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#1 2007-06-28 06:31:51

natalie
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-07
Posts: 100+

ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Here's a list of tips and shortcuts from the Scratch programming team.

SPRITES
* Find a sprite: To show a sprite that's off the screen or hidden, Shift+click on its thumbnail in the sprite list (bottom right-corner of screen) - this will bring the sprite to the middle and show it.
- To turn a costume into a separate sprite, right-click (Mac Ctrl+click) and select "turn into a sprite".
- Drag the blue line on sprite thumbnail (in the middle of the screen) to rotate the sprite.
- To rotate a sprite from the stage, shift+click on the sprite.
- Shortcut to get a sprite to "point in direction 90": double-click on sprite thumbnail in the top middle of the screen.
- To delete a sprite, use the Scissors tool (or Right-click and choose "delete")
- To delete multiple sprites, Shift+click with the Scissors (it won't revert to the arrow)
-To make multiple copies of a sprite, Shift+click with the Copy tool (it won't revert to the arrow)
-Drag to reorder thumbnails in sprite list (bottom right corner of screen)
-Drag to reorder costumes in the Costume tab area
-To make a sprite that looks like part of the background, Right-click (Mac Ctrl+click) the stage to grab a portion of the image on the stage.

BLOCKS AND SCRIPTS
- To copy a stack of blocks from one sprite to another, drag the stack to the thumbnail of the other sprite (at the bottom right corner of the screen).
-To clean up the script area, right-click (Mac Ctrl+click) in Scripts area.
-Get help for any block: right-click (Mac Ctrl+click) on the block
- You can fit some blocks within other blocks. For example, you can put any Number or Sensing blocks with curved edges inside a "switch to costume" block or any block that has a white number or text area.
- Want to get the current x-y of a sprite? Click on the Motion category to update the x-y numbers in the glide and go-to blocks in the palette.

PAINT EDITOR
- To crop an image, outline it with the Selection tool, then Shift+delete (or Shift+backspace)
- To rotate part of a costume, use the selection tool, then click the left or right Rotate button (curved arrows).
- To rotate more precisely: Shift+click on the left or right Rotate button. It will let you enter a # of degrees to rotate
- Grow or shrink more precisely: Shift+click on the Grow or Shrink button (arrows pointing out or in). It will let you enter a % size for a costume
- To stamp multiple times, press Shift while using the Stamp tool.
- Press Shift with the Rectangle tool to make a square.
- Press Shift with the Oval tool to make a circle.
- Press Shift with Line tool to make a straight horizontal or vertical line.
- Press Shift key when clicking on a color square to change the other color.
- To pick up a color from outside the paint editor, select the Eyedropper tool, click in the Paint editor, then drag while holding down the mouse key.

REPORTERS & VARIABLES
- Check boxes to show monitors on stage
- Click a monitor to toggle between options (hide monitor name, show slider)

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS (some of these are repeats with above)
-To delete multiple sprites, Shift+ click with the Scissors tool (it won't revert to the arrow).
- To make multiple copies of a sprite, Shift+click with Copy tool (it won't revert to the arrow).
- Ctrl+S to save your project.

OTHER
- You can drag multiple images at once into Scratch. They will become costumes within a sprite.
- You can drag in an animated gif.
- You can drag in images from a web browser, Word, and some other programs (on Windows).
- You can drag in a Scratch project from a file folder.

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#2 2007-06-28 13:59:26

archmage
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Awesome list! I am saving this to a word file!


Hi, I am Archmage coder extraordinaire. I do Scratch,pascal,java,php,html, AS2 and AS3. Leave me a message if you want coding advice. Also check out my personal website, lots of good stuff about web development, Flash, and Scratch (v1 and v2) !

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#3 2007-06-28 14:06:55

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Great list!  Why isn't it in the documentaion?

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#4 2007-06-29 08:42:31

natalie
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-07
Posts: 100+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

You're right, we should add these to the Reference Guide, at least. Are there other places you'd recommend posting them?

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#5 2007-06-29 14:44:40

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

The reference guide is a good place to have *all* the information about scratch.
If it gets too long, then shorter Getting Started tutorials could be written.

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#6 2007-06-29 22:28:39

DrJim
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-05-26
Posts: 100+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

A thread in the FAQ would also be nice.

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#7 2007-06-30 17:07:24

natalie
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-03-07
Posts: 100+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Thanks. I just added a link from the FAQ to here, as suggested.

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#8 2007-08-01 05:09:48

Crumbnumber1
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-07-25
Posts: 13

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

this would've been nice to know earlier  tongue . This is going to save a LOT of time!

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#9 2007-08-30 11:54:03

Sawman3
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-07-19
Posts: 97

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

indeed


"These are the old days, the glory days...they're back."

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#10 2007-09-20 02:22:40

phiggins
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-09-20
Posts: 1

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

How do you programmatically clear the stage

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#11 2007-09-20 02:45:59

JoelP
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-07-20
Posts: 100+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

here is a good secret!- Amazing graphics, but they would take too much time! so just make a really detialed [lets make the example grass] blade of grass. Then press control-A, and the blade would be selected (make sure that there is no other images on the canvas), and then move it araound, HOLDING on control-C. Multiple copies of the sprites would be occuring every millisecond! It is good for gatting detailed textures (to ake them even better, when you have completed the game, press compress grpahics, and set the quility to 36, and the texture would look even better!).


do you want to see  real 3D ? come here and have a 3D runaround. the game will soon be a fighting game, as you can see when you press space   http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/JoelP/33274

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#12 2007-09-20 12:44:06

LeBurt
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-09-12
Posts: 24

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

I found another secret.

