[sldev] Various questions on the viewer.

[Richard Nelson]

1. The camera can only get so close to the object before it starts getting  
clipped against the near clip plane.  The purpose of the FOV zoom is to  
approximate the camera actually getting closer when it can't.  Can you  
elaborate on how this fails when working with small prims (since that was  
the test case for the original implementation).

2. We are currently redesigning and replacing many of our existing  
callbacks/observers with one or more flexible idioms.  One of the  
requirements is allowing for flexible interfaces from the Observed (not  
just a bitmask) and easy binding of user data.  However, I think this is a  
case of a hammer making everything look like nails.  The Observer pattern  
is very useful but when used in the place of clear functional dependencies  
can make the code harder to understand and debug, as I've seen in other  
codebases.

3. I am currently replacing hidden text elements with <string> elements  
that don't purport to be widgets (via getUIString()).  However this  
transition hasn't been completed (and we need to make sure that our  
localization tools support it properly), so you'll see both  
implementations until we clean that up.

Richard



On Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:42:57 -0700, Jason Giglio <gigstaggart at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> 1. Why does zoom transform into FOV zoom when you are closer than the  
> (fairly large) MIN_ZOOM threshold?  That makes working on small prims a  
> real bitch.  Can we lower MIN_ZOOM safely?
>
> 2. Why are all the Observer patterns used in the client so simplistic?  
> Is this a design decision?  It seems they all only get a bitmask  
> parameter on the changed() event.  Why can't we pass them more complex  
> data structures so that things like the entire UI could be turned into  
> Observer patterns?
>
> 3. What are the proper ways to use the XUI?  Why do some floaters use  
> hidden "text" types for things that are really just misc strings?  Why  
> not use the much easier getUIString?
>
> I see a whole lot of inconsistancy in the way the XUI is used.  What is  
> the right way?  Where are we going with this?
>
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ley