Eng:Project Players

For the Scratch YouTube player, see Scratch YouTube Video Player. This page lists many applications and players which can run Scratch projects. Many players have distinct advantages such as speed or browser-compatibility. Each player executes code in a different language, which can cause different players to view projects slightly differently.

Squeak
The Scratch 1.x program operated on Squeak, an object-oriented programming language that is a dialect of Smalltalk. When projects in Scratch 1.x were uploaded online, the Java player would be used instead to view online projects.

Flash Player
The Flash player was first introduced as a beta on February 22, 2011, and was very buggy at the time. The Flash player began development once the Scratch Team had decided to switch to Adobe Flash for Scratch 2.0 instead of Squeak. On the old Scratch website, the Java player was the default one, and the beta Flash player was only accessible by users at first. The beta flash player stayed in use for almost two years, with random updates often from the Scratch Team to fix bugs. Then, on September 10, 2012, a new version of the Flash player was released, mainly featuring a new design intended for 2.0, such as a new green flag and stop sign. After a month, on October 18, 2012, the Flash player was made default on the website, with the Java player still accessible. Since the official release of Scratch 2.0, the Flash player is currently the only official player, the Scratch 2.0 program runs in the Flash player as well as the project page viewer, unlike in Scratch 1.x.

Java Player
The Java Player is the old player which was used through Scratch 1.4. It was at first the only online player until the Flash player beta was released. Since Scratch 2.0 would run in Adobe Flash, the Scratch Team decided to opt out of having a Java player after Scratch 2.0 was released.

Experimental Viewer
The Experimental Viewer was a way to edit and play projects online. It was an experiment with online editing, as a precursor to the web-based Scratch 2.0 editor. The experiment concluded around March 2011.

Beta Player
Although its name may suggest otherwise, the Beta Player is actually the most recent player. Despite the fact that it is an incomplete work-in-progress, it is completely usable. With Adobe Flash's removal of pixelbender in version 11.8 of Flash Player, the Scratch Team has been working on an alternative to reduce the drastic lag related to graphic effects. On August 30, they released an alpha, alternative player which runs graphic effects differently, aimed toward reducing lag. It can be accessed here or by opting into the player in one's account settings. By opting in, all projects by default are viewed in it, though the independent player can be used if one does not opt in.

HTML5 Player
The Scratch Team has stated that an HTML5 project viewer is in development, though issues still need addressed. An HTML viewer would allow Scratch to run on almost all devices, because almost all devices execute and can read HTML code. Currently, there are two other external HTML viewers, which are still in progress of development:
 * JsScratch
 * sb2.js