Web Standalone on Mac

Enscape for macOS Enscape for macOS :: Questions and Issues
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I have read the Enscape information page about the web standalone, and done various tests with it, and have a few questions and issues that I’m hoping can be clarified, or at least have the voice of experience from other users who work with it.

Initial impressions are that it works really well - I exported a standalone of a mid-size model containing a lot of textures and custom graphics and it appeared on my browser (Firefox on Mac). Here’s where the issues start. The vast majority of the people I deal with as clients or otherwise use Macs too, so I need to know that this system works intuitively and flawlessly their end. I sent the link to colleagues in the office as a test and it did nothing - just a blank white loading screen that never loads.

Then I paid a little more attention to the end of the blog page and saw the following statement: Currently, no support for Internet Explorer/Edge/Safari or iOS devices (iPhone, iPads)

As Safari is the default browser on a Mac, this suddenly introduces a barrier to using the web standalone function for a good chunk of the people I deal with. It’s not appropriate for me to ask some of these people to start changing their browser and installing Chrome or Firefox if they don’t already have it either - I’m talking they type of people who give you a 15 minute window of their time and you have to make it count. It’s a massive fail at that point, and would be counter productive at best.

So, first question is - when will this become a universally supported feature for any WebGL2.0 browser?

Next issue - I spotted it immediately as a Mac user - the nav system on the web standalone screen is designed for a PC user, not a Mac user. It features left and right click mouse controls, and conflicting and confusing controls such as pressing CTRL and the up arrow key. This actually activates Expose (same as pressing F3 on a Mac) and shows you everything running on the mac in miniaturised windows. If the client has managed to install a new browser to see my model, they now have to wade through this minefield next. Not a good look…

For clarity, if you hold the arrow key down first, then press CTRL it scrolls faster. Do it the other way round it fires up Expose.

Bottom line - when I first saw this feature I thought it would add a whole extra dimension (literally) to client presentation work, but it’s pretty limited at this stage. I often have to do live work-throughs on Teams with clients to make changes and move things about, but that is me controlling the file, not them. This could be an excellent addition to the process, but there is no way I would send these links out to clients at this stage.

In constructive terms - is there any plan to a). make it work on all browsers very soon (if so, when?!), and b). overhaul the user interface so that this is not platform-centric - essentially anyone can use it without me having to explain it, install more software and learn quirks of the interface before we get down to discussing the job.

Any other Mac users who can give their experience/knowledge input on this topic would also be welcome to comment - my aim here is to get this to a useful and useable stage rather than level criticism at Enscape for the sake of it.

Final thing - I know most of the 3D render community is PC orientatated, but a lot of the creative/design industries I interact with are using Macs - often just as basic planning and browsing computers as opposed to graphics production etc. If Enscape is serious about offering the advantages that their software undoubtedly can provide, they need to start investing in the Mac side of things more seriously.

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Hey @Rob_L , thank you for your contribution! As a first step, if you haven’t already seen the post my colleague @Shivani_Moray posted right after yours - it sounds like you have excellent feedback for the Enscape User Survey on this topic! Please make sure to participate, this is really valuable for us. Thank you!

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Although it’s not Web Standalone centric and covers navigation in general, there is a step in the survey where you can bring up these imo valid points regarding sharing web standalones with others.

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@Rob_L thank you for your feedback!

I think information about web standalone on Mac in the knowledge base is a bit outdated - AFAIK Safari was able to load Enscape when macOS 13 was released. I’ve tested it just now on Sonoma - works just fine, loads and runs faster than in Firefox.

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OK, this makes more sense now, and I can confirm that everyone on a Mac is still running OS 12 systems here apart from me, which explains the local issue when testing. I am running OS 13 and Safari works fine for me, so the defining aspect of using Web Standalone is having WebGL2.0 compatibility. Perhaps the list of compatible browsers/versions coupld be updated on your knowledhge base, and maybe even be shown on the Web Standalone loading splash page? Or better yet, sniff out the browser version and display a clear message that the reason it can’t load is that their browser is not supported? Right now it just hangs and stays “loading” forever which is not a good look.

I also sent the Web Standalone to a technical 3D designer who runs a PC and he was able to work out the UI fairly quickly. He also pointed out the ‘settings’ tab which I hadn’t even noticed! Some useful options available there, and this has made me think about the way this works and can be improved.

Essentially, I feel that the Web Standalone feature should offer a universal control system that works for either platform, not just PC. Also, it should perhaps be simpler and clearer in terms of the nav system - I will generally be sending this to non-design people and can’t always expect them to be familiar with the principles of 3D software space navigation. They will generally need to use it only for a few minutes and shouldn’t have to put much effort in to figure it out in my opinion.

The arrow keys are a good way to do things, but the E and Q for up and down are less intuitive - I assume being developed in Germany it was made for an AZERTY keyboard layout? Seems a strange choice to use one of the few keys that changes on QWERTY layouts, so I’d suggest to perhaps swap to “U” & “J” for example - at least U is for “Up” then and so a touch more intuitive. Also, using “O” as a modifier key to orbit using the arrows could work too, as opposed to the Right Click PC only-version (I know it works by holding down CTRL and mouse click on a Mac, but this is well clunky, especially for a laptop user on a Macbook.

On the touchscreen versions, it appears that you navigate by physically moving your phone as opposed to touching the screen. This is so confusing, and really doesn’t work. I guess it’s a VR/AR orientated concept, but when I just want a client to zoom in and look at something it’s impossible to control - the intuitive way to use it is to pinch/navigate with fingers as we are all used to. I also can’t understand how I orbit with this version either, and the same PC nav instuctions about using a mouse are displayed. There really ought to be a dynamic system employed here that determines the browser/device capabilities and serves up a variation geared to that. Bare minimum on a touch screen, the default should be finger-pinch control with an option to switch to the VR style motion control.

The other thing we identifed here was that if you chage perspective using the top right button it’s possible to zoom so far out you are miles away from the model. Adding an option to include existing tabbed views from Sketchup (I assume other software has similar) as tabs in the Web Standalone window would negate this, or at the very least a “re-centre” button to take it back to the original start place that the file loaded in at.

Hopefully this is useful info, not just for the devs, but anyone else using this feature. Any other input and opinions are welcome too.

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I agree, there is a lot in terms of input to be done for web standalone to make it more usable on Mac.

Just as a note for keyboard input: on the desktop navigation is done via WASD and QE are just under the finger tips for this setup. For web we have had to fall back to arrow keys because Ctrl+W closes browser tab, Ctrl+S opens save page dialog, etc. Which is not an issue on Mac though, so it’s a good point!

I’ll forward your feedback :+1: Thank you!

P.S. German layout is QWERTZ. I think French is AZERTY :slight_smile: