True and False blocks

[Samq64]

Simple true and false blocks have been suggested multiple times in the Scratch forums, so I thought I would bring it up here. Of course this is already possible by using the words true and false, but it's easier to just drag a block without typing anything. I've also seen some Scratchers use things like not<> or not<not<>> for Boolean values because it was faster than typing the word true or comparing 1 to 1 which makes the code very hard for other Scratchers to understand. If these two blocks get implemented, it would also make since to allow reporters in Boolean slots, so a variable that's set to true with the true and false blocks don't need to be compared to anything.

[ShipmasterKyle]

Sounds cool. What section would it go in?

[towerofnix]

I'm not sure it would be right to just let any reporter go inside a boolean input slot (since many reporters have access to user data and thus can return "true" or "false" values)—but maybe a new block, "(value) is true?" could be added. This would take any block and then check if the value is true.

The reason I suggest this is because almost all boolean reporters follow a very specific phrasing along the lines of "object is condition?" - "mouse down?", "key pressed?", and "apple contains a?" for example. But user-created variables aren't necessarily going to look like this - not to mention the translation barrier of someone who speaks a different language looking at your code, seeing a variable in an "if" block, and having no idea what that means. The phrasing "if ((variable or reporter) is true?)" is clear and can be localized.

(It could probably have a dropdown so you can choose between "true" and "false" for convenience's sake - instead of "not (value) is true?" - and possibly be expanded to have other useful and otherwise unfilled programming conditions too, like "(value) is ALL-CAPS?", "lowercase?", "mixed case?".)

[tonygermano]

I'm new to Scratch, and I was looking for this feature. I defined a block that took a boolean input, but then I couldn't figure out how to use the block with an explicit true or false value. I ended up using <1 = 1> or <1 = 0>, but that seemed really clunky. It would make sense to me to put them in the Operators section since that's where you end up going to create most boolean expressions.

I also found it odd that I could add a boolean input to a defined block (which I could then use in a manner similar to a variable,) but I couldn't declare a variable with a boolean type.