Why can't scripting be done via a "gui"?

This is likely to be a long post.

First, for your consideration, I present the following links. None of these conflict or compete directly with Second Life directly, but at least some of them might be of interest to the creative sorts that inhabit the grid.

http://www.3drad.com/

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/

http://unity3d.com/

http://revmedia.runrev.com/revMedia/

These all have free--sometimes totally free--versions that you can download and try out. Go ahead. Have fun. I'll wait.

What I wanted to show, is that they all feature methods of getting script like activity via the use of check boxes, slides, word wheels, and short type in fields. None of them do away with scripting entirely, but, they all manage to accomplish a lot, with very little in the way of memorizing syntax.

Shouldn't it be possible to set at least some things, such as particles, floating text, simple prim animation, texture animation, and all the other things that ultimately become part of a prims paramaters once set? We already do this sort of thing on the features menu with light and flex. Why not expand the functionality to support more features and options?

I mean, why can't a prim be configured to respond to a click and rotate or slide out of the way? Instant door. Or, when sat upon, start the animation or pose that it contains--WITHOUT adding a script.

It shouldn't be all that difficult, to, for example, define a few keystrokes that when detected, allows a linkset to move forward, backwards, left or right. Or cycle through some colors or textures.

"Real" programmers and scripters don't like things like Revolution or Hypercard (if you remember that) because it allows non programmers to write real applications customized for their particular needs--without hiring a "real programmer."

Perhaps, it could even be extended to the point where prims could make simple decisions, or pass commands to other prims. Why not? Scripts always need a prim anyway, and all I'm suggesting, when you think about it, is changing the editor. And we all know the built in LSL editor sucks big rocks.

I'm aware that this wouldn't do away with scripting. It's easier to follow a complicated program through a normal printout, or list than across a series of menus, or even other prims. But, I feel this would be a perfect way to make SL creativity even more approachable.

Why can't it be? It could be!!!

A better question to ask might be "why isn't it?" The answer to that would be because LL hasn't done it. Even the cool Lindens seem pretty detached from the virtual reality of their making. It probably hasn't occurred to them that stuff like this would make really good sense. (then again, it's not just "open this door" or "play this anim".. there's always more details than that. still doable, though)

They probably don't want to hear from all the residents that would be unhappy when thier little this or that they sell becomes useless.

Oh I know it's not always "open this door" or play this animation. But SO often it's nothing more than "show this text" or spin, or scroll this texture.

I've collected dozens of one line scripts that do nothing more than that. And I appreciate the fact that some of them became rosetta stones for the little bit of scripting that I HAVE learned.

/me *sighs* at what people think of as 'a good thing' and goes back to vi

Uh, why would things suddenly become useless? Is that a reference to the coming script memory limitations? My musings have nothing to do that, and it's possible it's implementation might help reduce script memory.

Yeah well, some of us get tired of climbing the steps to that ivory tower.

But it's not like we still wouldn't need you. Just not as often.

Things change. There's nothing wrong with making things easier for the majority of us.

No... I mean things like doors. How many people make thier SL profit off selling doors? Of course I guess door textures would still sale. It is those kind of things I am talking about. If you make it really easy to make a door, then the percentage of people that make thier own right from the start increases. Door sellers get less $L.

Actually it is probably the same reason they don't change the viewer to include AOs and radar. To do so they ruin someones business.

*shrugs* maybe not. I must admit I really don't understand how LL makes any of its decisions. They have done business ruining stuff before, usually only if they can see a way to profit themselves though.

As if the Lindens haven't already done many things that ruined peoples businesses? Just ask the bankers, casino and sex club operators.

Besides, if you want to keep selling doors, just make one that works better than the ones that be done via a couple clicks of a gui.

Free flight scripts and multi pose ball scripts haven't put cubey terra or stroker serpentine out of business yet.

Besides, I haven't bought door since I figured out how the Timeless Prototype linked door script works.

I think this would be great, as long as normal scripting was still there and still being developed as well.


I've often thought something like Max MSP or Pure Data would be fun to build in SL - you could visually patch prims together.


