Scratch

johnnydean1 wrote:

Hows this for an idea.

After sounds, a new tab will be added (Talking about scripting, costumes, sound tabs). It should be called 'blocks'. All blocks made here will be exported with a sprite. On the stage the tab will also exist, offering  'global blocks' or blocks that do NOT get exported. These blocks can be used by all sprites, and can include motion blocks (which the stage does not normally have). If you export the stage (as a sprite) all the global blocks will also get exported.

This could work ok - it's actually  sort of like BYOB, except the block definitions are stored in individual dialog boxes. This wouldn't allow you to see the created block and the block definition at the same time though, since they would appear on different tabs.

The stage is already a unique class of sprite, so giving it the job of holding global blocks might make sense.  You'd want the design to indicate that block definitions there are "global" in some way... not sure how to do that, but it should be possible.

Jens wrote:

Cool! I can't wait to finally play with this in Scratch. I especially love how Scratch follows BYOB's "inline palette" design for formal parameter blocks. Two questions, though:

1. Will there be functions, i.e. custom reporter blocks too?
2. Will the custom block scripts run interleafed or all at once ("atomic")?

Hi, Jens.

We were definitely inspired by BYOB's handling of formal parameter blocks. Thanks for the great idea!

For Scratch 2.0, we're planning to support user-defined command blocks, but not custom reporter blocks. But you can do a surprising amount with only command blocks, including recursion and even functions (by using a global variable for the return value).

The "atomic" checkbox in BYOB is unobtrusive yet powerful. We haven't yet discussed including a similar feature in Scratch 2.0, but I think it's worth considering.

webstermath wrote:

After writing the block the code is stored in a header if it is global and a footer if it is local.  In the script area there is a bar right below the "Script Costumes Sound" tabs with a "show/hide global block script" option.  After clicking "show", you are able to scroll above the bar and see and edit the code of every global block.  At the bottom of the script area there is a bar with a  "show/hide local block script".  Clicking on show for this bar reveals the code for local blocks below.  There should also be show/hide block script options when you right click the script area and when you click on "Edit" at the top.

Again when I have the time I will try to make a mockup.  However,  I am hoping this description is clear enough to suffice for now 

Very clear. Thanks!

johnm wrote:

Jens wrote:

Cool! I can't wait to finally play with this in Scratch. I especially love how Scratch follows BYOB's "inline palette" design for formal parameter blocks. Two questions, though:

1. Will there be functions, i.e. custom reporter blocks too?
2. Will the custom block scripts run interleafed or all at once ("atomic")?

Hi, Jens.

We were definitely inspired by BYOB's handling of formal parameter blocks. Thanks for the great idea!

For Scratch 2.0, we're planning to support user-defined command blocks, but not custom reporter blocks. But you can do a surprising amount with only command blocks, including recursion and even functions (by using a global variable for the return value).

The "atomic" checkbox in BYOB is unobtrusive yet powerful. We haven't yet discussed including a similar feature in Scratch 2.0, but I think it's worth considering.

I agree that perhaps adding reporter blocks would be a bit difficult for new scratchers to use. But either way there are still many possibilities! Perhaps if this small step works well in Scratch 2.0, than we could also try reporters for a later version, after all 

Lucario621 wrote:

Perhaps if this small step works well in Scratch 2.0, than we could also try reporters for a later version, after all 

That's a possibility! :-)

I should mention that user-defined reporters have impacts performance and the concurrency mechanism, so there are some technical reasons to not include that feature in Scratch 2.0. (Incidentally, I've really been enjoying the 50x performance increase provided by the Flash-based Scratch player in Turbo Mode...)

Last edited by johnm (2011-03-31 21:49:45)

Do you guys think there will be any Scratch 2.0 demos at Scratch Day this year? 

Well I think it should be kind of like BYOB by Jens.

This is an awesome addition to Scratch.

I'm quite new to Scratch, but I've some experience in education primary school childs in IT. I'd like to share some of my ideas about procedures an visibility.
I would like to have variables

1) which are global, as the ones we have already
2) which are accessible within a sprite only
3) which are accessible within in a procedure only.

So I would ask, when a new variable is created, in which of these areas the variable is to be created. The variable palette may be divided as well in these 3 parts. This is useful if you like explain the concepts of global an local to the childs. For the access those are visible only, which may be selectable (within a procedure or a skript of the sprite).

As well for the procedures the same 3 visibilities may be useful. They could be choosed as well when they are created. The global visibility would offer messaging between sprites, where an access to local variable within the procedure would be possible as well. For the procedures the proposed block palette (though I would call it different then) would be nice.

I'm not sure if I've understood enough of the scratch concept, that these ideas are useful, but I hope they will be.

By the way: Who is responsible for the WeDo plugin and where to ask for extensions (access of more than one USB-Hub) here?

Good, finally some object oriented programming. I guess it will make the transition from Scratch to real programming easier of a lot of people.

This has been around forever in BYOB and related mods such as Slash.

Will it be simple like BYOB or hard like panther?