Unrelated Posts

Passing clouds of inconsequential observations.

Tag: programming

  • Itching to programme?

    Someone asked yesterday how to make sprites move up and down when using Scratch. I have not done anything with Scratch for a while so I was inspired to download the latest version and give it a whirl.

    Scratch logo
    Scratch logo

    Scratch was developed at the [W:MIT Media Lab] Lifelong Kindergarten (doesn’t that sound like a great place to work?) and it provides a simple drag & drop means of building a [W:Java applet]. These can uploaded to the Scratch website and shared with others.

    If Scratch is too basic for your needs then I can commend Greenfoot which is a step closer to proper Java programming. Another option is the RunRev’s RevMedia which uses an English like language. All of these options are free.

    Although there are a lot of examples with Scratch there still seems to be a need for an introduction to creating a simple game. So here it comes 🙂

    My infallible guide to Scratch page will answer some if not all of your questions.

  • The Revolution Run Around – Guess the number

    I have been messing around with the Revolution software which is generally pretty neat but occasionally deeply frustrating – which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is based on Apple’s old [W:Hypercard] so I had some inkling of how it would/should work but the documentation (as is often the way with such things) can leave you wandering around in a circle, so close and yet so far, but the support forums are very, erm, supportive so I did manage to put together (and finish!) a (very) simple guess the number game to see how it all fits together.

    The Guess The Number game
    The Guess The Number game

    The Revolution software does generate versions of your creations for some other non-Mac computers but I do not know if they actually work (the alternate versions not the other computers 😉 )

    Download the Linux version or the Mac OS X Version or the Windows version.

    Perhaps I need a separate page to document my explorations…

  • Stykz and Revolution

    Stykz is a nice little animation programme…

    …although you are not limited to animating stick people. A beta version for [W:Macintosh] is available with versions for [W:Windows] and [W:Linux] to follow shortly. It was created with Revolution which I once played around with as a replacement for [W:HyperCard] but I never did do much with it. So maybe it is time for another thirty day trial… and not get around to doing much with it 🙂

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