Scratch

So it turns it became sort of FAQ topic...

Here's a little summery (I copied only the questions about 2.0):

roijac wrote:

will you release a beta version this year?

Lightnin wrote:

Unlikely. We may have an alpha ready for testing by CMs and such by the end of the year.

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undefeatedgames wrote:

Do you have an expected release date? Will we be able to import movies into Scratch? Since Scratch will be in Flash, will we be able to convert Scratch programs to Flash?

Lightnin wrote:

We'll, we're shooting for Scratch Day 2012, but there's a lot of work to be done.
Importing movies: Probably not.
Convert to flash: It's not on the agenda, but we may explore ways of exporting projects in "standalone" formats. This might have to wait for 2.1.

By the way, the time between Scratch 2.0 and Scratch 2.1 will likely be a lot shorter. Being all "in the cloud" will mean that we can release beta versions of new features much more quickly and easily than before.

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ProgrammingFreak wrote:

So what will 2.0 be programmed in?

Lightnin wrote:

Well, you see, 2.0 is both the editor and the site, whereas 1.4 is just the editor. So, 2.0 will have different parts made with different tools.

So here's the current breakdown:

project editor and player: flash
2.0 website front-end: python with django framework
2.0 website back-end: mysql

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undefeatedgames wrote:

Do you think Scratch was/is successful in completing or achieving its goals?

Lightnin wrote:

Woah.  xD That's a really big question - not sure I have time to answer it properly.

I guess I'll say that in general, yes. We created a tool that kids can use to express themselves creatively - which was our primary goal. And quite a few did, and quite a few made and shared projects, so now we have 2,000,000 that anyone can download and check out.    So: so far so good, but, obviously, we couldn't have done it without all the awesome Scratchers.

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TheCatAndTheBanana wrote:

A classic mode (only the editor) might be quite useful when my rubbish internet goes over like it does about 5478935548545756983470568974907659086.6 times a day..

Lightnin wrote:

Yep! That's in the works. There's a link to the 2.0 FAQ that mentions it somewhere...

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Dinoclor wrote:

Are we going to need to buy flash to mod it?

Lightnin wrote:

I don't think so - I think there are free flash editors out there.

Some of us really wanted to do it all in HTML 5, but that'd mean waiting additional year(s). For example, there still isn't a good sound API that's really established itself as the standard for HTML 5 yet. Since there's no standard, there's no telling which browser will support which API.  Those questions have to get sorted before you can build software on something. So, basically, we gotta use Flash if we want stuff to work in the not-too-distant future.

re: Flash editors. After a quick google I found this: Seems ok at first glance...
http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/in … =Main_Page

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undefeatedgames wrote:

Will you add a way so projects created with mods or those that have custom blocks can be added to the Scratch website?

Lightnin wrote:

Well, this is a fairly complicated problem. When you make a mod editor with new features, it sort of goes without saying that it'll be able to "play" projects that use those new features. But how will anything else - like for example, our official project player - know about those changes? If we allow anyone who makes a mod to also hack the code for the website project player, well, that could be a lot of people stepping on the same code, and there's plenty of potential to create new bugs and otherwise accidentally break stuff.

So eventually we'd like to create ways for our awesome community of modders to make extensions for 2.0 - and there's already been some planning about it. But it's going to take some time, and is likely to be something that'll come out in Scratch 2.1 if I had to guess...

In short, it's not an easy / simple problem, even though it may seem like it.

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rabbit1131 wrote:

So will Scratch no longer have any connection to Squeak?

Lightnin wrote:

Well, we'll always be grateful and connected, since all the 1.x versions were made by possible by Squeak and the Squeak community. But since we felt it was important to move the next version into the cloud, it was necessary to use foundations / languages that are more suitable for that and other goals we have for the project. So future development won't use Squeak.

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Dinoclor wrote:

Another question: will older .sb files still work?

Lightnin wrote:

Sure - and you'll still be able to upload stuff to the 2.0 site with Scratch 1.4 or even earlier versions of Scratch.

However, you cannot download a project made with Scratch 2.0 as an .sb file, or open it in Scratch 1.4. Scratch 1.4 won't be able to recognize the file format, or the new features.

Dinoclor wrote:

K, that makes sense. So, it will be like the Bad Header error when you try to open 1.4 files in 1.2?

Lightnin wrote:

No - the files won't end in .sb, so you won't even be able to open them in Scratch 1.4. We're switching to an all new file format.

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legoscratch wrote:

In 2.0, will you be able to open a file (in the offline version) by double clicking?

Lightnin wrote:

Sure - I imagine so. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to setup a new file association. 

---------original post---------

Lightnin wrote:

Interesting discussion, and I'm glad to see some folks are fans of python. That's what the front-end of Scratch 2.0 will be written in. 

discuss 

source

Last edited by roijac (2011-11-01 06:45:34)