Scratch

They may have come across the same problem brought up elsewhere by ICTSM and myself.  The standard windows security is bypassed somehow by the file dialog boxes.  This puts off myself and a few other IT techs from installing it.  Hoping it can be sorted as it is great software.

Not dealt with Ranger extensively but I seem to recall it sits on top of Windows security and helps manage it.

No way we can do anything, it is the way Scratch is programmed to access folders and drives.  Another post by loiskertesz seems to suggest it ignores hidden attributes too so hidden folders get displayed.

I too have my fingers crossed that this will get sorted!

Hi, Cai and others.

I'd like to get a better understanding of this problem and possible solutions.

The Scratch file dialog boxes are customized, both in looks and functionality, so we'd rather not switch to standard Windows dialog boxes. But perhaps we could support some form of customizable security to allow access to certain folders or drives to be blocked--or to allow access only to specific folders.

If we had such a mechanism, would that be acceptable to the IT staff at your schools?

I'd be happy to correspond offline with someone who has a good understanding of the requirements--either one of you or perhaps some from the IT staff at one of your schools to get more details. (Don't post your email address here lest spammers find it; I can get it from the forums user database.)

  -- John

Last edited by johnm (2007-05-17 09:29:41)

This is an issue for us too - Thought the following link might be useful for the development team to work out which drives should be hidden. Not sure if ranger uses this method but would have thought so. I know RM's Community Connect 3 (which we use) does. link - http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/148/

Also, the error message produced when trying to save somewhere that is write protected is tiny - I didn't realise there was one there for a few seconds and I can imagine many kids not realising it at all.

I'll point you to my reply to that in another post rather than write it all out again:
http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=909#p909

Also I'll add.  Everyother program that we run works fine.  The only other programs we have ever had problems with are outdated 16-bit programs.

The actual security (i.e being able to write to areas of the hard disk and other drives) is entact.  Scratch allows access to drives that users shouldn't be able to see.  This is standard Windows security mechanisms (yeah ok lets leave the OS platform bashing aside there) on standard PC's.  I can provide screen shots of the difference between what they can see on a standard piece of software and what you can see in Scratch if that helps. 

  What doesn't help is rubbishing the Admins that are trying to help sort this out!

With reference to Cai post 10 - I am one of the so called techies!!

I completely agree with Priory - Your program needs to be able to either interact with standard windows security policies or have an admin install where you can specify which drives the program allows the end user to see and to set the open/save path etc.

It would also be an advantage if the program came packaged as a MSI file so it can be deployed using windows standard Active directory and group policy. This could then be modified at admin install level to meet local requirements.

Someone has volunteered to create an MSI installer for Scratch. If we comes through, we'll post a link to it.

Creating an MSI for deploying the package will be great. Although without an admin install with options to allow/disallow specific dirves and specify open/save paths this will not solve the problem.

Hi, all.

I've learned a bit more about this issue and now I could use some input from you guys.

It appears to be fairly easy to keep Scratch from showing hidden files and folders. However, it's more difficult to hide entire drives because there are at least two approaches being used by the various security packages out there and they are somewhat messy. So my question is, would implementing the former be sufficient? For example, would it be okay if the user could see the "C:" drive as long as they could not see any of the hidden folders on that drive?

If it's sufficient to suppress hidden files and folders, then it may be possible to make a new version of Scratch available around early August. (I can't promise, though.)

Thanks for your help...

  -- John

Hi, all.

Scratch 1.2 attempts to address the security problems reported here, in two ways:
  1. hidden files and folders are not shown
  2. there is a mechanism that allows system administrators to control which drives are visible.

If you would like to test these features, you can download Scratch 1.2 beta right now. Otherwise, you can wait for the final version of Scratch 1.2 to be released around December 1st.

I hope these new features will address most or all of your security problems. Thanks for your patience!

  -- John

skysky, here a few recommendations:

1. Look at the intro videos posted here: http://scratch.mit.edu/videos

2. If you have any specific questions about a project you are working on, share it with the community by clicking the Share! button and then go to the Troubleshooting forum to post a specific question about your project with a link to the project. For example: "I am trying to make the character move from A to B but it gets stuck."

scratch 1.2 has security
downlload it from the scratch website