Discussion: How to make buttons without a script in each button.

This is definately a sensible solution, but people should be aware that there's a bit of a downside to not having a script with a touch_start event in each child prim. If there is a touch_start within a script in the child prim, and you right-click the child prim you'll get a Touch option in the pie menu. However, if there is no script in the child with a touch_start then right clicking that prim will not give you a Touch option.

In most cases this isn't a problem, but it can be a real pain when you're testing something and you're in edit mode all the time. You have to switch edit mode off to actually trigger a touch in one of the children if all your touches are handled in the root.

I have to admit that I wasn't really aware of this when I first wrote Tringo and in fact all the buttons on the cards do have separate scripts. As much as it's gonna suck trying to test without the touch_starts in the child prims I will almost definately be handling all the touches in the root for the next version. Most likely by comparing just the link number instead of the prim names though, since it seems a little uneccesary to be doing string comparisions when you should be able to guarantee the link order. Unfortunately, as the squares on the card become more complex I'll probably still end up having to have a script in each one anyway.

I've used this technique of num for command and string for params quite often, but usually I'd build the string with pipes in between.

I'd be interested if anyone knows which would be faster out of these two...

string params = llList2CSV(param1, param2, param3);

...or...

string params = param1 + "|" + param2 + "|" + param3;

Of course the parameters would often contain commas (especially if there's vectors in there), so I dunno if llList2CSV would really work in a lot of situations anyway.

llList2CSV followed by llCSV2List absolutely does work with vectors. It doesn't do it properly, by quoting them (like 1,2,"<1,2,3>",4,5)... it seems to treat <...> as quoting characters... but it does handle them.

for lists of data to be passed though strings i use a set of functions i wrote ages ago (recently named, TightList)

list TightListParse(string a)
{
    string b = llGetSubString(a,0,0);//save memory
    return llParseStringKeepNulls(llDeleteSubString(a,0,0), ,[]);
}
string TightListDump(list a, string b)
{

    string c = (string)a;
    if(llStringLength(b)==1)
        if(llSubStringIndex(c,b) == -1)
            jump end;
    integer d = -llStringLength(b += "|\\/?!@#$%^&*()_=:;~{}[],\n\" qQxXzZ";
    while(1+llSubStringIndex(c,llGetSubString(b,d,d)) && d)
        ++d;
    b = llGetSubString(b,d,d);
    @end;
    c = "";//save memory
    return b + llDumpList2String(a, b);
}

list TightListTypeParse(string a) {
    if(llStringLength(a) < 7)  return [];
    //we need a null deliminator
    string m = "qQxXzZ|\\/?!@#$%^&*()_=:;~{}[],\n\" ";
    integer d = llStringLength(m);
    do;while(1+llSubStringIndex(a,llGetSubString(m,--d,d)) && d);
    m = llGetSubString(m,d,d) + llGetSubString(a,0,5);
    list b = llParseStringKeepNulls(llDeleteSubString(a,0,5), [],[a=llGetSubString(m,1,1),
                        llGetSubString(m,2,2),llGetSubString(m,3,3),llGetSubString(m,4,4),
                        llGetSubString(m,5,5),llGetSubString(m,6,6)]);
    if(llList2String(b,0) != ""
        b = [llGetSubString(m,TYPE_INTEGER,TYPE_INTEGER)] + b;
    else
        b = llDeleteSubList(b,0,0);
    integer c = -llGetListLength(b);
    list f;
    do
    {
        f = [a=llList2String(b,c + 1)]; //TYPE_STRING || TYPE_INVALID (though we don't care about invalid)
        if((d = llSubStringIndex(m, llList2String(b,c))) == TYPE_FLOAT)
            f = [(float)a];
        else if(d == TYPE_VECTOR)
            f = [(vector)a];
        else if(d == TYPE_ROTATION)
            f = [(rotation)a];
        else if(d == TYPE_KEY)
            f = [(key)a];
        else if(d == TYPE_INTEGER)
            f = [(integer)a];
        b = llListReplaceList(b, f, c, c+1);
    }while(c+=2);
    return b;
}
string TightListTypeDump(list a, string b) {
    b += "|\\/?!@#$%^&*()_=:;~{}[],\n\" qQxXzZ";
    string c = (string)a;
    integer d = 0;
    do
        if(1+llSubStringIndex(c,llGetSubString(b,d,d)))
            b = llDeleteSubString(b,d,d);
        else
            ++d;
    while(d<6);
    b = " " + c = llGetSubString(b,0,5);
    d = -llGetListLength(a) - 1;
    integer e;
    while(++d)
        c+= llGetSubString(b,e = llGetListEntryType(a,d),e) + llList2String(a,d);
    return c;
}

Any idea why this method won't work for a HUD? I keep getting my avatar's name returned.

string btn_name;

default
{

Any idea why this method won't work for a HUD? I keep getting my avatar's name returned.
Prims are linked and script is in root prim, which is not a button.

Using this method.

default 
{ 
     touch_start(integer total_number) 
     { 
          string name = llGetName(llDetectedLinkNumber(0)); 

          llSay(0,name);//returns avatar's name for me...does the fact that it's a HUD have anything to do with it?

          if(name  == "Button1") 
          { 
               // Whatever Button1 does... 
          } 
          else if(name == "Button2") 
          { 
               // Whatever Button2 does... 
          } 
          // And so on... 
     } 
}