[sldev] Landmarks and Navigation Project Update 2008-05-22
Lawson English
lenglish5 at cox.net
Sun May 25 13:40:03 PDT 2008
Matthew Dowd wrote:
> Well, ever since I started using Vista, I've thought that the SL
> Viewer would benefit from a (optional!) sidebar which could accomodate
> UI components (e.g. inventory or build dialogs, chat windows etc.),
> client-side UI plugins *and* HUDs. True - you loose screen estate, but
> you also would avoid having UI components getting in the way (the
> number of times, that build dialog gets in the way of what I'm
> building....)
>
The current GUI is too intimately tied to the SL client-server
model--not to mention the global variables that exist in the current
viewer, to easily do this kind of thing. Folder objects contain
automatic update mechanisms to inform the asset server when you've done
something to the content of a folder, for example. There's no base,
plain-vanilla folder class that asset-folders are built on top of, so
you'd need to create a separate class hierarchy to handle hierarchical
GUI elements. In fact, you'd still need to reimplement the list class
because that is not robust enough to handle folders (SL folders are
their own class built separately from lists --they only talk to the
normal GUI class at the scrollable view layer).
The GUI issues are the reason, in my opinion, why a plug-in API has
never been created. Likewise for why scripting of the client is still
not standardized. Likewise for why a UI for skinning has not been
provided for Dazzle.
Lawson
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