While I was trying the new version of Runtime Revolution on the XO this weekend, I also did a Software Update for the XO. A new version of Scratch was downloaded and installed.
The new Scratch is version 1.3.1 - just like for the PC and Mac! I decided to give it a try. In an earlier post, I tried Scratch on the XO - and couldn’t recommend it! See the article here. For completeness sake, I’m running build 767 on a standard G1G1 XO.
My impressions were somewhat improved this time:
- Performance when dragging programming elements was good. In my previous test, I noted that the dragging was so jerky that it was almost impossible to place the programming elements.
- The screen elements are still very small. This is probably just an old man problem… and it didn’t seem as bad without the jerkiness when placing programming elements.
- I tried a pretty challenging (processing wise) flight simulator game from the Scratch website, see here. This has several scripts running in parallel in forever loops with short delays (I think they are at about .1 second). This game was very sluggish - but it did play!
- The flight simulator game sound played for a while and then stopped.
Although I would still choose a full powered computer over the XO to work with Scratch, it is clear that the Scratch Team is working to make the XO a viable Scratch development platform. And, for simpler projects, I think the XO would be fine with this current version of Scratch.
A few additional notes:
- I don’t know if it is a Scratch or XO issue, I could not download the Scratch projects from the MIT website and open them in Scratch. Although the files would appear in the Journal, they were not associated with Scratch. I was able to move files to the XO using a Flash drive and the Terminal activity.
- Suspend / Resume does work now.
- I didn’t note during my original review that the version of Scratch for the XO doesn’t include all of the backgrounds, sprites, … available in the Windows version. Some are included - but not all.
I’ve been really busy… a consulting project with a short fuse came up and I haven’t been getting my blogging in. Anyway, this consulting job seemed geared toward a high level development environment like Runtime Revolution. Why do I say that? I needed the following:
- Quick and easy database support (I’ve done a little with databases using PHP - that’s all). Of course I could have done this with Visual Studio in C++, but I didn’t want a big learning curve to get this project up and running. Runtime Revolution has built in support for several databases, including SQLite. SQLite requires NO installation or configuration. Sounds perfect for my needs.
- I had a need to have buttons that act like both buttons and editable fields. In edit mode, I wanted the user to be able to click in the field and edit it within the program. When in normal mode, I wanted the field to behave like a button. As before, I’m sure this is possible in Visual Studio / C++, but I’ve never tried it. It’s straightforward in Runtime Revolution.
So I purchased Runtime Revolution Studio 3.5 for this development (happily, the price had dropped from $399 as mentioned in my earlier post to $250). I would say it took about 10 hours of effort to get pretty proficient using it (of course, I used HyperCard quite a bit in the 90’s and also have trialed Revolution for the previous post). The previous post is here.
At the time of my earlier post (May 2008), I found that Revolution 2.9 wasn’t a very good development environment for the XO laptop. I thought it’d be interesting to see if 3.5 was better. I opened the Spanish practice stack I had worked on before and created Windows and Linux executables. Just for the record, I’m running Windows XP Home on the PC and build 767 on the XO. My perception is very much improved over my previous encounter.
Improvements:
- I didn’t see the delays I mentioned in the earlier post.
- The XO performance was fine.
- The XO / program were stable during the test.
Continuing Issues
- Text and button sizes on the XO are very small compared to Windows. The image shown was taken as a screenshot using TightVNC and scaled such that the text appears about the same size as on the XO screen. I think this can be resolved - and it’ll be a worthwhile effort since the program appears stable.
- I have to start the program from the terminal activity. Again, I believe this can be resolved… but it’ll probably take some time.
- You cannot “save the stack” in a standalone application. I use this to save the stack after editing (creating new word cards). To get “save the stack” to work, I use a different standalone “home” stack and use it to “open stack …” the stack I’m actually using.
- Sometimes when I stop a program on the XO, the programs icon remains in the active program tray at the top of the screen. It doesn’t seem to hurt anything… just sits there.
Note that I also tried to run the program I mentioned above (the consulting project). It’s much more complex, didn’t run correctly, and did crash occasionally. I probably used something the doesn’t work in Linux or Sugar. Not to mention, the program isn’t completely stable on Windows at this point ;-)
I think it’s time to write a usable XO application in Revolution. Anybody have a good idea for a project???