... and that's a good thing. Scripting should be powerful and offer the full range of parameters whereas a GUI should be convenient and easy ... but more limited and safer - for example, it should be impossible to make a timer with a very short interval using the GUI.

I could see something like this being popular with the new demographic - they could make interactive stuff without getting their hands dirty. As long as scripting was still available ... it could be like Flash, where you can do a lot very easily with the GUI but use Actionscript to do the powerful stuff.

Exactly. You seem to get it.

I'm just saying--there are a lot of things that can be done via a simple select and click interface--similar to what already exists in the features window for flexi prims.

But scripting wouldn't have to go away.

I can't see this damaging people's businesses too much. The sort of people who would use this are meddlers ... people who like to make their own stuff but who don't want to really learn scripting. There are already plenty of OS scipts available for people to use - this just makes it less scary for people to get started if they are frightened of scripting. Writing code will always be more powerful. A GUI is a way of getting a machine to write your code for you. It will not be as good as a skilled programmer writing you a custom script. By the time somebody considers buying a script, I would hope they have already looked at what is available for free. Just as there are plenty of people who don't want to edit prims to make themselves the simplest of things, there are plenty who won't want to use this, and will want to buy readymade content instead.

Also, it shouldn't break content. There's already a website that writes your LSL for you - you just tell it what you want it to do. Does anybody have the link to this site? It works well enough for simple scripts but I would imagine it produces inefficient code if you ask it to do too many things at the same time.

I know about that website. Or a website like that. There's another one that does particle effects.

And yes, I know about all the free scripts that are available through the (largely abandoned) script forum, and various places around the grid.

My spaceship house flies, has elevators, working water, lights, lockable doors, tinting windows furniture with selectable poses, and various animated texture effects. (I happen to be a bit concerned about the coming of script memory limitations.) I used freely available scripts to do it all. I even modified some of them myself.

But I'm tired of wiping noseprints off my monitor because I missed a semicolon.

I'm about to enrage every AO and script writer on the forums.

Here's a way LL could profit from this:

- Write a viewer that includes an AO, and includes Dances' GUI EZScripter. Oh, and make sure it includes other popular Emerald features, especially breast physics.
- Include that viewer as a bennie for Premium members only.

This one? http://www.3greeneggs.com/autoscript/

And this one.

http://particles-lsl-generator.bashora.com/index.php

Heh. And that WOULD be the way to get it done--wouldn't it?

Yeah that one. That's half-way there. All it needs is the words replacing with internationally recognisable icons Then add a thing you can drag from one prim to another for communication and you're away!

Hmm. . .I'd like to see a word wheel, or a place where you can type in, for example, the name or uuid of a specific avatar or some object or other.

But yeah, it's a start.

Probably for the same reason that they have not put the AO into the client or server, have not done away with needing some sort of flight assist to fly higher than 200-300m, have not bothered to build in a radar, etc.....

NO DAMN GOOD REASON, that's why!!!





*laughs and goes with you

ah... the good ole days

Luddites!

lol

Every ui based script generator ever made for any scripting language ever produces horrible, slow, memory hogging code.

Not to mention how much stagnation in products will occur. You may suddenly be able to make that working door. But guess what, no one wants it, because it is exactly like every other door out there

Meanwhile, my door once a year querys google to see if the 3rd search result for "purple tacos" starts with the letter q and if so turns the door into a platipus. AND it updates your twitter about it.

Platipus are cool so therefore people will buy mine.

And on top of all reasons, why bother developing something the scripting language can already do and most likely in a much better way?

Because scripting is unapproachable by the majority of the grid population.

Why not go back to hex keypads to input micro code? Or bit switches for that matter.

For the same reason that they create a place for newbs to live free of charge other than membership and for ONE of the reasons the designers use resize/re-whatever scripts -- not all new people want to learn all of the creation stuff and not all of them even have the aptitude for it, but we still want to attract and retain those folks.

Yes, eventually a person will probably need to learn more about scripting or spend some dollars on a door with more features, but the basic 'change position and go back' on touch could easily be written into an element of the build process.