Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math (2014)
Appendix A. Sharing and Collaboration
Scratch makes it easy for you to collaborate and share your work with people all over the world, and this appendix highlights features in Scratch 2 that promote connecting with others. In particular, you’ll learn how to create an account, how to use your backpack to work with sprites and scripts created by others, how to remix other people’s projects, and how to publish your work and share it with the Scratch community.
Creating a Scratch Account
Although you don’t need an account to use Scratch, having an account can be beneficial. It gives you the ability to save your work on the Scratch website, communicate with other users, and share your work online. Follow these steps to create a Scratch account:
1. Go to http://scratch.mit.edu/ and click the Join Scratch link at the top right of the screen. In the dialog that appears (see Figure A-1), enter a username and password and then click Next.
Figure A-1. First dialog in the account-creation process
2. In the second dialog (see Figure A-2), enter your date of birth, gender, country, and email address. Then click Next.
Figure A-2. Second dialog in the account-creation process
3. You’ll see a dialog welcoming you to the Scratch user community (see Figure A-3). Click OK Let’s Go!, and you’ll be logged in to your new account.
Figure A-3. Last dialog in the account-creation process
The navigation bar at the top of the screen will show your username, as illustrated in Figure A-4. Use the four links (Create, Explore, Discuss, and Help) in the navigation bar to start Scratch’s Project Editor, explore available projects, collaborate with other Scratchers, and find useful guidelines and additional Scratch resources.
Figure A-4. Navigation bar for a logged-in user
The following sections discuss some of the features that become available when you log in to your Scratch account.
Using the Backpack
The backpack (available only to logged-in users) allows you to copy sprites, scripts, costumes, backdrops, and sounds from any project and use them in your own projects. Click the Explore link, shown in Figure A-4, to go to the project exploration page shown in Figure A-5. Here you can try out Scratch projects created by other people.
Figure A-5. Project exploration page
You can view projects by category, search for projects that contain certain tags, and sort them according to different criteria (shared, most loved, most viewed, or most mixed). When you find a project that you want to explore, double-click its thumbnail to go to that project’s page, as shown inFigure A-6.
Figure A-6. An example project page
Click the See inside button in the upper-right corner of Figure A-6 to see the contents of this project, as shown in Figure A-7.
Figure A-7. Viewing the contents of another Scratcher’s project
If you want to use parts of this project (sprites, scripts, costumes, backdrops, or sound files) in one of your own applications, just drag those parts onto your backpack. To delete an item from your backpack, right-click it and select Delete from the pop-up menu.
The contents of your backpack are saved on a Scratch server, so you won’t lose them when you log off. To use an item from your backpack, just drag it from the backpack onto your project.
Creating Your Own Project
There are many ways to start programming in Scratch. You can create a clean project, remix a project that has been shared on Scratch’s website, or open an old project and modify it. We’ll look at each of these options.
Starting a New Project
To start a brand-new project, click the Create link in the navigation bar to open Scratch’s Project Editor, shown in Figure A-8.
Figure A-8. Scratch’s Project Editor for a user who is logged in
This interface is very similar to what you see when you are not logged in, but there are some important differences:
§ The backpack pane is visible.
§ Two new buttons (Share and See project page) appear in the upper-right corner.
§ The suitcase icon and username show up at the right edge of the toolbar.
§ The File menu has new options.
The toolbar and its new options are shown in more detail in Figure A-9.
Figure A-9. The toolbar for logged-in users
When you are logged in, Scratch automatically saves your work in the cloud (that is, on the Scratch server), but it’s still a good idea to click Save before you exit Scratch. The Save as a copy option saves your current project with a different name. If your current project is named Test, for example, the new project will be named Test copy. (You can change that name by typing a new one in the project’s name edit box.) The Revert option discards any changes you’ve made since you opened the current project.
If you want to save your projects on your computer rather than in the cloud, use the Download to your computer option. The Upload from your computer option, on the other hand, allows you to load a Scratch project from your computer to the Project Editor. You can use this option to upload projects created with Scratch 1.4 and convert them to the Scratch 2 format.
Remixing a Project
Click the Remix button when you have some ideas to add to another Scratcher’s project. This will copy the selected project to your account and give you a starting point for your work.
You can also click View the remix tree on the project’s page (see Figure A-6) to see how the project has evolved over time and pick the branch that you’d like to copy from.
If you share your remixed project, the project’s page will list the original creator(s) and provide links to their projects.
The Project Page
Click the See project page button in the upper-right corner of Figure A-8 to edit your project’s page, which is shown in Figure A-10. You can enter instructions for people who use your application, give credit to anyone whose ideas or work you used, and specify some tags that will help others find your app.
Figure A-10. A project’s page
Sharing Your Project
Once you are done with your application, you can share it with the Scratch community by clicking the Share button. When you share a project, everyone can find it online and look inside it.
To see a list of all your projects, click the down arrow below your username in the toolbar and select My Stuff from the drop-down menu. (You can also click the suitcase icon.) This will take you to the My Stuff page, shown in Figure A-11.
Figure A-11. The My Stuff page
The My Stuff page allows you to control and view various aspects of your projects and studios. You can create, share, edit, unshare, and delete projects from this page. You can also create studios—collections of projects—and add projects to them. Studios make it convenient to group related projects together.
NOTE
If you delete one of your unshared projects, the project gets moved to the Trash folder, which acts as a recycle bin for projects. The interface for the Trash folder allows you to restore a deleted project to the My Stuff page.