When programming with Scratch, we often encounter some common and generalizable functional needs, such as:

However, as vanilla Scratch does not provide relevant blocks, we have to write our own custom blocks, which is not only a waste of time but also a hassle.

In the hope of addressing some common needs, some users in Cocrea like Arkos and _30 wrote this extension after summarizing some code snippets that might be commonly used.

Arkos Code Snippets contains 5 modules:

Function: Return the direction from point 1 to point 2

(It returns the direction in Scratch coordinates, where 0 degrees is directly above)

For example, for (0,0) to (1,1), it will return 45°; for (0,0) to (1,0), it will return 90°.

Function: Return the minimum angle difference from direction 1 to direction 2

(The result is signed, clockwise as positive numbers, counterclockwise as negative numbers)

Examples:

Function: Return the distance between two points

Function: Turn a certain number of degrees toward a certain direction.

Function: Find the position of a string within another string, starting at the specified position.

For example, finding “na” in “banana” starting at the fourth position will return 5.

Function: Insert a certain string before the NTH position in a string

For example, inserting “b” before position 2 of “ac” yields “abc”.

Function: Replace the characters from position n to position m in the string with a certain string.

For example, replacing the third to fourth characters in “ABCDEF” with “XX” will yield “ABXXEF”.

Function: Same as the original "=", the only difference is that it is case sensitive.

Function: Convert a reporter block to a boolean block.

(Returns false if the value is 0, false, NaN, or null; otherwise returns true.)

Function: Determines whether a value belongs to a range. The optional operators are <, ≤, and ≠

Function: Similar to the block above, it can determine whether a variable is outside a range. Optional comparison operators: <, ≤, >, ≥, =, ≠;

Optional logical operators: or, and;

Function: Get the hexadecimal RGB code of a color. For example, the code for white is # FFFFFF.

Function: Break Scratch's restriction on the size of a sprite and set it to any size you want.

(Used when making a large map game with an oversize background sprite)

Function: Break Scratch’s restriction on the position of a sprite and move the sprite to any position. (Used when making a large map game to move the sprites to the off-screen area)

Function: Get the current value of an effect. The effect can be color, fisheye, ghost and so on.

Function: Determine if a sprite is hidden.

Used when we want to know whether a sprite is hidden or not.

Function: Get the current rotation style of a sprite, including all around, left-right and don’t rotate.

Function: Get width or height of the current costume.

Function: Get the edge coordinates of the current sprite, including top y, bottom y, left x, right x.

(The edge coordinates will change along with the movement of the sprite)

It can be used for more accurate calculation of the rectangular collision box of the sprite.

Function: Determine whether the sprite is off-screen.

It can be used in large map games to determine whether monsters are in the player's view, or to determine whether clones are not on screen and delete the off-screen clones.

A sorted table is a table like a list, but the contents of the table are sorted by ranking value.

It can be used in scenarios such as layer ordering in Scratch.

Function: Clear all contents of the selected sorted table.

Function: Set the sorted table to ascending/descending order.

Ascending: sort from smallest to largest. For example: 1, 3, 6, 13, 256;

Descending: sort from largest to smallest. For example: 100, 97, 82, 60, 0.

Function: add XX to the sorted table, along with ranking value and additional data. (where XX is the name of the item, the ranking value is the basis for the sort, and the additional data is some extra information attached to the item)

Function: Get the information of the nth item in the sorted table

Function: Get the information of the item with the specified name in the sorted table

Menu options are as follows:

Function: Get the number of rows in the sorted table

For example, if the table has:

Then the block will return 2.

Function: Delete the content in the table.

The extension will provide two initial sorted tables: list1 and list2.

You can also create new sorted tables using the following method:

Use the script below to make the sprite point toward a coordinate.

Usually, we use the following block to make the sprite point towards another sprite.

However, if you want to point towards a clone of a sprite, the block above won’t work as it can only point to the original sprite.

Nevertheless, we can orient a clone by orienting its coordinates:

This technique is often used to make AI creatures face their enemies or turrets face monsters in tower defense games, etc.

Sometimes we want the turrets to rotate towards the enemy slowly in a tower defense game, or make a tank turret rotate towards the mouse rather than point to the mouse instantly. How to achieve that?

Use the following script to rotate nonlinearly towards the mouse:

For example, using the following two pieces of code, we implemented a simple layer ordering:

(Note: “clone ID” is a private variable)

The final effect is as follows (sorting the layers according to the Y-coordinate of the ball):