What is blockly?

Blockly is a JavaScript library that lets developers add a visual code editor to a website or mobile app. Instead of typing code, users drag and snap together graphical blocks that represent programming concepts like variables, loops, and logical conditions. The idea is to lower the barrier to learning programming by removing the friction of syntax errors and the unfamiliar look of a text editor. The library is embedded in your own application. Developers add it to a project via npm (a standard package manager for JavaScript) and configure it to fit their needs. The documentation lives at a dedicated developers site run by Google, which includes getting-started guides, step-by-step tutorials called codelabs, and reference material. Blockly supports a plugin system. Plugins are self-contained add-ons that extend the editor with new block types, visual themes, custom rendering, or other features. A companion repository called blockly-samples provides official examples, codelabs, and a library of published plugins. This particular repository is the Raspberry Pi Foundation's fork of the original Blockly project from Google. The README does not explain how or why it differs from the upstream Google version, the code and structure otherwise appear the same. Releases follow semantic versioning, meaning a new major version number signals a breaking change. A beta channel is available on npm for testing upcoming features. For support, there is a developer forum where the maintainers say they typically respond within two working days. Bug reports and feature requests go through GitHub issues, and the team triages new issues within about a week.