scratch team mailing list archive

[Amos Blanton <amos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Kevin,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! Comments below...

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 9:52 AM, <ksomervi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> I've made RPMs before, a long time ago, but I can figure it out again.
>

That's great! It'd be wonderful to have an rpm of Scratch.


>
> > By the way - the source is available on svn here:
> >
> > https://www.assembla.com/spaces/scratchonlinux/trac_subversion_tool
>
> Regarding the svn source, it looked like it removed the ability to checkin
> projects and a few other differences.  My son is doing this with a group
> at school and I'm trying to get his experience to be the same as the rest
> of the group.  The teacher isn't proficient in Linux I don't think so he's
> on his own.
>

Ah - you are pointing out a confusing issue in our documentation. On this
page it explains that the squeak source has the sharing code stripped out:

http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Source_Code

This was done because we were concerned that non official versions of
Scratch could try to submit projects to our server that our server might not
know how to handle. However, this limitation doesn't apply to the version of
Scratch on the SVN repository linked to here:

https://www.assembla.com/spaces/scratchonlinux/trac_subversion_tool

It is an "official" version of Scratch for Linux, so it does have the
sharing code built in, same as the Windows / Mac versions.

It has the source for the ScratchPlugin I believe.  It seems that the only
> binaries are the vm and the drivers.  All of the modes seem to be
> supported (i.e. small stage, large stage, and presentation) and working. I
> just haven't figured out how to get it to find the costumes etc. and link
> the help menu with the help files.
>

Great - if presentation mode is working, then the VM is finding the Scratch
Plugin properly. The location of the media files (costumes etc.) is
hardcoded inside the Scratch.image file, which is in Squeak. This can be
tricky to change around if you aren't familiar with Squeak. However, it
should find them on your system if you place them in /usr/share/scratch. It
would be best to use the same file tree in all Linux versions if possible.
Here's what it's looking for:

/usr/share/scratch/Help  - Helpscreen images and html files
/usr/share/scratch/locale - language files (that allow user to choose their
own language)
/usr/share/scratch/Media - contains backgrounds, costumes, and sounds
folders
/usr/share/scratch/Projects - contains subfolders with sample projects

The debian rules file details the install process further.

Amos

p.s. You should be able to build the Plugins with the makefile included with
the source. That's about all there is to do as far as compilation. The
Scratch.image file contains the rest of the code, and the vm just reads
that.





>
> > re: Readme - it would be great if you could write a new one to describe
> > the
> > steps you took to install on your system. We'll post it on our Linux
> > Installer page and add it to the next release of the source package.
>
> Will do.
>
> > Amos
> > Scratch Team
>
> Kevin
>



-- 
_____
Amos