[vos-d] notes from IRC

[Peter Amstutz]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2007 at 05:40:40PM -0400, Reed Hedges wrote:

> I agree, this is something I suggested to Pete earlier. Do people want this
> feature added to the prototype, or wait for the real app?

Well, the intention is for the prototype code to morph into the real 
application frontend, so work on it won't go to waste.  It's called a 
prototype largely because the all-important network backend is a mockup, 
so it looks pretty but doesn't do the most important things the real app 
will do.

So if this is something you'd like to work on, I encourage it.  However, 
if the goal is to get something useful in peoples hands sooner, I think 
I should focus on identifying a minimal set of backend VOS functionality 
for version 0.2, implementing that, and porting the UI prototype to use 
the real backend.

> This is something that will make it really useful and work well, but 
> is pretty novel AFAIK. I don't really know of any other application 
> that does this, except that Javascript has a key handler so web pages 
> can get keystrokes (except control keys).  VRML does it similarly I 
> guess.  But those are all used by the "content", neither of those is 
> customizing the shape of the meta-UI.

By comparison with the web, arguably the splitters are kind of like the 
much-hated web frames.  It's worth considering why people hate frames so 
much, and make sure we avoid those mistakes.

Also, I really want to support a floating heads up display (HUD) 
overlayed on the 3D view.  My idea is to have some kind of vector 
graphics representation (based on SVG, probably) that can be used to 
describe floating HUD elements/UI controls.  This actually would be 
quite useful independent of a HUD.  It would be able to render to 
texture so you can interact with GUI elements in-world, and could be 
used for rendering generic embedded cross-platform 2D UIs (what people 
are trying to do with web apps these days).  If we develop a really good 
2D UI kit, we could throw out wxWidgets and just use our own 
vector-based UI :-) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

> So we need to think through how it works.  E.g. should it 
> automatically reconfigure, then show a message at the top notifying 
> you that it did? Or should it ask first? Should it only allow 
> configuration within the one pane that is viewing the Vobject that 
> wants to reconfigure?  Should it open a new window frame with the new 
> configuration, leaving your old configuration alone?

Hmm, well a multi-panel configuration is a bit different from a minor 
mode, which only affects a single panel of a specific mode.  I'm not 
sure how to group it, although at the level of the entire frame would 
make the most sense.  When you join a world, it could pop up a dialog 
saying, "this would would like to set a custom UI, is that ok"?  As you 
mentioned, we'll have standard UI configurations that people can use as 
defaults or to build from to create their UIs.

-- 
[   Peter Amstutz  ][ tetron at interreality.org ][ peter.amstutz at gdit.com ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey:  pgpkeys.mit.edu  18C21DF7 ]

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