Scratch

It's cool! You should make this a permanent part of scratch 2.0!

It looks really great. Great job Team! I like having the stage on the left: the Stage is somehow more important than scripts as you start illustrating Scratch from what is on the Stage, and also you start creating a project from there, not from scripts.

It is slow. Slower than 1.4. I think it can be a support development environment (when you are not at your desk), but a different, quicker implementation is really needed. Even 1.4 is very slow when you have long scripts.

BTW, when you have the viewer open, if you click on "experimental viewer" for a new project you won't see anything happening if the viewer has been already open and it is not on the foreground.

As already pointed out, it still crashes on several projects. e.g. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/RHY3756547/794740.

INCREDIBLY useful is the possibility of enlarging/shrinking the viewer with CTRL+/CTRL-: I LOVE IT!!!!! Now my students won't fear anymore that they are goingo to loose their sight when I'm overprojecting Scratch during the lessons:-)

Something that must still be introduced, I guess: colors of color sensors cannot be changed in the player.

Something that I don't like in this new environment is changing  the "magnetic force" between the blocks to a dark outline: the original white thick line of 1.4 is much more clear.

Finally, I find that the critics about having introduced icons for one single block (random number) is right: you could think of developping an icon-only version of Scratch (for very young kids), but the inherent nature of the current Scratch is textual, so there is no point in having just one iconic block, it introduces just confusion.

As for the random block, something that I wouldreally like is having for random numbers a structure similar to the fabulous ask/answer pair: the "random" block should be split in two blocks: one command-type block "throw a dice with _ faces" (or "generate a random number between _ and _") that would generate the random number, and a reporter-type block "upper face of the dice" (or "random number") that would give you the result of the last run of the generator block. The reason for having two blocks is the same of the ask/answer pair. So you can very naturally check for several different random values without having to introduce useless variables.

s_federici wrote:

As for the random block, something that I wouldreally like is having for random numbers a structure similar to the fabulous ask/answer pair: the "random" block should be split in two blocks: one command-type block "throw a dice with _ faces" (or "generate a random number between _ and _") that would generate the random number, and a reporter-type block "upper face of the dice" (or "random number") that would give you the result of the last run of the generator block. The reason for having two blocks is the same of the ask/answer pair. So you can very naturally check for several different random values without having to introduce useless variables.

That actualy is a pretty good idea! I will implement it in Bingo 1.2.1.

This is so cool! I think it's great how I can see the scripts of someone's project without having to download! 

WeirdF wrote:

It completely messes up the instrumental blocks! Look at this project: http://scratch.mit.edu/experimental/vie … dF/1259648

And then look at the difference if you view it in the Java player: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/WeirdF/1259648/download

Yeah, there are issues with MIDI notes. Flash doesn't support MIDI files/notes, so the Scratch Team had to create their own system, which doesn't work very well 

Lucario621 wrote:

WeirdF wrote:

It completely messes up the instrumental blocks! Look at this project: http://scratch.mit.edu/experimental/vie … dF/1259648

And then look at the difference if you view it in the Java player: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/WeirdF/1259648/download

Yeah, there are issues with MIDI notes. Flash doesn't support MIDI files/notes, so the Scratch Team had to create their own system, which doesn't work very well 

Oh no! What if in Scratch 2.0 the MIDI notes are completely horrible! 

EDIT: Ugh! Look at deatheater's awesome project with the note blocks - it sounds really good! But in the experimental viewer - well... it's just rubbish.

It won't be like that in Scratch 2.0, will it? >_<

Last edited by Jonathanpb (2010-08-25 02:06:32)

The only problem I've had with it is that it's really slow.
Will this be what scratch 2.0 will look like?

Jonathanpb wrote:

throughthefire wrote:

Will this be what scratch 2.0 will look like?

Hope not... 

It probably won't.

Guys, it is actually FASTER than Scratch 1.4. Not in running projects, but in editing scripts.

fg123 wrote:

Really? Must be flash. ;P

I've found some really significant lag issues on longer projects, but it is undoubtedly faster than Scratch 1.4 with somewhat shorter scripts.

coolstuff wrote:

fg123 wrote:

Really? Must be flash. ;P

I've found some really significant lag issues on longer projects, but it is undoubtedly faster than Scratch 1.4 with somewhat shorter scripts.

I've noticed this, too. It seems that the new Flash player has similar limitations as the Java player, notably lagginess with long scripts and multiple forever/repeat loops.

if you hold a key down it doesn't detect it