llRenderText - Rendering Text on a Prim

For those of you who now use XYtext or some alternative you may want to vote for this JIRA entry. (For those who do not know what a JIRA is it is the system Linden Labs uses to keep track of bugs or requested features. The more votes a JIRA entry gets the better it's chance of being worked on.)

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-4715

It is a request for a new function to place text on a prim.

llRenderText ()

llRenderLinkText ()


Placing text on a prim right now is a process that requires prim torture, a script in each prim for the text and is limited in font selection. Having a new function for this would decrease the amount of scripts needed, speed the process of text rendering (it is assumed) and enable the use of less prims to mention a few benefits.

I was not aware of this JIRA entry myself untill today when I found it by accident so we need to make people aware of it and get the votes before it is even considered to be added to the scripting language.

/me pokes at the vote link.

An expansion of a text Justification parameter has been added to this request.

Please comment and vote on this if you are interested. This function has been needed for a long time. With only 16 votes it is nowhere close to being seen by Linden Labs.

For all you new scripters out there understand that a new function like this would make it easier for you to place text on a project. This is not the floating text you see above a prim but having text rendered on the face of the prim itself over existing textures.

As an example, to create a sign board without a function like this with 5 lines of text at 50 characters per line it would take 25 prims plus 1 prim for the background texture. A script would have to be placed in all 25 text prims and one in the base prim to control it all. That's a total of 26 scripts.

With this function you can do the same with 1 prim and 1 script.

I very much agree that this is missing functionality from SL, and should have been added day 1.

That said, the only problem I see is in the assumption that the number of votes a JIRA entry has means anything other than diddly-squat.

You have a better chance (still slim to none) of getting such a feature implemented by camping the appropriate Linden office hours for years until they implement it.

Yeah, I agree but I think of it like the loto. If you don't play at all your chances of winning are none.

it's not a bad idea, but the amount of work it'd take to implement (expand the dataspace for prim properties, install new sets and gets(hopefully) and incorporate the display code into the viewer end (to reduce proccessing load) amounts to a lot of overhead both for the extended fields that have to be sent, and another display layer in the video processing.

as for lotteries, there's always the adage about it being a tax on people that aren't good at math ( ok so it doesn't cost anything for a "ticket"... or does it )

Well the trade off would be less prims and less scripts to contribute to sim lag and more efficient coding along with the fact that this is a needed function. Why they spend time on stuff like HTTP-IN where a majority will never use it is beyond me.

Ok, so lottery was a bad example but you get what I'm saying. In other words it would not hurt to try.

If you can think of a better way to implement text on a prim I would like to hear about it rather then your opinion that it's too much for them to do and would take up too much data base space.

html on a prim? =)

for the record I stated that it wasn't a bad idea (just unlikely for various reasons) =P

Yes HTML on a prim would be possible but it is not as elegant a solution as adding a function.

That would also require a outside web server to pump the HTML text into SL onto a prim. That's more hassle then doing a straight function call and we got yet another piece of the link that can break down.

For people that just want a simple timer display or digital clock why would they want to go through all the trouble?

HTML on a prim does have it's uses but simple text on a prim is not one of them (In my opinion).

I agree that it's not as elegant a solution as a function, but 'would be' possible? It already IS possible. If you own land, you can display basic html pages on a prim with no problem in the media tab of the about land window. Also, soon Media Rendering Plugin System will make links clickable as well as interaction with Java and Flash media as well. You'll even be able to watch a youtube video by going to youtube.com, searching a video, and clicking the play button on the flash player to play it.

see, and here I was thinking it's infinitely more elegant. not only can you use whatever fonts you choose, but you have complete control over the layout and can throw other things in there.

yes it's slightly more of a hassle to set up a website or own land (anyone know if it'll work with http-in?) but it does ease the overhead data overhead for LL.

I would much rather have a non-scripted solution. I'd like to see dynamically-generated textures. The texture asset would be a SVG file, or if that's too ambitious, at least some other file format for specifying text and lines. You'd apply it to a prim the same way you'd apply any other texture.

Edit: Of course that doesn't address the need for a script to change text to something that hasn't already been created, so I suppose this is an entirely different need.

Edit2: Of course having a script generate SVG would be really cool

Ok, I want to make a simple counting timer to give it to a friend. Show me the script that can do that with HTML text on a prim. And none of us want to use a web server. And it has to have a static texture displayed in the background with using only 1 prim for the whole thing.
Oh, and my friend does not own land. Just renting.

That's really the big thing. At least for LL it probably is.

The sim hosts don't have anything even a little interesting for graphics hardware - probably just some crappy "VGA on a chip" deal - so it wouldn't be the sim rendering the text and/or html on the prim. It'd be some set of htmlish text that the viewer renders to an image then maps to a prim face.

LL's not going to be happy about letting people assign a KB or so of html text to each & every face on a prim. Data's not free!

It's limited to text/plain, but that much does work.

