[misc:clickable]
We have talked about this before, but never come to a conclusion
yet. I
would propose that the first phase would be simpler, and for
misc:clickable to have a set of "actions" that simply have a
description. If there is only one action, then you see the description
on mouse over and simply clicking does it. More than one, you get a
little menu of descriptions.
Sure, the clickable object should have a property with a vector of
supported actions, so clients can inspect them. Then a browser can
use this for a pop up menu etc., and an agent can check if the
vobject supports some known action.
The point here is that the action *must not* be a simple string.
While an English speaking human may understand the string "open",
someone who only speaks Chinese will not understand it. Same with
your average agent, who does not speak *any* language at all :-)
Thus, actions should be unique terms, like the URIs used in RDF, or
at least using namespaces ("controlled vocabulary") as usual in VOS.
A second phase would be left To Be Determined and let you combine
objects. There are lots of ways to do this if you use either the
avatar or a new "browser" object as a container to hold references to
the various objects involved in a more complex interaction, or if you
create a sufficiently clever way of mapping out the interaction
ahead of
time in the "clickable" metaobjects.
Well, ok, my suggestion only provided for one object, but if you
really need more than that, you can specify them all in the "clicked"
message. After all, VOS allows ordered lists of properties there.
I am not sure how the "browser" vobject is involved in this. IMHO the
clicked message should contain all necessary information, and not
require the clicked object to refer back to the browser of the
initiator for that. I fact, the initiator may not even *have* a
browser vobject; I expect this to be the case for most VOS-internal
interaction, or for agents.
My suggestion was merely that the browser may help in *composing* a
clicked message. I was thinking about the average graphical adventure
game interface (LucasArts, Sierra, ...).
They usually allow you to select an action keyword or icon, and maybe
some inventory item to use in the interaction ("open door with key").
Let me add my notion of multi-sector support to the wishlist, as
discussed on IRC last night. The idea is that terangreal should
be able
to access and render mutliple world sectors at once.
Do you mean that objects from each sector are combined into one view?
(If so, how would you use this?) Or simply to implement portals? A
sector really defines an actual spacial zone, I think that makes sense
to keep it that way; and then you can always join sectors with
portals.
The problem here seems to be our differing(?) understanding of the
term "portal".
Basically yes, I want to see all the objects from all the sectors at
once. For this to work, you need spation relations between the zones
(=sectors), otherwise they would all wind up on top of each other. So
a zone needs to specify a "link" to another zone, saying something
like "from my point of view, this other zone's origin lies at
(100,0,-50)". The browser than can traverse such links from the
"current" zone and display its direct neighbour zones too. Link
traversal may be more complex of course, involving link roles and
weights.
Now, I consider a "portal" to be a special kind of link, which in
addition to position and target zone also contains some geometry,
usually a polygon, restricting visibility of the target zone. Thus,
you cannot always see the zone, only when you look at the front side
of the polygon it acts as a hole or window into the other zone. You
can do nifty stuff with that, like modeling three magic doors on a
beach that lead into other worlds (S.King, "The Drawing of the Three").
Anyway, while the latter this is a cool feature, I would be happy
with just the simple links. On the other hand, iirc CS supports
portals, so it may not be that big a step to do them properly.
Regards,
Karsten Otto (kao)
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