Setting Up

Create a folder for your mod

The first step for creating a mod is creating a folder/directory to store it in. This tutorial uses the highly imaginative name of "Tutorial Mod", so I will use the folder name "TutorialMod".

The structure of this folder will end up looking like this at the end of this page:

TutorialMod/
    gradle/
    libs/
    src/
    build.gradle
    config.groovy
    README.md
    scratch.gradle
    gradlew
    gradlew.bat
    ...

Obtaining the Scratch 2.0 source code

With Git

Optional Step: Fork the repository on GitHub and clone your fork instead.
Open a Command Prompt or Terminal and run this command:

git clone https://github.com/scratchfoundation/scratch-flash.git --depth=1 .

This will clone the repository into your current folder. The --depth=1 option instructs Git to only download the latest version and not download the entire history of scratch-flash.

Without Git

1. Download scratch-flash

2. Extract the contents of the folder inside the zip.

Obtaining an older version of Java

info

Java 8 works, however a newer or even older version may also work. If you already have a version of Java, you can check if it works by running gradlew build in your mod folder, the build should fail at this point, but if fails with a message similar to Could not determine java version from '20.0.2'., you need a different version of Java.

1. Download the binaries for Java 8 for your operating system and system architecture.
2. Create a folder called jdk8 in your mod directory.
3. Add /jdk8/ to a new line in .gitignore (Note: you must do this if you use Git, or you will commit Java to your mod repository, which you do not want to do).
4. Create the batch and shell scripts below to make using this version easier.

tip

If you plan to release your mod, include both the Windows batch script (.bat) and the macOS/Linux shell script (.sh). This will allow anyone to be able to easily build your mod.

activate_jdk.bat

activate_jdk.bat

@echo off
set PATH=%~dp0\jdk8\bin;%PATH%

activate_jdk.sh

activate_jdk.sh

#!/bin/sh
export PATH="$(dirname "$(realpath "$0")")/jdk8/bin:$PATH"

Fixing the player globals

Due to Flash no longer being supported, Adobe has removed most downloads for Flash, which includes the "player globals". To fix this you need to edit the scratch.gradle file.

scratch.gradle

// ...
repositories {
    // ...
    ivy {
        name 'Player Globals'

        // Remove this line:
        artifactPattern 'http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/[module]/[module][revision].[ext]'

        // Add these lines in its place:
        ivyPattern 'https://mrcomputer1.github.io/scratch-modding/resources/playerglobal-ivy/[module][revision].[ext]'
        artifactPattern 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nexussays/playerglobal/fef560243029214656d83fc673be0267a1ea0816/[revision]/[module].[ext]'
    }
}
// ...
dependencies {
    // ...
    // Replace this line:
    external group: 'macromedia.com', name: 'playerglobal', version: playerVersion.replace('.', '_'), ext: 'swc'
    // with this:
    external group: 'macromedia.com', name: 'playerglobal', version: playerVersion, ext: 'swc'
    // ...
}

Building and Running Scratch

Building Scratch

Use the command gradlew build to build Scratch. It should take a little bit of time to download dependencies, future attempts to build Scratch will be faster. You should see Scratch.swf in a folder called build/11.6.

Download the Flash Player Projector

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux

Running Scratch

Open the Flash Player Projector and drag and drop the Scratch.swf into the projector and you should see Scratch.

tip

Instead of closing Flash Player projector and re-opening it each time, you can use the "Close" option in the "File" menu and re-open it from the recent list in the "File" menu.

Completed Files

File	Download
.gitingore	.gitignore
scratch.gradle	scratch.gradle
activate_jdk.bat	activate_jdk.bat
activate_jdk.sh	activate_jdk.sh