Scratch

Naw, don't give up yet! How about porting the ScratchPresenterMorph to Sun Lab's (Dan Ingalls') Lively Kernel instead?

http://research.sun.com/projects/lively

That would be sooo much cooler than flash....

update: Using your Scratch projects as Windows screensavers, website

Thanks to Andrés and the Scratch Team Chirp now has its own website at:

   http://www.chirp.scratchr.org

I am so grateful to them for this space! There's also a blog for "breaking news", I'm still struggling with the details of html and website maintenance, though...

I have just updated Chirp with the following three new features:

1) Whenever you run a project in presentation mode by using the "presentation" command line option and press the return-button, Chirp will directly exit back to the OS (and not switch to development mode).

2) If you start Chirp with the "presentation"  command line argument without specifying a Scratch project, it will run a random project from the Scratch-projects folder. If that folder is empty Chirp will start in development mode instead.

3) Building on these modifications I have written a tiny Windows screensaver (Chirp.scr) which plugs into the Windows screensaver list and thereby lets you use your own Scratch projects as Windows screensavers.

You can upgrade to the current version by downloading the Windows installer and installing it over your current Chirp installation (no need to uninstall Chirp first).

I have tested the Screensaver under Windows XP and ME. I would be grateful if someone could test it under Vista and tell me if it works.

Thanks SB!

Chirp lets you use your Scratch projects as fully interactive screensavers, just like you programmed them.

The screensaver plays any Scratch project exactly like the Scratch presentation mode (which it in fact is). It is not aborted by any mouse/keyboard action. To get out of the screensaver you simply click on the "return" button or hit the "Esc" key.

(a technical sidenote: The Chirp.scr is nothing but a tiny executable which calls the Scratch.exe with the chirp.remix image and the "presentation" command line option, if called itself with the /s option set, and asserting that only a single screensaver instance runs at a time)

bugfix: I have corrected a nasty typo when changing variable setter blocks through the context menu.

The graphical elements of the Scratch IDE are stored in a class variable named "ScratchSkin" in class "ScratchFrameMorph". ScratchSkin is a Dictionary associating forms (color bitmaps) with symbols representing graphical elements of the IDE. If you inspect it you'll find an entry called something along the line of  "#scratchLogo". Just exchange it with your own form (Hint: I found this  to work best when importing an equally dimensioned Gif - you can save the ScratchLogo as Gif, overdraw it, and then file it back in).

Did that help?

Jens wrote:

The graphical elements of the Scratch IDE are stored in a class variable named "ScratchSkin" in class "ScratchFrameMorph". ScratchSkin is a Dictionary associating forms (color bitmaps) with symbols representing graphical elements of the IDE. If you inspect it you'll find an entry called something along the line of  "#scratchLogo". Just exchange it with your own form (Hint: I found this  to work best when importing an equally dimensioned Gif - you can save the ScratchLogo as Gif, overdraw it, and then file it back in).

Did that help?

It helps how to make the logo, but where do I go to change it?

Jacobo,
I had the same thought, but didn't say anything because Jens had enought to do! 

A simple workaround is to make a sub-folder to put all of your projects in, and just place a copy of the one that you want back in the "Projects" folder.

-MrEd

Should I make the screensaver configurable? The reason I didn't was that I'm reluctant to provide translation strings for languages other than English....

neat

I'm not sure what you mean, DemonFork. In my experimental Chirp-program you export / import single scripts (block stacks) using the right mouse-button click.

Hi costellorob,

Thanks for your interest in my little remixes! Let me try to answer some of your questions:

I'm not sure if there is any development cycle regarding my add-ons to Scratch. Most of them were more or less spontaneous indeas I quickly coded, shared, and then debugged, which lead to frequent updates of "Chirp". Currently I'm trying to find a way to incorporate lists/arrays into Chirp without breaking Scratch-compatibility or with at least allowing for "backward" compatibility. I'm not sure, however, if that is feasible at all. Then there are some other minor plans I've got, like finishing the xml export-import, adding vertical resizability and debugging/incorporating Scratch2Exe into one single release.

Scratch is a Squeak Smalltalk environment. You're right assuming that Scratch.exe is a (stock) Squeak virtual machine. You can also use any other Squeak VM (although I sometimes encounter errors when I try the newer versions, so it's best to stick with Scratch.exe).

The *.image files are Smalltalk images and thus an integral part of the executable. You can compare an image with what you get when you suspend an OS to disk, or, as Mick once observed "a Scratch image is sort of like Squeak in a Halloween costume". You can edit the image if it is not "locked down". The official Scratch.image is pretty much "locked down" and cannot be edited easily. However, the Scratch Source Code image is a fine developer's image which you can edit/mod/remix by following John's instructions on the download page.

Coding in Squeak Smalltalk is not hard and great fun. Scratch is a wonderful application and you can learn a lot by just browsing its code. I'd really like Chirp to evolve into a community edition so I'd like to encourage people to submit changesets/Smalltalk code or graphics!

Stefano, thank you for trying the experimental lists-prototype and for your positive feedback. That's very encouraging! The reason you get an error when trying to open one of my list-demo projects in Chirp (or Scratch) is that I have not yet merged my still experimental list-prototype with Chirp.

Chirp is pretty stable and - more important - fully compatible with Scratch. The Lists prototype required a change to the file format which makes these demo projects incompatible with Scratch. I'm currently expanding the scope of what you can do with lists (adding some more functionality). Then I'll try to come up with a way to integrate them into Chirp. Please be patient, as I'm doing this just for a hobby whenever I find some spare time 

I still can't change the logo.