Scratch

Hey Jens! I made this in BYOB 2.0 ! (I love the Mesh feature btw I haven't found anything wrong with it.    ) The project requires 2 BYOB Windows opened each with the Client and the other with the host. (Yep uses the Mesh. But no block creations, maybe I'll just create a block for each item of some sort, shorten things out. ) Project: http://scratchconnections.wik.is/User:Magnie/Chat Tell me what you think!

Jens, do you think there is a quick way of changing how block specifications specify their parameters? I would like to be able to change the % sign in front of variable names to double quotes around variable names (as a side-effect, even variable names containing spaces would be allowed).

For example, instead of the following block specification

%base raised to %power

the specification would be

"base" raised to "power"

I know this is a request that overlaps with my previous proposal for defining parameters in new blocks, but it would help my students in using BYOB without having to understand why a % sign is necessary to identify a parameter in the block specification string.

Last edited by s_federici (2009-09-25 07:02:13)

LIFEComputerz wrote:

And here it is.

Download

The download link doesn't work.

Last edited by s_federici (2009-09-27 08:54:53)

I noticed that if I put a "stop script" block at the end of the definition of a new block, the "stop script" block will stop the execution of the calling script, that is the remaining blocks of the script that contains the new block won't be executed. Is this what was intended?

I realized that I can actually put numbers in block specifications. I have just to put them inside double quotes. And the double quotes magically disappear from the block specification. Everything works very well.

I realize now that this behaviour is going to contrast with my request for using double quotes around arguments instead of the % sign.

s_federici wrote:

LIFEComputerz wrote:

And here it is.

Download

The download link doesn't work.

Now it does

EDIT: Now it ACTUALLY does.

Last edited by LIFEComputerz (2009-09-27 14:48:20)

LIFEComputerz wrote:

Now it does

Yes, but please change the link in your reply as it still is the wrong one.

update: bug fixes

Hi all. I just fixed another round of bugs in BYOB and pushed the release number to BYOB 2.0.2. Be sure to empty your browser's cache before you download the zip file again, and to check if your downloaded version shows this number.

The following bugs have been fixed:

(1) dragging a sprite in quarter-stage mode made it "pop" to full size
(2) showing the value of custom reporter blocks defined for the stage by double clicking it raised an error notification. Thank you, Sophie, for cathing this bug!
(3) numbers in a block spec raised an error. Thank you, Stefano, for reporting this bug!

These were all rather nasty bugs, so I'd definitely recommend updating BYOB to the current version.

Thanks again, for the thoughtful testing and precise bug reports!

Also, thanks LIFEComputerz, for supplying a BYOB installer for Mac. You guys are wonderful!

[sorry for quoting myself, just to avoid retyping the message]

s_federici wrote:

Jens, do you think there is a quick way of changing how block specifications specify their parameters? I would like to be able to change the % sign in front of variable names to double quotes around variable names (as a side-effect, even variable names containing spaces would be allowed).

If the correction is a simple one, I would love to try to make the change myself if you could publish (or send to my private email) some directions on how this could be achieved. Thanks in advance. (The "problems" is always the same: I'm moving my students from Scratch to BYOB and they are used to define variables by using spaces inside them)

Last edited by s_federici (2009-10-01 08:42:31)

Jens wrote:

Can't your students use underscores instead?

Sure, they can    But I originally moved from Logo to Scratch mainly due to the more freedom Scratch allowed in defining command names and variables names (I used to ask them to define very meaningful variable names by using Camel Case, e.g. theMeasureOfTheSideOfTheSquare, numberOfSteps and then, moving to Scratch, when they discovered they could almost exactly rephrase their natural language algorithms into Scratch blocks, they loved it; no more "forward 10", but "move 10 steps"!). So I'll be really happy when a drag-n-drop mechanism to define block specifications will be in place (by allowing them to directly type inside the "and" blocks -the one we discussed a few weeks ago- the full and multi-worded names of their arguments). in the meantime I would love to allow them at least to write a block specification in which multi-worded variables are still there (so they don't loose much in naturalness abandoning Scratch messages and moving to BYOB's block definition).

If you don't have much time to implement or test it, please allow me to "put my hands" in the right place and (my students and) I will be happy of thoroughly testing it.

Amazing work Jens, just wondering though, could you make a guide of blocks that you can create, or link to one if one already exists? Thanks 

demosthenes wrote:

Amazing work Jens, just wondering though, could you make a guide of blocks that you can create, or link to one if one already exists? Thanks 

In BYOB's distribution you can find the ""BYOB.pdf" guide. If this is not enough, please explain which part you would like to see detailed in more depth.