While doing my Pink Jim project (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/LeBurt/37530), I noticed that the use of special characters is allowed in variable names. This is way cool for math-related projects, for you can name variables or constants using:

Greek letters: α, β, µ, ¶, Δt, etc.
Unit symbols: ºC, $CDN, etc.
Funky symbols: §, ©, etc.

I don't think Scratch uses the Unicode character set but it's something similar, meaning that you can use Windows' character table to cut&paste them into Scratch if your keyboard layout doesn't make them available.

Nice touch...

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#13 2007-10-29 14:32:21

JSO
Community Moderator
Registered: 2007-06-23
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Hi! I've seen it is possible to import animated GIF'sd in scratch. Is it possible to import small AVI video files? Or is there a  more complicated way to do it?


http://oi48.tinypic.com/2v1q0e9.jpg

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#14 2007-12-02 13:53:38

sausagestand
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-08-30
Posts: 34

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

yeah but if you drag an animated GIF into scratch the costume looks weird because it like "stamps" all the costumes on top of each other

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#15 2007-12-02 16:31:13

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Others who have imported animated GIFs have seen each frame come in as a separate costume.  Under what circumstances do you get them superimposed instead?  Does it happen with all animated gifs?  If it only happens with animated gifs from a particular source, it may be that there is either a part of the standard that scratch doesn't understand correctly, or a part that the source for your animated gifs is not using correctly.

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#16 2007-12-05 15:16:32

Mick
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-03-23
Posts: 100+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

Crumbnumber1 wrote:

this would've been nice to know earlier  tongue . This is going to save a LOT of time!

Yup, these secrets will let me do things I thought werent possible! I love scratch.


Go to www.legoless.com
It's my blog.  big_smile

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#17 2007-12-06 20:45:53

manveer
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-12-04
Posts: 2

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

how do u copy a sprite on to another program like paint?
ugh, scratch is soooooooooo confusing!

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#18 2007-12-06 21:52:42

andresmh
Scratch Team at MIT
Registered: 2007-03-05
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

manveer, please ask your question on a separate thread. Someone will answer there.


Andres Monroy-Hernandez | Scratch Team at the MIT Media Lab
on identi.ca and  twitter

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#19 2007-12-15 10:04:15

JSO
Community Moderator
Registered: 2007-06-23
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

kevin_karplus wrote:

Others who have imported animated GIFs have seen each frame come in as a separate costume.  Under what circumstances do you get them superimposed instead?  Does it happen with all animated gifs?  If it only happens with animated gifs from a particular source, it may be that there is either a part of the standard that scratch doesn't understand correctly, or a part that the source for your animated gifs is not using correctly.

They always appear in separate costumes, but this happens:

costume1 = frame1
costume2 = frame1 + frame2
costume3 = frame1 + frame2 + frame3        (all "stamped" above the previous one)
etc.

in fact, it always happens. But if the animated GIF's have a non-transparent background, you cannot see the previous frame. The background always keeps same rectangle-shape (the size of the animated gif). When it's imported into scratch you can easily remove the backgrounds.  When you import animated GIF's with a transparent background, you can see all the frames "stamped" on each other because the shape changes...

Joren

I've posted this on the troubleshooting forum too.
Click here to go to the topic

Last edited by JSO (2007-12-15 10:13:24)


http://oi48.tinypic.com/2v1q0e9.jpg

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#20 2007-12-15 16:51:45

kevin_karplus
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-04-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

OK, I understand the problem, JSO.  It sure sounds like a bug to me!

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#21 2007-12-16 20:58:35

funkymonkey
Scratcher
Registered: 2007-06-03
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

natalie wrote:

REPORTERS & VARIABLES
- Click a monitor to toggle between options (hide monitor name, show slider)

thanks you so much! i couldnt figure out how to do this before, and nobody could tell me!!!!! this is such a great list!


http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff67/hprules_photos/banner2.jpg
Kuzimu: Dawn of a New Age                                                                                                  Coming May 2010

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#22 2008-01-03 00:14:34

EtcherFlay
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-01-02
Posts: 3

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

I've seen a red(?!?) script labled 'notes' in a prodject I downloaded, does anyone know how to do this?????

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#23 2008-01-03 03:43:13

Paddle2See
Scratch Team
Registered: 2007-10-27
Posts: 1000+

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

It was probably one of the deeply-missed Comment Blocks that were available for a short while with 1.2 Beta.  They are now colored red, since they are "obsolete", having been rejected for the 1.2 release.  A decision that I hope will be revisited.


http://i39.tinypic.com/2nav6o7.gif

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#24 2008-02-07 16:29:25

Ketchup13
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-02-07
Posts: 16

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

I actually learned some stuff here I didn't know.

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#25 2008-02-09 09:14:11

TegansPoppy
Scratcher
Registered: 2008-01-06
Posts: 47

Re: ITopic: Scratch Secrets

2-page reference PDF (digest of this thread) available here, for those that like that sort of thing:

http://guessmedia.com/scratch/ScratchSecrets.pdf

Thanks for the great info Natalie, et al!

David:.


http://guessmedia.com/scratch/

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