Scratch Development at Guess Media

Intro

Welcome to David’s Guess Media Scratch site! I’m a huge fan of the development environment the brilliant folks at MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten Group have created. Although geared towards young programmers and students, I suspect that Scratch is the secret favorite toy of many grown, professional developers such as myself.

My interest in Scratch is mainly as a resource for teaching kids about programming and good development practices. Of course, there’s also the use of Scratch as a refreshingly straightforward development platform that makes it attractive as a creative outlet for professionals as well. I am also eager to assist the Scratch Team at MIT in extending the flexibility of Scratch delivery targets (e.g. OSX, web...) See the Development tab for more info.

If this is your first time hearing about Scratch, you should start by visiting the official website:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

*NEW* Looking for my Scratch tutorials? Go here: http://guessmedia.com/scratch/tutorials/

Download the Scratch Secrets PDF for advanced tips & tricks!

Overview

The following links will help you navigate around the world of Scratch.

These links will help you navigate Guess Media’s related resources:

Other Scratch resources:

Tutorials

David is developing tutorials for both Scratch and the applications you will want to use with Scratch as you create projects. Currently, there is one tutorial available on using Phoenix, the free online image editor from Aviary. Learn how to create sprites and costumes for your project in 10 easy steps! Check out the tutorial, and take a peek at other tutorials planned for the future, at Guess Media’s Scratch Tutorial Site:

http://guessmedia.com/scratch/tutorials/

Projects

The following projects may be of interest to you, categorized by author.

The Scratch programs below have been created by David Christian Liedle of Guess Media. Look for David’s nickname, "TegansPoppy", on the MIT Scratch community site: http://scratch.mit.edu/users/TegansPoppy

David Christian Liedle ( TegansPoppy )

Others ( Coming Soon )

  • ...

Development

Guess Media’s Scratch Development is what I’m doing *for* Scratch, as opposed to what I’m doing *in* Scratch. I’m currently working on 3 ideas:

  • Scratchlets: Widgets/Gadgets for Scratch Projects
  • Scrapps: Native OSX Apps for Scratch Projects
  • Itch: A PHP engine for managing Scratch Projects

Scratchlets

Scratchlets are Widgets/Gadgets that fuse together Scratch .sb project files with the Scratch Java Applet. The first beta Scratchlet has been successfully created for OSX's Dashboard. Details will be posted shortly.

The performance of my first beta Scratchlet was so poor that I am wondering if the Dashboard environment will afford the needed speed to function properly. While .sb files running under Dashboard in OSX *do* function, they do so very slowly and this may make Scratchlets in that environment unpractical at this time.

Scrapps

Scrapps are Mac OSX apps that fuse together Scratch .sb project files with the Scratch Java Applet. These are not native applications made from Scratch projects; they are native applications that use the Scratch Java Applet to enable execution of Scratch project files just like a web browser does.

The current status on development of Scrapps is confined to the research phase. Here’s the plan:

  • Look at setting up a bare-bones web browser app in OSX
  • Include or refer to the Scratch Java Applet, soundbank, and one or more .sb files
  • Develop either:
    • 1) A system for managing linked .sb files (perhaps integrated with Itch), or
    • 2) A system for bundling a single .sb file transparently into each Scrapp.

Please don’t hesitate to Contact Me if you are an OSX developer and would like to be involved in the research and development of Scrapps!

{ itch }

{ itch } is a PHP-based server-side management system for the presentation and display of Scratch projects online. More details to come.

Please note, Itch is not intended to replace the cut-and-paste functionality for including .sb files on 3rd party sites that is already in place and fully useful on the Scratch website. If you’re looking to include a single Scratch Project on your web page, you should do so from the Scratch website.

80x15 Scratch Web Badges

I have created two 80x15 web badges for those wanting to spread the word about Scratch. Please download them if you will be using them; either drag the image to your desktop, or right-click and "save image as..." to a location you’ll remember.

I recommend making these graphics a direct link to http://scratch.mit.edu/

Enjoy!