[sldev] Magical scripted HUD/UI

[Argent Stonecutter]

On 2008-12-09, at 10:18, Mike Monkowski wrote:
> "richer dialog" is probably too vague.  Specifically VWR-10924  
> provides two things.  First, it allows the current UI widgets, with  
> new callbacks, to be used for communicating with in-world objects  
> using chat channels.  Second, it allows the current UI widgets,  
> using the current callbacks, to be rearranged to provide custom UI  
> panels, menus, and floaters.  In the second case, the purpose of the  
> in-world object is just to define the new UI component.

OK, you're talking about two separate use cases. I hadn't even thought  
of the second one, and I think it would be a lot more work than you're  
envisioning. The SL client XML schema seems to be heavily tied to the  
files, rather than having the callbacks driven from the XML directly.  
The extra work of creating a meta-language to define the callbacks  
outside that context, and managing interactions between components, is  
likely to scuttle the whole project.

The first use case... an improved dialog mechanism... is much more  
easily accomplished via HTML. The XML schema is extremely primitive  
and hyper-specialized, and even modifying the current UI is much more  
work than creating a simple HTML form.