badge, that usually means that the newest version of the Invention includes Beta content. You’ll also see Beta badging if you’ve switched an Invention to an older Beta version.
(We also got rid of the “Edit Ready” badge that invited itself to the Details page.. oops!)
Removing your Invention from Beta
We will not automatically remove the Beta flag from relevant Inventions when our features exit Beta, as we may sometimes change those building blocks during that process. It would be a bummer to break your stuff and automatically remove the warning label at the same time!
To remove your invention from Beta, just save and publish a new version without any Beta content in it. Double-check that it still works, since some of our stuff might have changed since you originally saved it.
Inventions In This Room
You’ll also start seeing a new carousel in your Inventions tab called “Inventions In This Room.” This is pretty much what it says on the box - a list of the Inventions saved into the room!
The intent of this new carousel is to make it easier to use and re-use stuff that’s already in the room, and to go get a copy if you like an Invention one of your collaborators brought to the party. This list contains all Inventions that are in the room if they are published OR if you are the author. It won’t show you Inventions that aren’t published unless they’re yours.
There’s an added bonus here - you can use Inventions directly from this carousel without downloading them. This means they won’t count against your Invention limit or hang around in your palette after you leave the room. (If you do want to keep a copy to use elsewhere, just go to the Details or Store page - you can still download it if you want to!)
Inventions In Palette Search
Palette search results now include R2 Inventions from both your collection and the store. We hope this makes it easier to find cool stuff to use in your room! For now you’ll have to go through a few extra clicks to “Get” those Inventions you’ve searched for, but keep reading..
Coming Soon: Use Inventions directly from the Store
In the next few weeks, you’ll be able to use Inventions straight from the store or palette search results without downloading them first, in the same way that the “Inventions In This Room” carousel lets you spawn stuff immediately. This means that you’ll be able to use any free Inventions without them counting against your download limit.
You’ll still be able to download them if you want to have fast access later - just click through to the store page and click the “Get” button!
Were excited to see what you all think about these updates so please let us know your thoughts and any issues you hit in the #inventions channel of the Creator Hub Discord.
Cheers!
~ The Inventions Team
