1  ...  9  10  11  12  13  14  ...  36  |   Order by default

Nov 18, 2002, 1:04pm

Yes, actually this idea has been suggested many times. Never hurts to suggest it again though, since it's still not implemented yet.

One variation on this that I don't know of having been suggested yet, which would not have been possible until somewhat recently, would be to allow showing or hiding of people on your contact list with certain attributes set. For example, to hide all people on your contact list that you are currently hiding your on-line status from, or only show the people on your contact list that you're allowing file transfers from, or maybe only show the people on your contact list that are currently on line and displaying what world they are in.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 19, 2002, 5:32am

Why? And, care to define what you mean by "old butt posts"?

TZ

[View Quote]

Nov 20, 2002, 10:27am

If you look again at my reply, I was not just agreeing. I was also adding something which applies currently. As for it being a "dead wish" it's obviously not dead if it's still relevant and not yet realized.

TZ

[View Quote]

Nov 19, 2002, 5:42am

Yes, that would be cool. I can think of several ways such action could be implemented, but I think probably the biggest variable would be in how to handle the object-to-object collision detection such as when the launched object hits a wall or the ground or another moving object.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 23, 2002, 12:49am

Actually, to ride objects that have been set into motion with the move command or the rotate command shouldn't necessarily require an added command, but rather a change in weather or not the objects "bring us with" as they move, if we're in contact with them. It may be nice for backward compatability sake to have such a command though, with an "on" or "off" switch, and perhaps have the "on" or "off" default be set in the world features. Really though, I think a command with more flexibility should be made for making objects carry us around following a specific path, arround corners, changing speed and directions, etc. but that's just my opinion.

possible example...
ride 1n then 5e then 2s 3w 90r then 4a then retrace then repeat then 180r then 2b then -30r then 2f then loop speed=.02

Where:
1n = 1 meter north
5e = 5 meters south
2s 3w 90r = 2 meters south by 3 meters west while rotating 90 degrees
4a = up 4 meters
retrace = rotate 180 degrees and then follow back along the path traveled so far
repeat3 = return to original position and orientation along a direct path and then repeat the steps up to this point, 3 times.
180r = rotate 180 degrees
2b = move backward 2 meters along the object's Z axis.
-30r = rotate -30 degrees
2f = move forward 2 meters along the object's Z axis.
loop = repeat the entire sequence unconditionally as long as posible
"speed=.02" = movement speed of 2 centimeters per second, or .02 full circle rotations (7.2 degrees) per second, or which ever is the slower of the two when both moving and rotating at the same time.

This is of course, quite hypothetical and thought up on a moment's notice... but I think shows the basic idea that it would be possible to have rather detailed instructions in a reasonably sized Action line.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 23, 2002, 1:03am

The down side to this is that as it stands almost nobody uses the update parameter of the picture command correctly. Look around, and you'll find a lot of picture commands that cause the image to be re-downloaded every 5 seconds, or less, even though the image being displayed is usually only updated once every 10 minutes or much less often than that... and some of them are pointing to images that never update at all on the web, so the end result is needless downloading.

I think a better idea might be a special command to cause files to be pre-downloaded or re-downloaded on demand.

For example...

create predownload rag2 type=sound; activate sound rag2.mid

or

create texture faceimg; activate redownload faceimg type=texture

TechnoZeus


[View Quote]

Nov 23, 2002, 2:29am

That may be, if the code has been fixed since I last checked... but even then there would still be frequent unnecessary web accesses checking to see if the file has updated yet, which can make a big difference in performance if there are several of them in the same area. My point is that while it would be nice to have a way to update files in the cache as needed, it is also important to consider how such capabilities are likely to be used (or misused) and what effect it may have on overal performance.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 23, 2002, 5:23am

Actually, I first suggested it in March of 1997. I remember sending a couple of e-mails to Shamus wish suggestions, shortly after I first got Active Worlds. Looking back on it, I suppose Roland would have been the right person to send them to at that time, but having spent only a day in Active Worlds when I decided to send in my first set of suggestions, it shouldn't be surprising that I didn't know who to send them to. :)

Oh, and by the way... a scale command should be pretty easy to set up to work properly even in a world with a registry in use, since it's only simple multiplication and the parameters would be constants. Now, on the other hand, dealing with the registry would probably be a little more complicated with one of my more recent suggestions for a scale command which would allow the use of variables and making an object grow or shrink over a time lapse as if blowing up a balloon.