To send something to a prim with HTTP-in you need the URL to the prim and that changes each time the prim is rezzed or the sim is reset.

my thought was to put them in the same prim... server and display... but I don't know if it'd require redirects, or if there is a local transport layer like there is for email. (but that part is way off topic anyways.. =)

@Raster:

Oh well, I rent too, but the land is still under my name, so I have control over land functions. Why 'rent' land that you have no, or limited control over when you can rent land where the sim owner allows you to 'buy' the parcel so you have control over all land functions? That's the ENTIRE REASON to rent land. If you, or your friend or whatever is renting land just to have a place to stand on, you're seriously wasting money as there's plenty of sandboxes around that give you the same thing (for free). You act as if getting control of land is that big of a deal. If it is, don't expect to be able to do everything you want to if you can't bring yourself to buy or rent land that you can get control of. Also, if getting web space is outside of your reach, and you can't afford it or whatever, then that's your issue, not LLs. Stop expecting LL to hand you the entire internet and endless computing power on a prim. It's just not possible, so open your wallet if you want to do the things you're asking. As far as your simple timer goes, you could do it with hovertext, or with a web page on a prim using PHP (PHP has a timer class and printing functions, so it's easy to do if you have a web server). If want text on a prim, use xytext. If one prim, and no external web servers is your limit, then 10 characters is all you get, live with it.

@Sindy:

It's big for LL, but big for us as well. Being able to render full interactive dynamic web pages on a prim is going to be a big for everyone. Not only we be unshackled from using just LSL or LSL combined with limited HTTP, we'll have plug-ins that support Java and Flash content that is executed on non-LL servers. This will offload alot of the in world computing to external web servers, and less script execution there is, the better of we'll all be. It works for the web, so why not for SL. Do you have any idea how many different sources get pulled in to your average web page with ads and such? Prims of the future will have the computing power of the web behind it !!! That's something that will be big for everyone

@Void:

I agree, it is more elegant, perhaps not for the simple application he was talking about, but confronted with the OP's situation, that's the route I would go. Even static web pages are useful to a degree, with fully clickable web pages including support for stuff like java, flash, and anything else you want to write a plug in for, it's only going to get better.

"Oh well, I rent too, but the land is still under my name, so I have control over land functions. Why 'rent' land that you have no, or limited control over when you can rent land where the sim owner allows you to 'buy' the parcel so you have control over all land functions? That's the ENTIRE REASON to rent land. If you, or your friend or whatever is renting land just to have a place to stand on, you're seriously wasting money as there's plenty of sandboxes around that give you the same thing (for free). You act as if getting control of land is that big of a deal. If it is, don't expect to be able to do everything you want to if you can't bring yourself to buy or rent land that you can get control of. "

I do own land and plenty of it. The point is that I do not want my scripted object to have to be dependent on the land just to have text put on it.

"Also, if getting web space is outside of your reach, and you can't afford it or whatever, then that's your issue, not LLs."

I do have web space "rasters.org" and have done projects that use PHP. I have a product right now that I give away for free because it is dependant on a web server. I do not want any of my products dependent on a web server for the main reason that it will work if I ever decide to shut down the web server and leave SL. In my opinion I feel no products should be dependent an any outside source and run purely in SL. Yes, there are plenty that do not agree with that but you can bet that none of the products you get from me will fail because someone forgot to pay their web server bill or just left SL and closed their web server.

"Stop expecting LL to hand you the entire internet and endless computing power on a prim. It's just not possible, so open your wallet if you want to do the things you're asking."

I am not expecting LL to hand over to me the entire internet and endless computing power on a prim. Not like you expect the entire internet available on a prim with HTML, flash and whatever. And it would not take endless computing power to implement these 2 functions.

They already get more then enough of my money with the limited service I receive so don't go there.

"As far as your simple timer goes, you could do it with hovertext, or with a web page on a prim using PHP (PHP has a timer class and printing functions, so it's easy to do if you have a web server). If want text on a prim, use xytext. If one prim, and no external web servers is your limit, then 10 characters is all you get, live with it."

Your not telling me something new here. It's not like I started scripting yesterday. You know exactly what I wanted and you also know it can't be done in LSL without those functions. And I don't have to live with it. If you don't like the idea don't vote for it in the JIRA. You've already left your comments so move on.

And just to be clear, I do not have anything against Web pages implemented on a prim.

Don't get me wrong - I wasn't saying AT ALL that I wouldn't love to be able to put text in SL without having to use floaty text or upload a texture. Noooo.. Definitely wasn't saying that. Was only saying that for LL to do it what is IMO the "correct" way would be pretty expensive..

They could not store the info in the prim properties and have it go to some external website but I think that'll get us more gray textures then not as popular places start to melt personal webservers around the world. It'd also be sortofa new model for SL where the look of something in SL relied on some non-LL resource being alive and happy.

Yes, it will happen eventually. I just don't think it'll be what we expect.