dialogger - an alternative to llDialog

[Rufus Darkfold]

Update:  dialogger is now available for beta test, along with primcontrol and charttracker.  Details in this thread:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/LSL-Scripting/Free-primcontrol-HUD-Easy-Prim-Torture-Beta-2-Avaiable/m-p/1092569/highlight/true#M5485

We have all encountered the many limitations of llDialog.   I am writing dialogger as an alternative of sorts.

dialogger is a HUD, and/or code that can be added to other HUDs, to produce dynamic dialogs using prims.  dialogger supports buttons in any color or texture (without the text length limitations of llDialog) and sliders, vertical, horizontal, or both.  The sliders support clicking and dragging.

Each control uses a single, unscripted, prim, which dialogger configures appropriately.

The buttons are profile-cut tubes, so their text will appear on them, rather than above them. 

It is possible to make dialogger mostly disappear until it has dialogs to display.  If it only needs to display text, it can do that while minimized.

A single chat or link message is required to add each control to the display, and chat/link messages are returned with new values in response to mouse clicks and drags.  Chat messages are accepted on channel 444 from the owner and owner's objects.  An empty message clears all dialogs.

This message would add the control "Fader" below:

Fader,<.1,.55,.4,.9>,<0,0,10,10>,<7.81255,6.41469,0>

The bottom toolbar is optional, and allows reset,  transparency control, move/resize (no need to go into edit mode), and  a dialog to add more prims to the hud or remove them (which requires dropping the HUD where you have rez permissions).

dialogger is free, full-perm, and open-source.   I will contribute the code to the scripting library if there is enough interest.

dialogger and the toolbar are one lsl script each and can be used together or independently.

Surely someone must have done something like this already.  But if so, then where is it?  

Has anyone else at least played with using dimple/profile/path cut to adjust the position of hover text?  My algorithm for that is fugly.

Who would be interested in trying this out?

I am also open to suggestions for improving this.

 

[Void Singer]

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Rufus Darkfold wrote:

[...] Has anyone else at least played with using dimple/profile/path cut to adjust the position of hover text?  [...]

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I believe that tiny empires hud used that method, back before we got link hover text (script in each hover text prim), to accommodate different screen resolutions. I vagually remember someone doing an open source version of that but I think it might have been lost along the way.

[Rufus Darkfold]

I have now posted the dialogger script to the scripting library forum:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/LSL-Library/Dialogger-dialogs-using-prims/td-p/1006855

 

[Salahzar Stenvaag]

It seems your dialogger is quite cool way to control objects inworld using HUD in a whole new intriguing way. I was testing it and it appears (albeit not completely smooth) quite a smart control gear (!!!). I'll write a post on this.

Meanwhile what is apparently missing from this hud is some way to provide textual input like in forms (you know llTextBox), maybe you can use a combination of llTextBox to achieve this?

[Rufus Darkfold]

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Salahzar Stenvaag wrote:

It seems your dialogger is quite cool way to control objects inworld using HUD in a whole new intriguing way. I was testing it and it appears (albeit not completely smooth) quite a smart control gear (!!!). I'll write a post on

this.

Meanwhile what is apparently missing from this hud is some way to provide textual input like in forms (you know llTextBox), maybe you can use a combination of llTextBox to achieve this?

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I have just sent you a "beta 1.5" in-world.  It includes a "Dialogger" button on the main screen that gives you an empty dialog window.  This will allow other objects to set up dialogs without interference from whatever script thinks it owns the window.

There is also a "New Prim" button that creates a new prim (a red sphere) with the primset+ script already loaded.

There is no nice way to do text input in LSL afaik.  I will consider incorporating a button that brings up an llTextBox if there is enough interest in that.   I'm not sure if there is enough benefit compared to simply having the caller bring up the llTextBox in response to the message announcing the button press.

 

[Rufus Darkfold]

The documentation for dialogger has been updated:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Dialogger

[Rufus Darkfold]

The new charttracker/dialogger/primcontrol HUD provides a ready-built free implementation of the HUD end of dialogger.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/LSL-Scripting/Free-primcontrol-HUD-Easy-Prim-Torture-Beta-2-Avaiable/td-p/1092569/highlight/false

[Rufus Darkfold]

Beta 3 is now available.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/LSL-Scripting/Free-primcontrol-HUD-Easy-Prim-Torture-Beta-3-Avaiable/m-p/1092569/highlight/true#M5485

A couple of minor changes for beta 3:

The background is no longer darkened while dialogs are displayed.  The caller will have to do this if they want it.

Text labels will not display if they have more than 3 dashes.   This allows UUIDs to be used for textures without having them display (ugly), and allows the labels to be suppressed by using names like --foo--.