I'll write a separate post with some of the ideas I sent way back then which haven't gotten used yet, since most of them have probably been misplaced and forgotten after all these years. :)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 27, 2002, 11:49am

Yeah, I have a little trouble understanding why myself, but I suppose it may be that the people who do a lot of building and the people who do a lot of web page surfing are not the same group of people... so perhaps the builders are failing to represent their opinion in the vote because the vote is in a place where they would be less likely to find it. That page is still there and the items on it are still not implemented, so if anyone wants to vote on it I'm guessing it's not too late. Of course, I'm pretty sure they're not going to add what ever we vote most for just because it got the most votes... but if they see a lot of votes for the same feature I think they'll give that feature a lot stronger consideration because of it.

The current totals are as follows:
Custom Avatars 148 (32.03%)
Save outgoing telegrams 61 (13.20%)
Add a fullscreen mode 55 (11.90%)
Increase the maximum cell data limit 49 (10.61%)
Add a scale command 45 (9.74%)
Access multiple universes from a single browser 37 (8.01%)
Fix the world rights lists 26 (5.63%)
User-Selectable Chat Font 26 (5.63%)
Browser skins 15 (3.25%)
Total Votes: 462

Only 462 votes is really rather pathetic, and that's probably why they haven't done much with it so far. Want to make a difference?... cast your vote. I voted for the scale command a long time ago, even though I could see it was badly out-numbered by the idea of custom avatars. A scale command would be much easier to add than custom avatars and would make it possible to build much more creatively with no added downloads, so I'm still hoping it will eventually pull ahead, but any vote at all is better than no vote because at least it shows that we care and are willing to express our opinions in a civilized manor. If the feature you would like most to see added isn't in the list, then vote for one that is in the list for now, and use the "suggestion box" link to tell what you would like, and keep it short and simple so that it will fit well in the list if they decided to add it. I strongly suggest looking over some as many as you can of the old wishlist posts if you plan to use the suggestion box, or after you vote, to help you make a more informed choice. You can go back and change your vote if you change your mind, so there's no need to wait before voting. :)

http://www.activeworlds.com/FeatureVote/

TechnoZeus


[View Quote]

Nov 28, 2002, 7:38pm

Well, at least you voted. :)

TZ

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 1:00am

Any idea if it's been fixed yet? My list is full, so I can't test that one.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 1:35am

That's a good idea. Even if the bot driven console messages were mandatorily indented the size of a single space character, that would be enough to let people see that something's "different" so they would know to think more about such things.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 1:37am

Yeah, I think that happens when the texture has not downloaded yet at the time the commands are executed. It really shouldn't happen at all, but there is the question of how best to aproach doing something about it.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 1:39am

Yep... and a very old bug at that.

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 2:41am

Yeah, that's exactly why I'm catching up on old posts instead of ignoring them just because they're old. Many of the ideas that have been posted deserve further discussion. Of course, I'm selecting carefully which ones to actually reply to, but there are a lot of them so a few people have aleardy gotten tired of me making replies to them. To those that it bothers, I apologize for the inconvenience... but in spite of the name implying that this newsgroup is a "list of wishes" it's really a discussion forum for us to talk with each other about what we would like to see improved or changed in the Active Worlds software, so that we can decide for ourselves which of the "wishes" of the community we would like most to see. Those who can do something about it do pay attention to what they hear and see, and this is a good place to go over the ideas and concepts we think should be discussed further and decide what we like or dislike about them or how they can be improved so that we can help refine and perfect them over time before they get added to the software.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 26, 2002, 9:47am

