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ArtCraft Web Builds: Chinese UI Tested Across 15 Apps

15 apps opened one by one · Tested 2026-11-02 · Versions checked 2026-11-04 · Independent third-party test, not affiliated

All 15 ArtCraft (storytold) apps publish an official Web (WASM) build, but there is no official hosted demo — only a *-web-*.zip attached to each GitHub Release. We unpacked all 15, served them locally and opened them in a browser, recording three things: does it boot, is the UI in Chinese, and do Chinese characters turn into tofu boxes (□). This page is the full matrix and the method to reproduce it. Note: we tested the official original zips, without the CJK font patch we apply to our own self-hosted online builds; those are a separate pipeline.

15 / 15ship an official Web build
source: GitHub Releases
14 / 15boot without fixes
PhotoCraft needs a path fix
5 appshave a Chinese UI
Light / Vector / Word / Pdf / Texture
10 appsEnglish-only UI
usable, but a barrier in Chinese

Bottom line: if you want a zero-install trial, the Web builds are already good enough to launch. But “it opens” is not the same as “it works”. Chinese support improved noticeably after October 2026 — PdfCraft and WordCraft Web were 100% tofu in early builds, while the versions we tested now render Chinese correctly. What remains unsolved is the 10 English-only UIs, plus edge cases such as non-Latin file names and font-name parsing.

① Matrix ② Why Web builds hit tofu ③ Reproduce it yourself ④ Limits & updates

① The matrix (tested 2026-11-02)

“Tested” is the build we actually opened. “Latest” is the version returned by the GitHub API on 2026-11-04. ArtCraft ships weekly — sometimes daily — so the two numbers diverging is normal. Conclusions follow the tested build; the latest column only tells you what you would download today.

AppTestedLatest (11-04)Web zipBootUI languageNotes
PhotoCraftv0.19.0v0.20.112.8 MBneeds fixEnglishzip puts snippets/ at the root while index.html requests app/snippets/; copying it into app/ fixes it
LightCraftv0.17.0v0.18.069.9 MBOKChineselargest package, slowest first screen
VectorCraftv0.20.0v0.21.030.9 MBOKChinesefont SRI error, does not affect use
FigCraftv0.14.0v0.15.09.8 MBOKEnglish—
DesignCraftv0.16.0v0.17.025.5 MBOKEnglish—
FilmCraftv0.16.0v0.17.014.4 MBOKEnglish—
EffectCraftv0.20.0v0.21.020.6 MBOKEnglishmissing effectcraft-config.json (404), harmless
SoundCraftv0.16.0v0.17.06.4 MBOKEnglishships a 9-track demo project
WordCraftv0.14.0v0.15.117.7 MBOKChineseopens on a template library; template names are localized
GridCraftv0.15.0v0.16.08.1 MBOKEnglish—
DeckCraftv0.14.1v0.15.011.1 MBOKEnglish—
PdfCraftv0.17.0v0.18.116.6 MBOKChinese0.10.x was 100% tofu; fixed from 0.15.0; 0.17 renders correctly
CADCraftv0.16.0v0.17.09.9 MBOKEnglish—
TextureCraftv0.2.0v0.3.07.8 MBOKChinesefalls back to WebGL2 (CPU, slower) with a notice when WebGPU is unavailable
Craft Anythingv0.2.0v0.3.02.5 MBOKEnglishofficially a “small web version”, a subset of the desktop app

Sizes are the downloaded zip, before extraction. Boot means the first-screen workspace appears (menus/toolbar/canvas or table) with no fatal error. “Needs fix” for PhotoCraft refers to the zip's relative-path bug, not the app itself failing to run.

PdfCraft Web build in Chinese: menus, tool names and welcome screen all render Chinese
PdfCraft Web v0.17.0 (2026-11-02): menus, tool names and the welcome screen all render Chinese; no tofu. In the 0.10.x era this screen was almost entirely □.
WordCraft Web build in Chinese: sidebar and template names in Chinese
WordCraft Web v0.14.0 (2026-11-02): the sidebar and template-library names are localized, so you can pick a template immediately.
VectorCraft Web build in Chinese: top menus and document presets in Chinese
VectorCraft Web v0.20.0 (2026-11-02): top menus, properties panel and paper presets are Chinese. A font SRI error remains but does not block use.

② Why Web builds hit tofu more often than desktop

A tofu box (□) is not “missing translation”; it means the font has no glyph for that character. Desktop and Web builds use completely different font chains:

Desktop build

app font → system font → fallback (macOS / Windows / Linux ship CJK fonts)

The OS usually has a CJK font, so even an unpackaged app can fall back and display text. That makes desktop builds more forgiving.

Web (WASM) build

app font → fonts inside the wasm bundle (no access to system fonts)

A wasm app in a browser can only use fonts shipped in its bundle. In the Web zips we inspected on 2026-10-21, the bundle contained only Ubuntu-Light and NotoEmoji-Regular — no CJK face. The Japanese face lives in the optional craft-fonts repo, not in the official release either.

So there are two very different “Chinese problems”:

This also explains a common misdiagnosis: the same browser renders ordinary Chinese web pages fine, yet the Web build is full of □. It is not a missing system font and not a locale setting; the app's own font bundle simply has no CJK glyphs.

③ Reproduce it yourself (10 minutes)

  1. Open the project's GitHub Releases and download the zip whose name contains -web- (not the source archive, not the desktop installer).
  2. Unzip it into a folder and start a static server there: python3 -m http.server 8766. Do not double-click index.html; under file:// wasm and relative paths often fail.
  3. Open http://127.0.0.1:8766/, switch the UI to Chinese, then inspect: top menu, left toolbar, properties panel, template library / welcome screen.
  4. Record four things: app + version, zip size, browser and OS, and the exact places where □ appears (screenshot). Comparisons only make sense within the same version and environment.

If you are testing “Chinese file names / bookmarks” rather than UI strings, add one step: open a PDF or document with a Chinese file name and check the tab title, bookmarks and recent-files list. That is a different code path from UI localization.

④ Limits, freshness and updates

Changelog

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