Scratch 3

[bensimmo]

Has anyone else had a look at Scratch 3.
It's in preview and seems to be ok on the PC.

It doesn't work on a mobile size device (GUI is just a mess) for me.

Tried it on the Pi and things don't look good so far.
Layout is fine, but it brings it to a crawl and gives up before you even do anything.

(This is a new Stretch image, up to date).

Hopefully they get it working, but given it been in development for a long time, I thought it maybe work a bit better

preview.scratch.mit.edu

Perhaps it just too demanding for a Pi3.

[mikerr]

Tried it on a PI3 (stretch, updated) in chromium and the CPU is pegged at 97% even while just idle /dragging blocks.

Sluggish, but usable for making a test script.

Big problem is the stage doesn't show - but the script is running as I can see the sprite x/y values changing.

Pi3 under firefox-esr the stage does show and it all works but seems prone to freezing when dragging blocks

Still, it is only a preview.

https://preview.scratch.mit.edu

[BooleanG]

Does anyone know if there are plans to port the offline version to the PI? We use Pi's in classrooms without the internet for a variety of reason (security and availability included). We do a number of Scratch GPIO projects so this is of great interest.

[hippy]

Does anyone know if there are plans to port the offline version to the PI?

I don't think they have said much except an off-line editor is planned. Whether it gets ported to a Pi I would presume rests on how the non-Pi version is implemented. Given Scratch 3 seems to be Javascript plus HTML5, if it runs on-line on a PI, I cannot imagine off-line could not be ported to a Pi.

It may be worth asking MIT what their plans are as they would probably know more than anyone here -

https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/291695

Added: 10th April 2018, "We haven't started on the offline editor yet"

[fruitoftheloom]

August 2018 update:


https://coderdojo.com/2018/08/02/what-y ... ratch-3-0/

https://scratch.mit.edu/3faq

https://beta.scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch 3.0 is built on industry-standard HTML5 technology and is no longer dependent on Flash. Because of this, it runs in any modern web browser.

[bensimmo]

Thanks for the update, I missed that.
Must give it a go again.

[hippy]

Yay! I finally got to see what the over-temperature warning looks like on my 3B

CPU usage was around 78-86% when idling for me which is less than what mikerr reported earlier, and it feels a little less sluggish than what I recall. That compares with 0% when idling and 20%-30% when dragging blocks in the Pi's Scratch 2 off-line editor.

Not sure if one is meant to be able to run programs in the on-line version but clicking on the green flag did not seem to work for me.

I'm not convinced a complete switch to Scratch 3 on the 2nd of January 2019 for the on-line editor is the right move. Not having details for Extensions yet, with details of how to create and deploy Unofficial Extensions only arriving "later in 2019", is going to prove problematic for some people, users and developers.

It is still not clear what off-line editors will be available beyond, "In the second half of 2019 we’ll also release an offline version of Scratch for Chromebooks".

I note micro:bit and Lego Mindstorms EV3 are included as official extensions, and Lego WeDo 2.0 is "coming soon", but no mention of Raspberry Pi.

Does anyone know what the plans are or the roadmap is for Scratch on a Pi ?

[fruitoftheloom]

Yay! I finally got to see what the over-temperature warning looks like on my 3B

CPU usage was around 78-86% when idling for me which is less than what mikerr reported earlier, and it feels a little less sluggish than what I recall. That compares with 0% when idling and 20%-30% when dragging blocks in the Pi's Scratch 2 off-line editor.

Not sure if one is meant to be able to run programs in the on-line version but clicking on the green flag did not seem to work for me.

I'm not convinced a complete switch to Scratch 3 on the 2nd of January 2019 for the on-line editor is the right move. Not having details for Extensions yet, with details of how to create and deploy Unofficial Extensions only arriving "later in 2019", is going to prove problematic for some people, users and developers.

It is still not clear what off-line editors will be available beyond, "In the second half of 2019 we’ll also release an offline version of Scratch for Chromebooks".

I note micro:bit and Lego Mindstorms EV3 are included as official extensions, and Lego WeDo 2.0 is "coming soon", but no mention of Raspberry Pi.

Does anyone know what the plans are or the roadmap is for Scratch on a Pi ?

The issue is Chromium Browser is a resource hog and not fit for purpose for running HTML5 / WebGL content.

Maybe try a different browser ???

[bensimmo]

But for it to work in its current setup.
It needs to work with Chromium on Raspberry Pi.
The offline versions will continue to work, but we'll be in a position where the kids are using 3 at home or on desktops and then have to relearn for the older versions when on the Pi.

It was annoying enough when Scratch2 wasn't on the Pi, but at least they worked similarly.

[bensimmo]

Quick go on a Pi3B+ (with a small sink on it)
Well it takes a while to load
beta.scratch.mi.edu
The Pi warms nicely to just over 60C, hit throttling at this point I assume.
Small program, repeat forever sprint move 50, tube 90.
Graphics cannot keep up.


Run
Pi gets a bit warmer

See what this turbmode does, not a lot for this.
Click full screen.
Hahaha it not looking good at all, temps gone up and it's now throttling more near 79C as is dropping and stabilising under 70C.

It's painful to the point trying to clock the red to stop has a delay.

Generally the interface is a bit slow (and small to read on a 1080p 21.5" screen, 125% seems easier)

The interface is very sluggish.
Not nice to use.

Stay away and hope the Pi4 can cope with it.
By an few years old laptop or computer and use that.

[hippy]

The offline versions will continue to work, but we'll be in a position where the kids are using 3 at home or on desktops and then have to relearn for the older versions when on the Pi.

It's going to be even worse than that.