It's a good suggestion, and worth considering, but for now I will continue the way I have been doing it. Different people have different definitions of things, and while this is a "newsgroup" it is also a "discussion forum" and I personally have little use for history so I'll ignore the dates for the most part and stick to paying attention to the contents. Just because something has become old doesn't mean it's no longer of any use. If that were the case, the earth would have been abandoned long ago and matter would be totally worthless. I won't live by another person's definition of what has value and why.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 27, 2002, 11:58am

So that you don't think I am ignoring you or taking what you said as fight talk, I will state the following as clearly and to the point as I can:

Your suggestion that I stop replying to threads which you consider to be dead has been noted.

I would like further to politely state that I respectfully choose not to take that advice but rather to use my own judgement in determining which topics, statements, comments, ideas, questions, and other posts I will reply to.

Thank you.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 28, 2002, 7:43pm

Actually, if someone really feels you are doing that it is constructive of them to politely point it out to you. That way, you have the opportunity to look at how you said the things you said and decide if there is anything you can do in the future to reduce the chances of comming off that way. By the way, I also took your comments toward me as constructive. I just happen not to share the same viewpoint.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 1:24am

That's a bit like trying to write a novel by asking your proof readers to examine it after each addition, deletion, or change of single sentance or paragraph, and publishing a new edition of the book for the public to upgrade to every time another section of a chapter is completed. There are problems with this type of aproach. Yes, the book would be pretty much error free at each new release, and yes people would be able to get a new edition more frequently, but writing a reasonable sized book that way would take a very long time, and if the author decided half way through writing the third chapter that they needed a character and situation added to the first chapter to support part of what they are planning for the fourth chapter, the process of editing chapter one, having it proof read, and publishing a revised edition would hold up work on chapter three and leave people wondering why the book was released with chapter three looking like someone forgot to finish it.

When AW 3.4 comes out... try carefully counting the number of things in it that could have been released one at a time, including the modifications along the way and things that were tried and then decided against, and run a little calculation to see how many years that would have taken. I think you'll be glad they didn't do it that way.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 25, 2002, 6:52am

Would it be every 2 to 3 weeks, really? Realistically, it would probably be less often than that, but the real question is... how often would it have to be in order to keep up with the way they are doingit now.

I'll look into the answer to THAT question, and I'll post it in a new thread when I've got it figured out. :)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 17, 2002, 6:51pm

1. Give me a world name and coordinates, and tell me how to duplicate what you are seeing as a bug, and I will let you know.

2. See my 10/16/2002 post, Command Enhancements. Is that close to what you had in mind?

3. Cool idea. I've sent in variations on that also.

4. They can... don't know if they could at the time you wrote that though... I'm guessing not, or you probably wouldn't have wrote that.

5. I'm sure the reason they did it that way is to keep from using huge amounts of data space, but I can think of one way they could keep from adding more data per cell, and still allow names... add a list of terrain texture names to the World Features dialog, using the current names as default, and allowing you to type in replacement names for each texture number.

6. They're working on key mapping now, but probably only for customization at the AW browser level. Perhaps when that's out of the way, a little customization (at least for some defaults) at the world or universe level could be added too.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 3:25am

Yep. There are advantages to being able to have a choice between shared experiences and unique experiences. For example, an experience that is not shared saves bandwidth, while one that is shared allows more interaction.

On Wednesday, October 16, 2002, I wrote a post entitled "Command enhancements" which among other things includes one example of how we could keep the functionality we have while allowing an easy to use command extension to make shared events possible. I would have posted it as a reply to this one, if I had seen this one before writing it... but I'm still catching up in here. Here's a link to the post (if it works)... news:3dae1534 at server1.Activeworlds.com

I would like to see shared events as an option also.

