Scratch

It IS reporting an image, the tooltip is just using printString on it,

use imageForm in contents:.

Hi Billybob-Mario,

in the BYOB source code you can just pass a Form (bitmap) - or if I'm not mistaken - even a Morph the the tool tip as "messageString", and it works, even if it's not a String. Just try it. Oh, I might have mentioned this before - it's soooo gratifying to just browse the code.... 

You don't need to change it, just use it, pass it a Form ("myCustomMorph imageForm") as message argument!

Just use a Browser! It's how I learned every single thing I know about Squeak. Open a browser and just look around, or you can type the name of a class and hit Alt+B, or even right-click and select "explain" if you're stuck.

Well, I really agree with nXIII. Smalltalk is a system that completely explains itself once you're familiar with the basic syntax, which by now you absolutely are! Just try stuff and read the code and the comments. Also, look for other situations that already do sort of what you're trying to accomplish and read that code to find out more about how it can be done.

In the case of tooltips there is this wonderful feature (actually it's become my absolute favorite feature of Scratch) that shows the result of calling a reporter in a little speech-bubble shaped tooltip if you double-click on it .... (nudge, nudge, hint, hint ...) 

Last edited by Jens (2010-09-13 20:27:45)

How would you do it in Scratch? Decide what should happen and when - identify an event and the script that's associated with it, if there is none, create one. If you don't find the event at first, consider inheritance and look for it in a superclass. In this case you need to decide whether you want to override the superclass's behavior or expand it. The special variable "super" comes in handy for this...


On modding Scratch

One thing I really, really want to emphasize is, that "modding'" a complex application like Scratch is not something that would be your first ever project when learning a new programming language, or when starting to program in the first place.

I know that it's deceptively easy to just change a couple of settings and to use some of the nice scripting features that the Scratch team has put in there to very quickly churn out some blocks of your own and bring some hidden features to life that are already existent but turned off (like cloning, the mesh network, web-blocks, more graphics effects, stretch, GUI-features, the "skin" etc. etc.). However, this kind of fidgeting  on the surface of the Scratch source code may actually be an obstactle for you to learn programming on your own. And it may even teach you some programming styles that you really should not take on at all, especially about models and GUI's.

Don't get me wrong: I do believe that one of the best ways to learn a musical instrument is to just fool around with it and to find out which sounds come out of it most easily. But at some point you want to know about musical scales, harmony, rhythm, and how to perform some of the more challenging etudes on that instrument, because you want to make the instrument play music that's first in your head and not just in the instrument. Also, long-time pros sometimes have a very different way of handling a musical instrument than most other musicians, but that doesn't mean that their way is any easier or even better than the normal way. In fact, most of the time it isn't. You should know that there is quite a lot of this "pro" style coding in the Scratch source that you don't want to aquire for yourself. Does that make sense to you?

So here's my tip for you, Billybob-Mario: Now that you've successfully learned Smalltalk, download a better programming environment (I recommend either a current Squeak or Pharo - because the Scratch source IDE is optimized especially for dealing with Scratch, has quite a few bugs and glitches on the development side that don't affect the Scratch user side and lacks some useful programming tools found in the bigger and more current environments) and then create something new with it. How about a game or an animation? Learn to design something from scratch, decide which classes you are going to need, think about a model and a separate GUI (something you should not mimick from the Scratch source code, because, cool as it is, it's not the agreed-upon way for GUIs). There are now fantastic tutorials and step-by-step examples and I'm sure you'll be able to come up with some really cool ideas yourself!

One more thing -- and I find this especially painful to acknowledge: Smalltalk/Squeak may not be the best programming language for everyone and everything. Smalltalk is a big, complex integrated system ("image") that's excellent for building large-scale applications with lots of classes. Squeak has a Morphic framework that's brilliant for inventing totally new complex GUI's. Both of these need a lot of ahead-planning and very careful prototyping/refactoring just to get started. Often times you might be quicker and better off to set out with a little Python or JavaScript (or Scheme!) script or - and I'm dead serious about this - with Scratch or BYOB!

