Eng:Advanced Topics (forum)

The Advanced Topics forum is a forum in the Scratch Forums where Scratchers can discuss advanced subjects with the Scratch Program and such. This serves somewhat like the forums for programming in advanced languages.

What the Forum Contains
The forum is simply for advanced topics related to Scratch these topics include:

Modifying Scratch
A popular part of Scratch is creating Scratch Modifications the Scratch source code is downloaded, edited, and put up for others to use. Scratch Modifications typically contain new blocks, extra and enhanced features, enabled Mesh, and more. There are topics that teach different parts of modifying Scratch, as well as topics that ask for help with modifying Scratch.

These topics go in the Advanced Topics forum, although some Scratchers would like a forum to be made specifically for these topics. Topics about modifying Scratch make up the majority of topics in this forum.

Guides
Although this forum is restricted to advanced topics, guides can still be made. As some advanced things may be difficult, some Scratchers write guides to help other Scratchers learn how to do them. These guides tend to teach parts of modifying Scratch or technical information.

Many guides can be found in the forum's ITopic index.

Other Projects and Discussions
There are also other projects dedicated to or inspired by Scratch, such as Antidote, ScratchBB, and Mega Scratch Userscript.

This forum is also the home to popular discussions on "hacking" Scratch (generally using a security hole to do things)- either attempt topic or a guide on how to do it. Examples include an attempt at getting Kaj to follow them and a topic on how to animate a project thumbnail.

Although the Advanced Topics was originally meant for discussing advanced or technical Scratch features, the forum has morphed into a place where Scratchers talk about technical things in general, such as GNU/Linux, home-made programming languages, advanced programming topics, and creating things in other programming languages.

Activity
Even though the Advanced Topics forum only contains advanced topics, the forum is somewhat active, as many Scratchers are interested in modifying Scratch, and therefore are active in this forum.

Many users collaborate in Advanced Topics, and use the Scratch Forums as a place to meet people to collaborate to edit Scratch, make Scratch extensions, or create things in other programming languages that may or may not have anything to do with Scratch.

The Advanced Topics forum has fostered a subculture among the frequent posters. Some users who are most active in this forum refer to themselves as "ATers", and consider the forum as a mini-community. This forum is also a place for advanced coding challenges such as "Code Golf", advanced mathematical challenges, as well as discussions on what to learn after Scratch.

This forum is also infamous for having topics go extremely off-topic to the point that within 2 or 3 pages the discussion has changed to something completely different than the original topic.