SL resident implements HTML On A Prim

http://www.jeff-barr.com/?p=607

It also does text on a prim. It even seems able to show the first frame of web-based FLASH movies. Neato.

Note: when you visit the location, the object is on the roof.

.....speechless

Now is there some way to hack up clickable links on the texture?

That seems to be the real trick....

Nah, it uses an HTML --> JPG converter and then uses the parcel media scripting commands to show it on the prim through Quicktime. Pretty slick!

Regards,

-Flip

Yeah, it's not really HTML on a prim. It uses the same method as the Flickr slideshow generator (which I actually think is more impressive as it actually has a point) - i.e. that a media texture can display anything that Quicktime can display, and Quicktime can display lots of things, including image files and Flash.

so there is no chance of actually making an in-world browser with this?


*weeps silently*

Nope.

You could have it display quite a lot of user-defined content, though, if it's in a limited field. For instance, you could use it to display positions on an SL map using the map API, and thus have a scriptable map, something which would be really handy - say, a live update of where my trams currently are in SL on the map.

If I had more time I'd do this myself. Unfortunately I'm snowed under with stuff as it is. I wish I could do this full-time.

Yeah, I see. It's done using Quicktime. Ah well.

I refuse to give up on this dream.

Just need a spatial map of where all the hyperlinks on a page are, relay that to the prim via HTTPResponse...

alright gang...help me out here

No way to determine where on a prim you clicked... its dead Jim.

I was thinking more along the lines of rezzing little spheres over the links, and having the spheres...

aww...screw it.

Luciftias, don't give up! My God man, look at yer name! You're a lightbringer!

Detecting where clicks occur HAS been done and could be utilized for this purpose. The technique is used in the SL "Hyper Flute" line of musical imstruments. The Hyper Flute is an SL instrument that can be played using a mouse, by clicking different notes on it's HUD. The Hyper Flute requires the user to run an additional app alongside SL. The app detects mouse movements / clicks and relays the input to an SL script. The HUD is really just a convenience for the user,so the user knows what note he / she will get when clicking.

Search out this technology and use it! Godspeed!

There are still a lot of great, practical applications for this use of Quicktime. For example, you can convert a powerpoint to Flash (using OOo version 2+), upload to a server, and advance through the slides each time you click the play button.

Regards,

-Flip

Thanks to the three helpful residents who turned up on the site and managed to explain to me I need Quick Time before I started and despite my lack of LSL ability explained what was happening. Still having wistful dreams of live streaming data on a prim.

Regards

John

The Quicktime viewer can display text files without a bunch of special processing.

In playing around with this - it appears that my Quicktime client wants to cache any JPEG loaded, which totally sucks for a page (JPEG) that changes often.

Anyone else seen this problem, and if there's some sort of workaround - short of having users manually go into their quicktime preferences and setting their cache to 0 MB?

With PHP it would be possible to process the page, if you can get PHP to handle the conversion oh the HTML to JPEG and put it in a cache folder (with differing names to avoid Quicktime being silly?) then you could relay a texture to the prim, and then some info using XML-RPC telling it where the hyperlinks are.
Problem is the PHP would need to be pretty advanced to process CSS and positioning information, and then it would be quite slow and ungainly in-world.

It _is_ possible, just not nice in any-way

It might be of interest to many people to look into some of the other things QuickTime is capable of that might be incorporated into SL...

...ferinstance, using panoramic images with hotlink areas, one could create a sort of MYST style presentation. Has anybody attempted to utilize QT's panorama features in SL? I'm not sure if mouse clicks would be interpreted as clicking on the QT movie, or the prim. haven't tried it.

Hotlinks can be used to change scenes, launch movies, open websites, etc. If this can be used, this would open up a world of interaction options inside SL.

What about playing Movies or TV Shows in your iTunes library or (dot).Mac account?

What about custom shaped QT players? QT allows you to "skin" its interface for each and any movie you create. Not sure how that would be implimented in SL, but it's another interesting feature.

There was a time when Steve Jobs promised us we could develop actual programs inside of QT. The reality of this hasn't happened yet, but we can keep our fingers crossed. If you can count on anybody to innovate - it's Apple.

I don't know if it's changed, but the Hyper Flute I own has a regular HUD that works in SL by just having a different prim for each key and working out which one you clicked on..

My understanding was that the add-on program let you play the Hyper Flute with the computer keyboard, or possibly through MIDI?

Yeah, I may have been mistaken about how that works. It'd be possible to write a client side mouse interceptor in JAVA with awt and send mouse movements to SL, I suppose.

You could put, say, an incrementing integer in the snapshot filename and change the parcel media address each time there's a new one.

Travis, I know the case you're talking about, and I think I've figured a work-around. Simply append a variable / random number generated (or incremented counter?) in LSL to the URL:

http://www.foo.com/bar.php?blah=this&random_number=92375985

That'll force Quicktime's cache to think it's a different file each time. As hack, yes, but one that works and I can't see stopping working any time soon, lest Quicktime stop support YouTube content.

Regards,

-Flip

It would be neat if "media urls" were assigned to prim faces instead of to a texture on a parcel.

Kelly says that quicktime can only produce one image at a time, but why not be able to have that image on a HUD, with an assignable HUD media url and HUD media texture, so you (and others) could watch your quicktime media without concern for what parcel you are on? It'd be a lot more useful.

Is this because the SL QuickTime implementation is rendering video using GWORLDS?
http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/icefloe/dispatch009.html

I think QT in an application can only use one GWORLD at a time:
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.11/11.09/QuickTimeGWorlds/index.html
Quote: "QuickTime will always use only one GWorld for drawing."

If this is the case, could SL upgrade to using QT 7.1? It looks like QT 7.1 eliminates dependance on GWORLDS:

"7.1 SDK notes: 7.1 Includes new abstractions layers for OpenGL rendering and the new Visual Context, an abstraction layer that eliminates dependence on graphics worlds (GWorlds) and supports rendering directly to engines such as OpenGL on Mac OS X and Direct3D on Windows, beginning with QuickTime 7.1."

We have solution for the clickable region portion that people are talking about. We've got a product out there for developers and as a distribution package to allow one side of a cubed prim to have clickable areas. It's appropriately called "Clickable Regions".

It does require a couple things. Either the agent has to have an attachment, or be sitting in a chair, and they have to be in mouselook when they click. The alternate method is Junie Ginsburg's Clickmap solution.

See me in-world, check SLX, or drop by our headquarters for some demo screens.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Big%20Mushamush/96/246/123/?x=500&y=300&img=http%3A//static.flickr.com/117/250634629_73fe1bc92f_m.jpg&title=Metaverse%20Tech%20HQ&msg=Visit%20us%20at%20Metaverse%20Tech%20Headquarters.%20Bridging%20the%20physical%20and%20virtual%20worlds.