Last edited by Jens (2010-09-14 04:21:49)

This time I think I've really found it: ReporterBlockMorph's showValue. I even know what part to add to, but not what to add. How can I convert Form(132xi52x32) or whatever that is into an image?

showValue

    | gotError msg tooltip w worldBounds |

    (#(doReport doMakeNewList doCallWithArgs doPauseThreadReporter) includes: selector) ifTrue: [^self showLambdaValue ].
"
    (self allMorphs detect: [:m | (m isKindOf: ReporterBlockMorph) and: [m isSpecialForm]] ifNone: [nil])
        isNil ifFalse: [ receiver ifNotNil: [^ self showLambdaValue]].
"
    gotError _ false.
    [msg _ self evaluate ] ifError: [
        gotError _ true.
        msg _ 'Error!'].

    (msg isKindOf: Morph)
        ifTrue: [msg _ msg imageForm ]
        ifFalse: [msg _ msg asString ].

    (self isBooleanReporter or: [msg = 'Error!']) ifTrue: [
        msg _ msg localized].
    (self isCostume) ifTrue: [
        msg _ msg ADD SOMETHING HERE!].
    tooltip _ (ScratchReporterToolTipMorph string: msg for: self)
        left: self right;
        bottom: self top.
    ScratchTranslator isRTL ifTrue: [tooltip right: self left].
    gotError ifTrue: [tooltip messageColor: Color red darker].

    w _ self world.
    w addMorphFront: tooltip.
    ((worldBounds _ w bounds) containsRect: tooltip bounds) ifFalse:
        [tooltip bounds: (tooltip bounds translatedToBeWithin: worldBounds)].

    self setProperty: #toolTip toValue: tooltip.
    tooltip initialCursorPoint: Sensor cursorPoint.
    tooltip startStepping.

What do I need to add? (to change a form from text to an image)

Last edited by Billybob-Mario (2010-09-14 07:09:52)

I have a question about BYOB-
        I was making a Point towards X:() Y:() Block, and instead of making a variable called X, It made a drop-down list that said "Record" and "Re Record". What is that?

U-oh, now I'm the one who's getting reprimanded for not being helpful 
Serves me right after my last post, I guess.

So Marc, if you read some of the BYOB threads - as well as this one - you'll surely notice that I'm almost constantly giving hints (especially to BBM - often very concrete). And while I do admit to being tired of re-answering the kind of questions that I have already taken some effort to respond to in a decidedly indirect (i.e. avoiding explicit "how-tos") way I eventually always answer them anyway.

But I also want to give BBM a break, beause there's this frenzy about modding going on in the forums which I'm afraid sometimes conveys the wrong impression that if you don't "work on a mod" you're not an "advanced" Scratcher.

I'm not losing my patience, and I think that I've learned a lot about toolTips and how a reporter block reports. Can I at least get a general direction of where to look for the method to make it change Form(axbxc) into an image?  I know where to put it, and I said in my last post. Also, thank you for helping me now and in the past.

Jens wrote:

respond ... in a decidedly indirect (i.e. avoiding explicit "how-tos") way

I agree, this is precisely what I meant: point the way, but let them discover the details by themselves. Beyond being "didactic" the added value of this approach is the greater generality of the answers that can be reapplied to other similar questions.

Jens wrote:

I do admit to being tired of re-answering the kind of questions that I have already taken some effort to respond ...

I truly believe that and I've also seen how much mind and heart you commit to the task of relating to the users, myself included. I'm really sorry for making the impression of "reprimanding" you, my intention was to humbly point out that losing patience, especially when justifiably so, can be misleading.
In this situation, what you call "this frenzy about modding", a well stocked FAQ thread or if the resources allow it a small Q&A wiki can come to the rescue and instead of having to repeat yourself until exhaustion you could just refer them to the related issue from an earlier question.
I would assume that I'd be preaching to the quire when I state my belief that BYOB deserves its own dedicated forum, separate from advanced/hacking Scratch, with a more fine grained resolution of subjects. Then again, there are political/organizational, resources and user-base issues to consider that I know nothing about...
Anyway, thanks Jens for what you did and continue doing for the Scratch/BYOB community!