Scratch

Need help on Scratch? This is the place to be! Sit back and enjoy the show! By the way, this took me 2 days to make.


Part 1:The Main Website

Table of Contents:
1.Projects
   a.Sprites
   b.Scripts
2.Cyberbullies
   a.What they do
   b.Why they do it
3.Tips on Fame
4.Why the 60-second-rule is there
   a.How it helps
   b.How it annoys
   c.Creative ways to get rid of it
5.Spam


Projects:

   Many know what projects are. If you do not know what they are, read this section. Projects are what you make in the Scratch Editor (download here) and may be useful to the Scratch community. The variations of projects are mostly art, animation, and games. The smaller types are calculators, arcade games, new games, platformers, and many more. After you make a project you probably want to upload it. I'll give you some screenshots of the steps on how to make a project in the Sprites section.

Sprites:

Step 1:New Sprite Image:

Step 2:Import Sprite Image:

Step 3:Choosing the Image:

Step 4:Editing it:


Now, let's go on to Scripts and continue from there.



Scripts:
Now that we've made our sprite, to make it a program, let's make scripts!


To play the project, click this:

This is the Green Flag. It starts all the scripts. Click it to start the whole project!
Sharing:





Cyberbullies:
a.What they do


Cyberbullies are just like the bullies at school, but over the web or over a game. They tell you that your project sucks, that they are better, that you suck. Sadly, they are everywhere; Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Reddit, even here, on Scratch. Example of what they do:

The Bully:
Hey your project sucks. You suck.

You, responding badly:
Your just jealous because you are so bad and I am so good.

You, responding well:
Hmm.... why so? What do you think could improve it?

Make sure you say that CALMLY. Not all in caps, like WELL, WHY IS THAT, HUH? WELL WHY? (Change was inspired by Paddle2See)
b.Why they do it

They do it for a few reasons:

There are many reasons why kids bully. Did you know that bullying behavior is often a cry for help?

According to Frank Peretti, there are two basic reasons why kids bully. One reason a child bullies is because he (or she) "has a deep troubling need of his own" and is picked on or feels that he does not have a very successful life. Bullies may be experiencing trouble at home, be underachievers in school, and for whatever reason they feel they have to make themselves better by picking on someone else. On the outside bullies may look fine, but they may be very lonely or may deliberately try to hurt themselves or have trouble eating or sleeping.

Another reason kids bully is that they may fall into a trap by thinking that bullying is just "the cool thing to do," especially in front of their friends. Sometimes bullies are those kids who are good students, athletes, or the kids who seem to have everything going for them. In Time Magazine, it was reported that even though bullies often will have high self-esteem, they "tend to be victims of physical damage as well." Most bullies live in families in which parents discipline them "inconsistently or through physical means."

Unfortunately, there are people who reward others who bully. The bullies are made to feel that they are "fitting in" with the others, or are "being cool" when they are acting like a bully. Mostly these kids do not feel very good about themselves, and bullying takes away that feeling. "Too often a bully's behavior is encouraged and not stopped. Some bullies become popular ringleaders with other kids, but not all bullies are the cool kids. Some are troubled students who may have been bullied themselves." (Time for Kids - see citation below)

Another reason why kids bully others is that adults don't give kids the skills they need to be able to tolerate and appreciate the differences of others. When the bully sees other people who are different, they lash out and make fun of them. Many feel that bullies engage in this behavior because it makes them feel important. They learn that being physically aggressive is a way to get what they want, and a way to control people.

Bullies also tend to continue their behavior throughout their lives. Their bullying actions become a cycle, in that bullies have children that they bully, and then their children become aggressive, and then they bully others too.

Cited from here.


Tips on Fame:


1.Take time on your projects.
Before you share them, check them over and do tests. Make sure they are fame-worthy. Put out tests & betas. You don't have to have big, fancy, complicated scripts to be famous or to have a good game!

2.Be polite.
If you are polite, people will like you more. People will introduce you to their friends, and it keeps going on and on, and soon you will be famous.

3.Practice at drawing or use sprite designer's sprites.
I know, the second one is kinda cheating, but it will make you look good if you have good sprites.


The 60-second-rule
How it helps:

It is there for a reason-to keep spammers from spamming up the forums and clogging the server. We all want a fast Scratch server, don't we? We are all glad that AdBots aren't in this forum. Did you know that this is a very advanced Pun-bb forum?

How it annoys:

It annoys people who are doing nothing wrong-not even hidden spam! They are posting helpful or related posts.

Creative ways to get rid of it:

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT do this:

Jlkajfdlkhfkhdfkjdshgfkjfhakjhfksjdhlakds

That might get you banned. DO something like this:

I lost the game. I also got 60 second rule.

or:

I got the 60 second rule.

or:

I am doing nothing, absolutely nothing wrong, and I STILL get the 60 second rule? Is that even fair? Well is it?

