Tur:Scratch 2.0

Scratch 2.0, also known as Scratch 2, is the second, current major version of Scratch, following Scratch 1.4. It features a redesigned editor and website, and allows you to edit projects directly from your web browser as well as in an offline editor.

It went into public beta on January 28, 2013, and was officially released on May 9, 2013. The 2.0 beta site and the old 1.4 site were both taken down from May 6 to May 8 so the Scratch Team could move the projects across.

History
Scratch 2.0 was announced by andresmh on the Scratch Forums in January 2010. The first released experiment by the Scratch Team as part of 2.0's development was the Experimental Viewer, in August 2010. Later, in 2011, a beta Flash Player was released for projects, which logged-in users could choose to use. In 2012, this was replaced by a version of the alpha editor; this version was made the default for all users that October.

In May 2011, the first known version of the project editor, the prealpha, was released to a limited audience at Scratch Day @ MIT. A little while after this, the Scratch Team started posting updates, called Scratch 2.0 Progress Reports, to their blog. The new website and redesigned project editor, by then in the alpha stage (at alpha.scratch.mit.edu), were premiered for a few days to the public for Scratch Day 2012, a year later. Over the rest of 2012, people were brought in to test this version: community moderators and selected educators; Collab Counselors, former curators, Scratch Design Studio curators, TBG moderators, and a group of 500 volunteers. Some users were also able to infiltrate and use the program due to a glitch.

In December 2012, the public beta was announced to begin on January 28, 2013. It was available at beta.scratch.mit.edu from then on until its full release, upon which it replaced the previous website.

On May 13, 2014, the source code for Scratch 2.0 was released. It is available at LLK/scratch-flash on GitHub.

Offline Editor
The beta version of the offline Scratch 2.0 editor was released on August 26 and can be downloaded here. It has very few differences from the online editor, most notably, though, the lack of the backpack. The offline editor receives updates without having to reinstall the entire program.

Features
Scratch has been completely rewritten in Adobe Flash for version 2.0 but still runs projects from older versions of Scratch. It is still completely free and without ads. Due to the new features and different programming language, Scratch 2.0 projects are saved in the  format instead of the previous   format. However, projects uploaded from Scratch 1.4 can still be downloaded from the project page in the  format. Scratch 2.0 features many new additions to both the program and website.



New Features
Scratch 2.0 has introduced several new features:


 * Backdrop Name block
 * Backpack for transporting sprites, costumes, and scripts project-to-project
 * Cloning sprites (limit of 300 as of now)
 * Cloud Data (variables stored on the website)
 * Custom Blocks
 * Customizable User Pages
 * Following System
 * Project Notes and Credits are separate from Instructions
 * Redesigned comment replies: @username shows who you're replying to
 * Show or hide lists
 * Sound Editor
 * Studios which replace Galleries, but in My Stuff the url stays the same (it is still http://scratch.mit.edu/mystuff/#galleries)
 * Time blocks: Current and Days Since 2000
 * Use the at symbol (@username) in a comment to link to a user's profile page
 * Username Block
 * Vector Editor, as well as a Bitmap Editor for the Paint Editor
 * Video Sensing
 * When Backdrop Switches to block
 * Zooming in and out of the scripts area
 * Record Project Video



Upcoming Features
The following Scratch 2.0 features are not yet finished nor released yet:


 * Cloud variables that can store strings
 * Cloud lists
 * HTML5 Player
 * Shapes library in the paint editor
 * Student and Teacher Accounts

Beta criticism
Early in 2013 during the beta, some people disliked Scratch 2.0. They complained of bad paint editor and confusing editor. After the final release, the criticism died down as people got used to it.