Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) is a graphical programming language designed to teach children the fundamentals of coding and computer science.
Scratch 2.0, released in 2013, introduced the capability for 'Extensions' - blocks that can interact with Scratch.
Scratch for Holiday is an implementation of a Scratch extention that allows Scratch to control Holiday by MooresCloud (holiday.moorescloud.com).
It's still very early days with this code - it barely works, and has uncovered a few bugs in Scratch - but the goal is to make Holiday programming as easy in Scratch as moving a sprite.
- From a command line within the directory, type "python scratch.py ip-address-of-holiday"
- If you don't know the IP address of your Holiday, use the Holiday Finder for Chrome Desktop tool to discover it.
- Once Scratch for Holiday has started up, launch the offline version of Scratch 2.0 (linky goes here)
- While holding the shift key down, select Scratch's "File" menu, and select "Import Experimental Extension"
- When the file dialog appears, select the file "holiday.2se"
- You will now see a number of new blocks appear in the "More Blocks" tab.
- You can use these new blocks in your Scratch programs (a manual will follow later)
- It seems that Scratch wants to be restarted every time a change is made in the program. Which sucks, but forewarned is forearmed.
- Make a change to your code, save it out, then relaunch Scratch, Import the Experimental Extention, load your program again, and go. (Yes incredibly ugly but seems to work.)
Happy Holidays!
Mark Pesce
24 December 2013