Help with a status indicator.

I have a script running which is in effect an online status indicator. I have added an extra prim which will be a small visual indicator like an LED which will show red or green. What is the best way for the main script to communicate with the script in this indicator prim. I am not sure if I should use llMessageLinked or llSay on a private channel.

If anyone has an example of how to do this then it would be very much appreciated.

If the indicator is only going to be used to show red or green then it is best not to have a script in it at all.

Just isolate what it's link number is ( a little look up in the start of the main script that finds the name and stores the link number ) then use llSetLinkColor to change the appropriate prim.

eg

  string indicator_name = "my indicator" ;
  integer idx;
  integer link_number;
  for ( idx = 2 ; idx <= llGetNumberOfPrims( ) ; idx ++ )
  {
     if ( llGetLinkName( idx ) == indicator_name ) 
     {
        link_number = idx;
     }
  }

That finds the link number - you said you have the on-line detection code so this bit assumes you have set online to be either TRUE or FALSE.

//
    if ( online ) 
    {
       llSeLinkColor( link_number, <0,1,0>, ALL_SIDES );
    }
    else
    {
       llSetLinkColor( link_number, <1,0,0>,ALL_SIDES );
    }
//

That changes the prim color.

link them up and use link messages if possible. For something like this your gain is making it not spoofable, and fractionally less lag (a listen on an odd channel that doesn't get hit that often won't slow things down that much).

It depends a bit on how you've set it up, but in outline something like:

if(online) llMessageLinked(LINK_ALL_OTHERS, 0, "<0.0, 1.0, 0.0>, "");
else llMessageLinked(LINK_ALL_OTHERS, 0, "<1.0, 0.0, 0.0>, "");

in the detector prim and:

link_message(integer sender, integer prim, string msg, key id)
{
    llSetColor((vector)msg, ALL_SIDES);
}

Should work just fine.

Of course, depending on complexity etc. this might be even nicer:

if(online) llSetLinkColor(LINK_ALL_OTHERS,<0.0, 1.0, 0.0>,ALL_SIDES);
else llSetLinkColor(LINK_ALL_OTHERS, <1.0, 0.0, 0.0>, ALL_SIDES);

Is even simpler to set up and use...

There are caveats about the if statements - updating the prims' colour every few seconds is wasteful and laggy - setting it up so you check to see if the status has changed and only sending the colour change then is nicer to the sim, even if it's nastier to the code.

Also consider what time interval you want to use to detect if someone is online or not. It is tempting to check every second, but once in every five minutes will do the job just as well.

Thanks to all the replies.

Frans, the scan rate is set at 1 minute at the moment. I might extend it.


I think I uderstand how you found the link number in the first example. If the object consisted of only 2 prims then would I be safe using an id of 2.

I am not sure how the LINK_ALL_OTHERS works Eloise. It suggests that it affects all prims in an object. If that is the case would it change colour of the main prim as well as the indicator.

It will change all prims except the prim that the script is in.

LINK_ALL affects the whole link set.

LINK_ALL_OTHERS affects, as you might guess, everything except the prim the script is in.

LINK_ROOT affects just the root (although using 1 works just as well)

LINK_ALL_CHILDREN affects everything except the root prim.

(Sorry if they're slighly syntactically wrong - can't have this and the wiki open on the fun machines they give me at work.)