Spam:

Spam [sp-AM] Posting ads or unrelated comments - A type of Hawaiian meat mix Coolstuff, as community moderator, deleted a spam topic. - Joe, who was visiting relatives in Hawaii, ate some spam.
Related:Ad(add), Spammed(spam'd) Spammer(spam-er)
Yes, it is out of a dictionary, but so what? It's true. Okay, here is an example(I'll use Coolstuff for example):

Coolstuff shared Pathing AI 2 weeks, 2 days ago.

unodostres:
h;okfdkljd

abcdefg:
Check out my projects!

spamking
I like pie.

See how all ar unrelated? That is the three flavours of spam.


Part 2:Offline



Table of Contents:

1.Mesh
2.Tips, Tricks, and Hacks




1.Mesh:

Mesh is a way to connect one Scratcher's server to another in a project. The easiest way to get Mesh running is through BYOB by doing this:



Join:

Host:




2.Tips, Tricks, and Hacks:

Tips:
Quick Local>Global Variable Switch:

NOTE: Global variables are "for all sprites" and local (or private) variables are "for this sprite only" (using the phrases from the "make a variable" dialog).

Ever spend three hours on a project, making some single sprite use global variables, then decide that you want to add more sprites, but they all have to have their own? Sorry, can't help with that. However, you CAN go in the other direction. If you have a local variable you want to make global, just drag the scripts that contains blocks that deal with the locals you want to make global onto the Stage. It'll automatically create globals of the same name.


Say <Boolean> for 2 seconds

It's possible to put a boolean (triangle-cornered) block into "say" or "think" blocks. The sprite will say either "true" or "false".


One-Dimensional Dragging

For whatever reason, blocks seem to override the lock/unlock feature that lets you drag sprites. This means that if you want something to only be draggable up and down, just put code like this on the sprite and "unlock" it:

When Flag Clicked:
Forever:
Set x to 168
End Forever


Voodoo Fix for Sound Issue

On my admittedly ancient computer, Scratch often speeds up my sounds just for the heck of it. This really ticks me off. Today, while trying to fix Scratch and my microphone at the same time, I found that opening Sound Recorder in Windows, recording sounds for a few seconds, then closing it without saving causes Scratch to play sounds at normal speed (for a while, at least).


The Lost Video Support

In Scratch 1.0.1 (download here), you can shift-click on Extras to enable some experimental blocks in Sensing and Sound. They don't do anything, but the're fun to ponder.


Credit to Fullmoon for tips.


Tricks:
ere'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.
Credit to Natalie of the Scratch Team.

Hacks:

Shift+click the loop of the R in the Scratch Logo on the Project Editor:

Then click the highlighted, making Scratch look like this:

Click in the white. Make the box that pops up stay up:

That was just in case. Drag a block of your choice out into the white. I'm using the Ask Block:

Then, click "Change color..."

And choose the desired color! I want it to be reddish pink.

Then, shift click again and turn fill screen off after you drag the block in:



That's all for now.


Part 3:Other Guides:


Dictionaries:
The Almighty Scratchionary! (Intended for the Scratch Illiterate Users) by Turtlewarrior
The Scratch Dictionary by meew0



Tutorials:
Tutorials and Guides by PlayWithFire
PROGRAM IT! Scratch programming Tutorials by cheddargirl
Velocity by demosthenes
A Beginners Guide to Making a Game by juststickman
Guide to the Forums by 06dknibbs





Pimping Your Project:
USE IT! Music, Images, and Software to Spice Up Your Scratch project by cheddargirl




Other:
POST IT! Tips and Tricks about using the Scratch Forums by cheddargirl
FIND IT! Searching through the Multitud of Scratch Projects by cheddargirl
Plagiarism by Jamie
How to make a password that will seriously annoy the hackers. by Jonathanpb
Account Creator by shamrocker
Is Scratch 1.4 driving you mad? Well here's the right place to come. by TheoMarr
Proper Forum Etiquette - what and what not to do in the forums. by Jonathanpb
The New User's Handbook by Joeyman
Uploading and Downloading Projects on the Scratch Website by -db-
An Un-Brief History of Scratch by Chrischb
Amazing Unused Usernames by Melzi





Questions and Comments:

PlayWithFire says:
I disagree with response to the bully. I would just flag it because the bully is not being helpful whatsoever and is simply putting the user down.

Paddle2See says:
Wow indeed!  A forum guide with amazing scope and depth.  I really enjoyed the section on Bullying (the causes of it) but thought that your advice on how to handle a bullying incident could be improved.  You can try a friendly response such as "So you didn't like my project...what would you like to see changed?" and if that doesn't work, then flag them.  But don't tell them that you are flagging them...that just tends to increase the tension level.

It's great that so many people are being helpful with these guides!  Now, we just need to find some way to organize them all.  I'll put that on my to-do list. 

Last edited by shamrocker (2010-05-25 18:47:27)