Scratch

Hi icecool44,

aha, now I think I understand your problem. Thanks for taking the time and effort to test and describe it all so precisely. This Unicode faking in Squeak keeps haunting me, I'll look into it. I'm wondering: Is it just the name in the language menu that's wrong or are other labels/strings containing accented characters also coming out incorrect?

Thanks again!

Last edited by Jens (2010-09-28 06:06:08)

I'll definitely ask!

check out "Karel the Robot" in both Scratch and BYOB by Moti Ben-Ari:
http://code.google.com/p/scratch-karel/

Last edited by Jens (2010-10-01 07:02:04)

rubiks_cube_guy238 wrote:

wow this topic was at the bottom of advanced topics

Well, there hasn't really been any news in the past few days.  It's okay; it's not as if we're paid royalties based on our chart position. 

fg123 wrote:

Hey Brian, do you mind if I try to create a more eye-appealing site for BYOB, rather than just that black on white?

As long as it remains readable in my browser: minimum 22 point type, black background, white foreground, don't let sites choose fonts or colors.  (In other words, you can't make any assumptions about how the browser will render your HTML.  Too many sites come out black on black or white on white when I try to use them.  Or the text doesn't fit in a fixed-size box they've allocated based on the assumption of a small font.)

What's the status on the BYOB name change (what will it be, and when will it occur)? I'd like to use the program with my students, but the current name could be problematic.

inbridge wrote:

What's the status on the BYOB name change (what will it be, and when will it occur)? I'd like to use the program with my students, but the current name could be problematic.

We're talking about a total rewrite in another platform (Javascript instead of Smalltalk).  Given that that's in our medium-term future, we're going to keep the existing name for the existing program, and the new version will be called Snap.  (This way I only have to redo all the tutorials once!    )

I should think that'll happen before next (school) year, but maybe not during this one.

EDIT:  But meanwhile, I think you should try BYOB with your students and let us know if anyone actually complains.  (I mean, Shadow is a Texas Republican, and his parents haven't complained!    )

Last edited by bharvey (2010-10-04 00:19:09)

It really isn't a big deal. Sure, most people's first reaction is "What?!", but once you explain it, all I usually get is a simple "Oh." 

Don't call it BYOB, just call it Build Your Own Blocks if you think it will bother them. And also, think of it this way. We're giving a positive connotation to the term! 

Personally I don't think BYOB is really that terrible of a name. I see the acronym everywhere (like at my local Whole Foods that suggests that you Bring Your Own Bag) and as far as I know no one has ever accused it of corrupting the youth. Heck, I'm a sophomore in high school myself, and I don't think that "BYOB" really even registers as an alcohol reference with most people my age unless they're System Of A Down fans.

BYOB 3.0.7 is available for download.

This minor release contains the following bugfixes and enhancements:

(1) Exporting Sprites

Exporting a sprite whose custom block definitions contain references to another sprite (e.g. "x position OF Sprite1") no longer throws an exception. Thanks for Moti Ben-Ari for finding and reporting this bug.

Caveat: Like in vanilla Scratch such external sprite references get removed in the export process, i.e. not even the name of the referenced sprite is remembered in the exported code. For all pratical matters this means that all exported code containing plain __ OF __ blocks must be edited and fixed again once it is imported into another project.

Workaround: Like in vanilla Scratch you can create a (sprite-local) variable containing the name of the referenced sprite and place it into the OF block's right argument slots. Then, after importing the exported sprite into another project, you can set the variable to the name of whichever other sprite it should refer to now. That way you don't have to edit the custom blocks again (until we invent first-class sprites    ).

(2) Localization

Thanks to Jean-Jacques Valliet (French) and Manuel Menezes de Sequeira (Portuguese) for additional translations and unicode-rendering related bug reports.

(3) Unicode rendering

The language menu now correctly displays language names with accented characters.

Input templates in custom reporter block prototypes now correctly render accented characters. Thanks to Manuel Menezes de Sequeira for reporting, explaining and patiently testing this bug.

(4) Custom block prototype editing

Custom reporter blocks that have just a single space character as label no longer throw an exception and also no longer crash BYOB upon saving the project. Thanks to Josh Paley and his son for discovering this bug.

Right clicking on an input template ("var blob") in a custom block prototype now behaves exactly the same as left-clicking on it, i.e. it lets you edit or delete the blob instead of displaying a menu with obsolete choices. Thanks to Moti Ben-Ari for pointing this out.

----

Thanks to all of you for your testing and project reports, isn't it just mind-blowing how this little project brings together people from all over the world? If anyone would like to permanently join our BYOB-alpha mailing list, just let us know, and we'll be happy to set you up.

Hi,

Is there some way to check preconditions, say, and raise some error if they fail, the same way an error is raised when one tries to calculate the square root of a negative number?

Thanks!

Manuel

nXIII wrote:

I use the "debug" block; something like this:
IF <CONDITION>
    REPORT (DEBUG (Error message goes here))
END
Of course, one could also use something that MUST return an error, such as:
IF <CONDITION>
    REPORT (0/0)
END

Thanks! Works great!

Hi
Update of the french translation, .pdf document.
I Building a bloc A. Simple Blocs ( page#1-page#4) recursion non included.

Last edited by icecool44 (2010-10-06 10:44:04)