Please bring back the creator hub widget for the homescreen. Before the 0.8.0 update, there was a small widget in the lobby that quietly did a lot. It showed your name, your follower count, and live alerts for downloads and likes, as well as notifications for new uploads by the creators you follow. It wasn’t intrusive, but it made creating feel connected, reactive, and alive.
Since it disappeared, something feels off. As a creator, you no longer see your growth in real time unless you actively leave the game to check it. There’s also a related issue with visibility. Followers used to be notified when new Zois or creations were uploaded, which made sharing feel immediate and rewarding. Now, that connection feels much quieter.
My suggestion: bring it back at least as an optional feature
A simple solution would be to bring it back as an optional feature. This keeps things flexible for different playstyles. Instead of removing it completely, add a toggle option so players can choose:
Show Creator Widget (for active creators and players who are more engaged in Canvas)
Hide It (for players who prefer a cleaner UI or are not interested in creator’s notifications)
Bringing back these elements even as optional tools would restore an important feedback loop between creators and their audience. It was a small feature, but it made a big difference.
I agree. I was also upset when I didn’t see it at the entrance. And overall, it’s a shame that canvas now opens through a browser. The game minimizes to exit to the browser. Personally, I now don’t want to open canvas unnecessarily just to avoid leaving the game.
From my research, having anything to do with Canvas in the start menu required an additional process to be run in the background. This process would continue to run whether Canvas was accessed or not. (I remember a technical help query on this forum a while back). The Canvas always has been running in a browser (after-all it is a website). The game was literally running a browser process from within the game.
This would need a certain amount of RAM to be reserved as cache, and call for periodic fetch and refresh cycles. This was the reason for some crashes, slow starts and later lags in the game.
Several players, mostly on Discord and some here, had complained about having Canvas stuff show up unnecessarily in the game, because Canvas is needed only occasionally for most players. All aspects of Canvas are anyway in a browser that can be handily accessed in parallel with the game for whoever needs it. (Very few players would use Canvas continuously along with playing or creating in the game. Usually Canvas is independent of the game used to upload and download stuff).
Hence the separation of access to Canvas from the actual game. Both now run independently. Functionality has not been changed, only access point for Canvas has shifted. Also allows players to use additional inherent functionality of an independent browser such as multiple tabs, bookmarks etc.
Most players (not all are creators who want to see Canvas while in the game; and which can be done in a separate window if need be), will welcome this separation as it will improve performance.
I think they may have separated out Canvas access for the performance optimization for lower end systems. They should have given some explanation though. Perhaps they may be working on a better solution in future for in-game Canvas access.
I agree that this must have been the reason, and with this in mind I proposed its return as an optional feature. Lower end PCs could keep it as it is now and avoid the extra RAM usage while higher end PCs could have the option to bring it back. Having the widget didn’t cause the lag and hiccups that the screen with constant canvas sneak peaks was causing, and we just want the widget back, not the screen. I truly truly hope they can bring it back as an optional feature
