[x3d-public] Re: [www-vrml] Walking Kamala

[Dave A <dave.arendash@corp.manyone.net>]

Ultimately, I'd love to be able to code X3D the way I do javascript. 
Namely, just 'include' (or 'import' whatever) the file, and be able to 
access its contents at-will, just like javascript. I understand for 
whatever security and propriety reasons the need to 'hide' content, and 
I wish that the original spec had required a 'static' or 'hidden' tag or 
something to indicate such things, but an 'export all' statement of some 
sort would suffice at this point.
Such a file would/could be 'imported' and just used as if it had been 
there all along, just like javascript does. Wouldn't that be nice? Not 
to have to sync proto/externproto headers? To be able to get at whatever 
you need/want from another file? Man would that be sweet. Tony and I 
kicked around the idea of a 'proto import' functionality, best of both 
worlds, but not in the spec.
Anywho, just as putting a loadsensor on an Inline does NOT tell you when 
all of the Inline's contents are loaded (just the inline itself, but 
wouldn't THAT be nice too!?), I would live with an extern/imported file 
being able to be load-sensed, such that I could know when that's 'in'
My current application uses rather large (many-poly) models, with a few 
bitmap textures. It's those models, not the linked textures, I'd love to 
load sense (so the user doesn't assume the plugin has hung up). Perhaps, 
and I'm just spit-balling here, not looking at a spec:

<Import url="myexterns.x3d" DEF="myexterns" />
<LoadSensor>
 <watch USE="myexterns" />
</LoadSensor>

<ExternProto url="externprotos.x3d" ... blah blah />
<LoadSensor>
 <watch DEF='ANYTHING_WITH_A_URL_SHOULD_BE_LOAD_SENSED' 
USE='externprotos.x3d' />
</LoadSensor

<Include 
url="if_this_never_loads_who_cares_if_it_was_sync_or_async_it_is_still_broken_content_and_wont_work.x3d"/>
<LoadSensor 
DEF='And_I_dont_care_that_it_is_a_lot_of_work_because_your_plugin_wasnt_designed_like_that_it_is_too_valuable_not_to_have" 
 />

something along those lines.

Dave A


Joe D Williams wrote:
> > Joe D Williams wrote:
> > > > Inlines:  getting events to an inlined object/world in the 
> > > > containing world
> > > and from one.  VRML97 doesn't allow that
> > >
> > > i would say that it is not that it is not allowed, just in the VRML97
> > > run-time, the spec does not require it. The X3D spec does require it.
> > ..snip..
> > > Thanks,
> > > Joe
> >
> > Joe, are you saying that the X3D spec allows for getting events into 
> > and out of
> > an Inline node?
>
> Yes Dave, from what I understand, this is what we use ImportExport for.
>
> > Can you point to chapter/verse on that?
>
> <http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specifications/ISO-IEC-19775-X3DAbstractSpecification_Revision1_to_Part1/Part01/concepts.html#ImportExportsemantics 
>
>
> <http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specifications/ISO-IEC-19776-X3DEncodings-XML-ClassicVRML/Part01/concepts.html#IMPORT_EXPORTStatementSyntax> 
>
>
> <http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specifications/ISO-IEC-19776-X3DEncodings-XML-ClassicVRML/Part02/concepts.html#IMPORTStatementSyntax> 
>
>
> > I'd love to see it happen,
>
> Speak to your boss:).
>
> > I hate ExternProtos, and nobody has implemented Import/Export (that I 
> > use), so
> > this would be very useful, if true.
>
> Yes!
>
> Dave, I think if you don't like ExternProtos, then you are not using
> them right or expecting the wrong things.
> I think it is like saying you don't like external .js files as scripts.
> For instance, you want an externporto to tell you progress as it is
> loaded (i think). In general, due to the fact that it does not know its
> final content until it is loaded, and the fact that it cannot report
> anything at all until it is loaded is just something you have to design 
> with.
>
> The added import/export interfaces for an inline do not make this any
> easier or better, it just makes one more way a constructing a composite
> scene possible. If you need to put a proto into an inline, then dup a bunch
> of interfaces so you can talk to the proto from within the inline, then you
> might rethink it and move some stuff around.
>
> > Cheers
> >
> > Dave A
>
> Good Luck,
> Joe
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