DMP-2025 Week 08 update by Justin Charles

Signed-off-by: justin212407 <[email protected]>

Author: justin212407

src/constants/MarkdownFiles/posts/2025-07-27-dmp-25-justin212407-week08.md

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+---
+title: "DMP’25 Week 08 Update by Justin Charles"
+excerpt: "Implemented brick disconnection logic for towers, enabling subtree detachment and independent movement of child groups"
+category: "DEVELOPER NEWS"
+date: "2025-07-27"
+slug: "2025-07-27-dmp-25-justin212407-week08"
+author: "@/constants/MarkdownFiles/authors/justin-charles.md"
+tags: "dmp25,sugarlabs,week8,justin212407"
+image: "assets/Images/c4gt_DMP.webp"
+---
+
+<!-- markdownlint-disable -->
+
+# Week 8 Progress Report by Justin Charles
+
+**Project:** Music Blocks 4 Masonry  
+**Mentors:** [Anindya Kundu](https://github.com/meganindya/), [Sumit Srivastava](https://github.com/sum2it)  
+**Assisting Mentors:** [Devin Ulibari](https://github.com/pikurasa/), [Walter Bender](https://github.com/walterbender)  
+**Reporting Period:** 2025-07-21 - 2025-07-27   
+
+---
+
+## Goals for This Week
+
+- Extend tower drag logic by implementing brick disconnection  
+- Allow subtree detachment from parent towers when dragging out child bricks  
+- Maintain consistent state updates for both the parent and the detached subtree  
+
+---
+
+## This Week’s Highlights
+
+### 1. **Brick Disconnection Implementation**
+
+Expanded [PR #450](https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-v4/pull/450) to support brick disconnection:
+- Enabled dragging of a child brick (and its subtree) out of a parent tower  
+- Ensured detached bricks retain hierarchy and become a new independent tower  
+- Updated `TowerModel` to support `detachSubtree` operation with proper ID remapping  
+
+### 2. **State Management for Disconnected Bricks**
+
+- Synced Recoil state so detached subtrees re-register as new towers  
+- Updated reverse mapping utility to correctly track parent/child relations after split  
+- Maintained integrity of collision maps by removing and re-adding affected nodes  
+
+### 3. **Improved Workspace Interactivity**
+
+- Added consistent cursor anchoring when pulling bricks from towers  
+- Ensured visual feedback during disconnection (brick shadows and offset updates)  
+- Prevented invalid states by blocking disconnection of non-draggable root nodes  
+
+---
+
+## Challenges & Solutions
+
+**Challenge:** Preventing partial subtree corruption during disconnection  
+**Solution:** Built a dedicated `detachSubtree()` method that clones and relocates the full hierarchy safely  
+
+**Challenge:** Collision map desync when multiple towers updated at once  
+**Solution:** Batched tower re-registration to ensure atomic updates across maps  
+
+---
+
+## Key Learnings
+
+- **Subtree Logic**  
+  Learned how to safely extract and reinitialize hierarchical structures without breaking references  
+
+- **Tower Model Flexibility**  
+  Deepened understanding of extending core tower APIs (`add`, `merge`, `detach`) for scalable interactions  
+
+- **Collision Map Resilience**  
+  Saw how batching state updates helps avoid flickers and false collisions in real-time rendering  
+
+---
+
+## Next Week’s Roadmap
+
+- Implement snapping of detached towers onto valid drop zones  
+- Introduce shadow previews for disconnection to guide user interaction  
+- Begin refining attach logic for merging detached towers back together  
+
+---
+
+## Resources & References
+
+- [musicblocks-v4 PR #450](https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-v4/pull/450)  
+- [musicblocks-v4 Repository](https://github.com/sugarlabs/musicblocks-v4)  
+
+---
+
+## Acknowledgments
+
+Thanks to my mentors for helping validate the disconnection workflow and ensuring robustness of the tower model.