Linked Prims Too Limited

Ok, I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this, but the linked prim system needs real help.

Hierarchial linking needs to be enabled (aka the linking of pre-linked objects together retaining the original linked objects underneath).


The distance allowed between linked prims either needs to be made immaterial or increased significantly.

The method by which prims are linked, needs considerable work: As a builder I should be able to select all the prims I wish to link, and then in a dialog, select the root prim, weed out prims and prelinked objects I did not wish to link, etc.

For editing of linked parts, selection of the whole linked object in the SAME dialog should be allowed, so that the user can easily scroll through, add scripts, remove scripts, edit properties, and delete/unlink individual prims, etc.


These are the changes that should be made. As I listen to the various chats of the groups I'm a member of I am apalled that things which to me would seem so.... easy, are in fact exasperating. Whenever the subject of certain build techniques is brought up, people seem to suggest the need for exhaustive "WORK AROUNDS", rather than a direct solution provided by the client / server software.


For prims it would be very simple.

Lets say we had a database table, which represented a group of linked prims. Say....

Table Linked_Prims

ENTRY_ID GUID
NAME VARCHAR(255)
LINK_ID GUID

Now we have a normal prim table...

Table Prim
ENTRY_ID GUID
MAME VARCHAR(255)
.
.
. PROPERTIES AND SUCH
.
LINK_ID GUID


I mean to me the organizational aspect of hierarchial links seems simple. And given that objects above 31 prims can't have physical properties( a seperate issue, as I believe that phantom and physical prims SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE LINKED INCLUSIVELY), and objects very far away could immediately be set to not being physical (NOT PHANTOM, JUST NOT PHYSICAL) I don't think the additional programming would be all that hard.


I for example, have a non physical ship ( which should be able to be made into a vehicle damn it!)

Its 30 meters long and 5 meters wide, it links, after a hell of a lot more hassle than SHOULD BE NECESSARY. However if I add side sails, or sails to it, it will not link... we're not talking a huge object here, we're talking maybe 30x25 meters (most of which is not used or occupied)...... and really even if it were club sized, why can it not be linked for easy editation, grouping, etc ?


This is a problem a large number of builder's struggle with and should be given attention.

I understand the Lindens have alot of other issues, mainly network issues it would seem, but this is something which may even reduce your overhead slightly, as changes to link tables could be referred to by LINK_ID instead of by the individual prim GUIDs, which may reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted for larger projects.

Anyway, I hope something happens soon.

Lorinaard Martinek

...please don't post the same thing in multiple forums. The Lindens don't see it any better and it just annoys the rest of us.


I've been asking for hierarchical linking for years.

Is there a JIRA issue? I remember voting on an issue on the old feature requests system but in a quick search can't find it on the JIRA.

It's something I want too; trying to create a multi-part, animating item is a nightmare as currently I have to do it with separate objects communicating via llWhisper() which kind of limits what I can do since I can't pack data into an integer or any other fancy things I can do with link-messages. I'm hoping sculpties will ease the burden significantly for what I want, but it's still far from perfect =(

Eliphino.

I don't use JIRA other than voting on an issue when someones posts a link, as well as a few (two or three) created issues. At least one was because someone else couldn't login/figure out JIRA.