Cylindrian's Tip/Info/Vending Sign (Part 1)
The Introduction
I'm going to post a series of howto entries that describe a project I recently worked on. This first entry serves as an introduction to the project - what is it, who would benefit from it, etc. In future entries I will step through how I approached the build, the learning and discovery process along the way, and the final components needed to complete it.
Recently I was contacted by my friend Bree Darling in IM. It turns out that my friend Cylindrian Rutabaga had contacted her asking for assistance with a tip jar project that Cylindrian had in mind. I offered to help out since Cyl is my friend and also since the project looked both straight foward and a little fun.
Let's first read Cylindrian's project outline:
"Scripted Item:
Donations/Tips-
Pay for CD using PayPal?
Link to MySpace -
Link to iTunes-
Link to CD Baby-
Link to Cylindrian Blog -
Link to Google Calendar-
SecondTunes Vendor
Wondering if there is a way to connect all these links NEATLY onto one sign prim.
So people can choose
1. where to purchase my music that is most convenient for them
2. how to keep up with my schedule
3. how to get to my website(s)
Also, I'd need feedback on design. I just want to minimize the items to place out on the stage.
:)"
One might note that "one single prim" might be better read "one single object" where I think the end goal is to quickly and easily rez props on stage before a show but still have the major bases covered.
Once I had an idea of what Cylindrian wanted I started to think through how to make the scripts required as generic as possible. Generic scripts might allow for reuse by others in various ways. Then I could share them here and you could choose to take the pieces you're interested in :) I hope/think I came up with some useful results with that goal in mind.
Here's a quick snapshot of our end result that this series of howto articles will work towards creating. What you're not yet seeing is the dialog and inventory system that I scripted to support the buttons.
While I was starting to think through the scripting problem Cylindrian stopped in to a club named "Soft Shadows Club". She dropped me a note that I might want to stop in and see their welcome sign. She liked the format and thought it might be a good model to work from.
Soft Shadows Club is in Starax sim and the sign in question is shown here:
The "click here" buttons on this sign either gives an inventory item (notecard or landmark) or it sends some form of communication to someone asking them to add you to the group. It does not (LSL cannot) add you to a group automatically.
Here is the text presented after you click their Join Group button:
Join Our Group: Your request has been sent. Please be patient and you will be added to the group as soon as possible.
As I first started working on this project I took a few notes. They went something like this:
"Maybe create something where the root prim handles the money event for tips, specific child prims would handle their own tasks, a dialog script with prefcard would be in each child prim, the prefcard would contain a dialog menu of options for that topic, target item, target item type (URL or inventory)
Load a Pref:Dialog file
There are 12 potential buttons in a dialog
So read twelve preference lines
If the line is empty there will be no button for that line
Have a list for name, target and type and load them when the script is rezzed or reset"
The end result came pretty close to these original notes and I learned a few small details along the way. The most interesting bit of research came in when trying to incorporate Bobby Fairweather's secondTUNES vendor prim as a child of the tip jar.
I'm going to attempt to break the project down into sections so stay tuned for part two in this little howto series. In part two we'll start working with some prims and research how the money() event is supposed to behave.
Comments
I must try to grasp this after SLelections.
Posted by: Vint | June 7, 2007 02:23 PM
Let me know what you think when you get time to review. It looks to be a 6 part series and should all be posted within a week or so.
Posted by: Dolmere Talamasca![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.lovelymachine.com/Dolmere/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 7, 2007 06:17 PM