Until required hardware extensions are ported kids will have to move to using Scratch 2 off-line at home, at school, everywhere, if they want to use that hardware. They won't be able to use Scratch 2 on-line, nor use Scratch 3 with that hardware even if they want to.

Developers of unofficial extensions for hardware which kids are using won't be able to supply those for Scratch 3 until later in 2019, again, even if they wanted to.

I tested the Scratch 2 on-line editor in Chromium on a Pi and that's not much worse than the off-line editor; mostly 0% CPU usage when idle, occasional jumps to 1%.

I don't know if excessive CPU usage and over-heating is a problem with Chromium, in general or just on a Pi, with HTML5/WebGL, or the Scratch 3 implementation. I also don't know whether any other browsers would be better, haven't tried yet. I did try accessing the Scratch 3 site with my lightweight WebKit browser written in Python which idles around 0% on most sites, but it just didn't show anything, just a blank page. I haven't investigated further.

[kbootb]

Brand new RPi 3b+
New install of Noobs - updated and upgraded.
Try Scratch 3.0 - CPU maxes out and stage never appears. Basically no use.

Is this a problem using Chromium? Any other browser proving successful? This is a serious setback when trying to make life easy for young/new users.

[fruitoftheloom]

Brand new RPi 3b+
New install of Noobs - updated and upgraded.
Try Scratch 3.0 - CPU maxes out and stage never appears. Basically no use.

Is this a problem using Chromium? Any other browser proving successful? This is a serious setback when trying to make life easy for young/new users.

Try Vivaldi Browser for ARM ?

https://vivaldi.com/download/

[rpiMike]

Does anyone know if there are plans to port the offline version to the PI? We use Pi's in classrooms without the internet for a variety of reason (security and availability included). We do a number of Scratch GPIO projects so this is of great interest.

The Scratch 3 article on the Raspberry Pi Blog mentions an offline version is being worked on :

Another reason for ensuring we support both Scratch 2 and 3 is that, at the moment, there is no offline, installable version of Scratch 3 for Raspberry Pi. Rest assured that this is something we are working on!

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/scratc ... -upgrades/

[hippy]

Brand new RPi 3b+
New install of Noobs - updated and upgraded.
Try Scratch 3.0 - CPU maxes out and stage never appears. Basically no use.

Is this a problem using Chromium? Any other browser proving successful? This is a serious setback when trying to make life easy for young/new users.

I just tried it again on my Pi 3B (non-plus) - first time since it went live - and it took a while to start-up, to load the Scratch 3 on-line environment, but it is working and usable for me with Chromium 65, and seems a little more responsive than it has previously.

It is using an average of about 75% of CPU, drifting between 70%-80% limits, and a third to a half of RAM while 'idling', just showing the Scratch environment / canvas /stage with no interaction being undertaken. Minimise Chromium to the Task Bar and CPU drops to 1%.

Running a simple, step, turn, repeat forever loop doesn't seem to push the CPU use up much, if at all.

I left it 10 minutes or so just idling, and CPU temperature has crept up to just shy of 70C, drifting between about 65.5C and 68.5C. If it did hit 70C that might be more problematic with a 3B+ because I believe that's when 'soft throttling' kicks in. I amm not seeing reports of capping nor throttling.

It's not great but it would seem liveable with. Not sure why you are having no luck at all, can't even get it to appear.

The Scratch 3 article on the Raspberry Pi Blog mentions an offline version is being worked on

I guess the Foundation would like to help as much as they can with getting an off-line editor - now called "Scratch 3 Desktop" - working with Linux and the Pi in particular. Let's hope they can.

In the meantime it seems usable to me, but obviously "YMMV".

[hippy]

Try Vivaldi Browser for ARM ?

https://vivaldi.com/download/

Downloaded and installed the latest (stable_1.13.1008.34-1); "Does not support WebGL", so that's a no go.

Added: enter 'vivaldi://flags' as the URL and there's an Experimental WebGL Extension option which can be enabled which then lets Scratch 3 launch. Not tested beyond that, but uses more CPU than Chromium, idles about 90%-95%.

I'll look to see if there are any more 'lighter than Chromium' browsers which do work, and see if I can get my own 'just a WebGL wrapper' browser to work, if I can find where I've put that.

[fruitoftheloom]

Try Vivaldi Browser for ARM ?

https://vivaldi.com/download/

Downloaded and installed the latest (stable_1.13.1008.34-1); "Does not support WebGL", so that's a no go.

I'll look to see if there are any more 'lighter than Chromium' browsers which do work, and see if I can get my own 'just a WebGL wrapper' browser to work, if I can find where I've put that.

Version 2.2 is for ARM

[hippy]

Downloaded and installed the latest (stable_1.13.1008.34-1)

Version 2.2 is for ARM

Looks like their Pi specific page is out of date -

https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-for-raspberry-pi/

I'll try 2.2 once I figure out how to uninstall what I have.

[hippy]

Vivaldi 2.2 seems to support WebGL out of the box. Using 75%-85% CPU when idling. Better than previous 1.13, but not as good as Chromium.

[bensimmo]

Vivaldi *is* Chromium with a wrapper and some customisations and added features?

[Botspot]

The constant CPU usage in Scratch 3 is WebGl rendering the stage. WebGl does not support graphics acceleration on the Pi yet, so it uses the CPU instead.
To edit a Scratch 3 project, simply kill WebGl from the task manager. The stage will freeze, but dragging blocks becomes buttery smooth. Once WebGl is disabled, Scratch 3 truly becomes event based; I've seen 0% CPU with 2 Scratch 3 websites running at the same time.

To re-enable WebGl, refresh the page.