#Installing it as an app
HedgeHog is a Progressive Web App, so it installs from the browser with no app store involved.
- Desktop Chrome or Edge: the install icon in the address bar.
- Android: Install app in the browser menu.
- iOS Safari: Share, then Add to Home Screen.
It then opens in its own window with no browser chrome.
#What works offline
After your first visit: playing, hints, equities, on-device analysis, Study and transcription drafts. A small dot in the top bar shows when you are offline.
What needs a connection is everything that is not on your device: signing in, server-side analysis, broadcasts and billing.
#How updates arrive
When a new version is ready an Update button appears in the top bar. The app never reloads on its own, so you choose the moment. Your current game is saved and resumes after the reload, and if you ignore the button you get the new version the next time you open the app.
#Will my data survive?
Saved matches, custom models and study data live in this browser's storage and survive going offline. On iOS the system can evict that storage after about a week of total non-use. The default model re-downloads silently, but export anything you would mind losing: a custom model you trained, or a match you have not saved to an account.
#The engine will not load
The engine is WebAssembly, so it needs a current browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge. If the loading message does not clear, refresh the page, and then clear the site's cache.
#A video file will not play
A video you open from your own device plays in the browser itself. It is never uploaded, so whether it plays depends on the decoders your browser has. The usual culprit is a phone recording in H.265 (HEVC), the format most phones record in by default. When the transcriber can tell that is the problem it says so, with a link to this section.
- Safari on a Mac, iPhone or iPad plays HEVC.
- Chrome and Edge on a recent Windows PC or Mac usually do, because they use the computer's own hardware decoder.
- Firefox, and most browsers on Linux, usually do not.
If none of those is to hand, change the file instead:
- Convert it to H.264. HandBrake is free, and its default preset produces an MP4 every browser plays.
- Record in H.264 next time. On an iPhone that is Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible. Most Android camera apps have a switch named HEVC or High efficiency video in their video settings: turn it off.
An iPhone's HDR video is HEVC as well, and it fails in more browsers than plain HEVC does. Turning off HDR Video under Settings, Camera, Record Video avoids it.
#A match has disappeared
Matches are stored in this browser unless you are signed in. Clearing browser
data, or playing in a private window, removes them. Export Match writes a
.mat file you keep, and an account keeps matches server-side where no browser
setting can take them. A .mat import is not saved to your account until you
choose to: see where your matches are kept.
#The analysis is slow
An analysis evaluates every legal move of every decision at the depth you chose, and each further ply multiplies that by a large factor: 4-ply costs roughly twenty times what 3-ply does. Dropping the depth, or narrowing the run to the flagged errors rather than the whole match, is the fastest way to get an answer back. Where a stronger answer is what you want, run it on our servers instead.
How much your own device can do is measurable: the device speed page times the browser engine here, in evaluations per second, and reports the depth this machine can hold. A phone and a desktop are not the same engine in practice, and that page is what says by how much.