TechnoZeus


[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:07am

There is. It's been there since the command was first added. It's also the default though, so just don't use the Sync parameter when you want that behavior. Also, if you would like to make a delay timer to start several objects at distinctly different times, you can use the animate command as follows...

create animate me tag=99 wow 1 1 9000, astart; adone move 30 0 -20 loop

This example gives a 9 second delay and will work properly on the current version of Active Worlds in any world that has a wow1 texture, when used on an object that does not have a surface with a tag value of 99.

Back in early 1998 I suggested adding Trigger Delay support, which would make this much sort of thing simpler. Here is an example of a command using the (as yet unsupported) trigger delay concept to accomplish the same thing, but without being restricted to working properly only if a certain texture exists in that waorl or only if a certain tag value is not in the object being used...

create(9) move 30 0 -20 loop

In my original version of the trigger delay idea I used milliseconds, to coenside with the animate command's syntax, but since seconds are widly in use now, I have used seconds as the delay units in this example. There would have to be no spaces in the "create(9)" because that way it would be read in as a trigger, and the first thing after the space would be interpreted as a command. The unmber in parentheses (or braces, or what ever the developers decide to support) would be interpreted as a delay time in seconds, and a timer would be started that would cause the command following that trigger to happen when the timer runs out. There could be any number of such timers, and multiple triggers could be combined by placing a "/" between them, again with no spaces. For example...

create sign "start with this text"; create(3600) sign "You've been here an hour?"; activate(60) sign "clicked over a minute ago"; activate sign "just clicked"

or another example...

create sign "not clicked or bumped yet"; activate sign "clicked"; bump sign "bumped"; activate(60)/bump(60) sign "bumped or clicked over a minute ago"; activate(350)/bump(350) sign "clicked or bumped ofer 5 minutes ago"

Anyway, my point is that if these trigger delays were implemented, you could "easily" set up very specific delays on your move commands to keep them noticeably out of sync, but even without such and easy way to do it, the animate command makes it "possible" to accomplish the same effect.

TechnoZeus


[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:14am

These have both been asked for many times. I'll tell you why it's not happening.... just so you'll know.

There are reasons to want to limit the ability to grab images from anywhere on the web and display them on objects all over Active Worlds. Among them are the incredable amount of lag it adds, the enormous increase in cache size it causes, and the fact that some people may get rather angry about images from their web sites being used in such a way. Anyway, yes it would be really nice to have, and most likely very easy to add... but it's really not likely to happen. Sorry.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:25am

Looks like you got your wish. See Build 436 Notes (10/23/02) http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/beta.html

:)

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:29am

The chat part can be done with a bot, but it's a little messy... or rather, was... now with the capabilities of the latest SDK, a bot could be written that would do it quite nicely... and could even theoretically allow duplicate what's built in each linked world into the other ones, as it's built, so that about all that would be missing is being able to see the avatars in the linked universes.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:39am

Not sure how this would fit in with what you're asking for, but one of the suggestions I've made was to have a list of texture names to use for terrain saved in the world attributes. This way it would be easy to set up a list of textures without having to rename existing textures or create new ones, and would take up no more data per cell than it does now. By default the current naming scheme would be used, but a slot would be available for each number to allow the default terrain texture name to be replaced in the world attributes by any texture name a world caretaker chooses.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 29, 2002, 4:55am

Interesting. I suggested the same thing only four days later, without seeing this one. Hehe. Here is the command syntax given in my suggestion...

color color [name=name] [mask=mask] [size=size] [tag=tag] [shared=flag]

For example, "create color 8000ff name=target1 mask=flame1m size=.5 tag=100" would color the sign text surface of target1 a nice purple in the shape of 4 flames.

For the full text of my related post, see: news:3dae1534 at server1.Activeworlds.com
Command enhancements
Wednesday, October 16, 2002 7:41 PM

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Nov 30, 2002, 5:31am

Not the same thing, J.

TechnoZeus

[View Quote]

Dec 1, 2002, 9:49am

At least you tried. :)

TZ

[View Quote]

1  ...  9  10  11  12  13  14  ...  36  |   Order by default