How do I get past the the "Select an editor....." error message when attempting to edit a notecard?

[Lou Lime]

When editing some configuration notecards in my inventory I get a modal dialog box that says:

Quote

Select and editor by setting the environment variable LL_SCRIPT_EDITOR or the ExternalEditor setting.

1 - Where do I find the external editor setting? 

2 - How do I go about setting the environment variable?

Thanks!

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

42 minutes ago, Lou Lime said:

So my question is:  What must I do to be able to edit that thing (which is labelled Notecard Configuration in the upper left corner)?

When you get to this part

44 minutes ago, Lou Lime said:

simply click anywhere in that window and start typing.  Once you're done hit the Save button (which won't be greyed out once you've made changes to the notecard and there's something to save).

The Edit button is only there to make it easier to open the notecard in an external text editor (if you have one set up in your viewer preferences) rather than using the built in notecard editor which is what you're seeing in the above screenshot.

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, Lou Lime said:

[…] how I go about setting the environment variable, and how to set an external editor (preferably VSCode if it works on SLish things).

As should be apparent by now, you don't need to do these things, but if you're working on a bunch of Notecards with a lot of text detail (and no embedded images, objects, etc), I can imagine a familiar external editor being preferable typing into the built-in viewer Notecard editor. Since you mentioned VS, this post (with added details specific to script editing) may be helpful for the editor path: 

I don't use VS myself, so I posted a hint for using the ExternalEditor debug setting to launch Notepad, and alternately using a Windows environment variable to launch emacs.

But yeah, for most purposes, it's easier to just use the viewer's editor, especially if you need to embed anything into the notecard.

[Rolig Loon]

Don't use an external editor for that.  External editors are meant for creating/updating scripts, although they could actually update anything.  It's just that they are overkill for something that you can do with the editor in your viewer.  To edit a notecard,

1;. Find the notecard in your inventory (or wherever it is)

2. Right click on it and select OPEN.

3. Edit it the same way you would edit any text document.

4. Click the OK or SAVE button to save your changes.

 

Edited January 16 by Rolig Loon

[Lou Lime]

Rolig Loon....   The notecard is in an object.  I open the object, select the notecard, and click the edit button. 

Then the modal dialog box appears:    

So I apparently still need to know how I go about setting the environment variable, and how to set an external editor (preferably VSCode if it works on SLish things).

[Rolig Loon]

Nope.  Same process.  Select the notecard in the object's inventory and either right click and OPEN it or double left-click it to open it.  Then edit it and save it.

Or, drag the notecard from the object's inventory into your own inventory and do as I said earlier.

Or, select the notecard in the object's inventory and COPY it to your inventory .... etc.

As I said before, the only time to might want an external editor is if you are editing a script and don't want to use the script editor in your viewer.  That's actually a very good idea, but it's not what you are trying to do.

[Lindal Kidd]

Are you sure the thing you are selecting is a notecard? From that message, I would guess that the thing you're trying to edit is a script.

You want a thing with this symbol:

Not this symbol:

[Lou Lime]

Lindal.....

OK, so let's skip all the taxonomy between my (probably inept) description and the root problem:

...... when I open the object I see this: 

...when I double click the icon labeled Configuration I see this: 

 

...when I click the Edit button, I get this:

 

So my question is:  What must I do to be able to edit that thing (which is labelled Notecard Configuration in the upper left corner)?

 

 

[Rolig Loon]

5 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

When you get to this part

6 hours ago, Lou Lime said:

Expand  

simply click anywhere in that window and start typing.  Once you're done hit the Save button (which won't be greyed out once you've made changes to the notecard and there's something to save).

Exactly right.  Thank you, Fluffy.

[Lindal Kidd]

@Lou Lime, thank you for that very clear description of the problem! @Fluffy Sharkfin sussed it: don't worry about the Edit button, just click in the text field and edit away. When you do, that Edit button changes to a Save button. Click it when you're done editing.

[Lou Lime]

MANY THANKS to Fluffy, and to Rolig, and Lindal for being so patient with this bear of very little brain.  Thanks to Qie for pointing me to the place to set the external editor.  My first couple of attempts to trigger VSCode on MacOS have failed, but at least I know what to fiddle with to try to get that working.

So to sum it all up in SL terms:   The edit button is only there as an RLV trap to bufuddle scripting noobs.  

It's the U/I equivalent of a deep hole with pointy sticks in the bottom camoflaged by twigs and leaves.

Edited January 17 by Lou Lime
typo

[sandi Mexicola]

Sublime Text can also be used as an external editor.  Some LSL plugins are available for it.