A scratch edition is a private edition. Only applications can have scratch editions. Note that once you create a scratch edition, you still have to create new editions of classes before modifying methods.

A scratch edition is like a photocopy of someone else's document. It is a working copy that you scribble notes onto and mark up. It is not the finished copy.

You create a scratch edition when you want to modify classes contained in an application version but you do not want to wait for the manager of the application version to create an edition of it for you to work from. (Only a manager of an application version can create an edition of it.) When you try to modify such a class, the system will ask you whether you want to create a scratch edition of the application.

After you create a scratch edition, you can use its classes for debugging, experimenting, or learning. You can never release the classes to the application, however.

The browsers designate scratch editions by displaying << >> around the application version names.

When you are done with a scratch edition, you can restore the application version by loading the latest version. (Select Load > Another Edition from the Applications menu of a browser. After a window opens listing other editions, select the latest version and then select OK.)