Difference between revisions of "FURWARE text"

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== Known issues ==
== Known issues ==


* There is currently an issue where sending characters that are not part of the font texture may cause unexpected behavior. I accidentally introduced this bug when preparing the open source release of the script (the error is not present in 2.0-Beta1). I'm working on a fix and will release it together with some other changes soon.
No issues are known for the current release, but please report any problems you find.


== To do ==
== To do ==

Revision as of 04:51, 20 July 2013

This page is also available in German. / Diese Seite ist auch auf deutsch verfügbar.


Overview

FURWARE text is a script for displaying text on prims using textures. It is intended to be integrated in your objects in which it will be controlled by your own scripts.

FURWARE text is not a ready-made display board but is intented for scripters who wish to integrate it in their own creations.

The script was proprietary from 2010 to July 2013 until I (Ochi Wolfe) have decided to make it open source under the MIT license. It is my first attempt to make a fully open sourced product in Second Life.

Features

  • Open source (MIT license)
  • Only one script for a whole group ("sets") of displays
  • Formatting (color, alpha, alignment, wrapping, trimming, font, borders)
  • Mesh prims with 1 to 8 chars, only occupying 0.5 prims each
  • Virtual text boxes to position text arbitrarily
  • Style templates for encapsulating multiple style settings

How to obtain the script

You can obtain a complete package containing the script, the display creator, display meshes and font textures at the Marketplace.

For developers and interested users, I have also set up a GitHub account for the core scripts.

Documentation

Please see the following subpages for the user's manual and developer documentation:

First steps & extensive tutorial

Short reference & version history

Helper functions for more convenient usage

Developer documentation

How to contribute

For users: A very important part of contribution to the development of this script is to report any problems you experience while using it as well as suggestions how to make using it even more awesome. For the time being, feel free to write a notecard to Ochi Wolfe or add your comments to the discussion of this wiki-page.

For developers: If you have any suggestions for improvements to the script itself, you can either post them in the same way or you can branch the project on GitHub and send your pull requests. Just make sure that they are, of course, of awesome quality and that they don't bloat the script more than it already is bloated. In fact, any suggestions to improve performance and decrease memory consumption are very welcome.

Known issues

No issues are known for the current release, but please report any problems you find.

To do

There are still some things to do for the conversion into an open source project:

  • Check the documentation for errors.
  • Migrate the German documentation to the SL Wiki.
  • Create developer documentation explaining concepts and ideas of the script. (in progress)
  • Improve the font overview in the manual; make UUIDs copyable.
  • I think there is a small bug in one of the images in the tutorial, I'll have to check that.
  • Publish texture specifications.
  • Publish mesh specifications.
  • Add more useful comments to the scripts themselves.
  • Clean up the scripts of the display creator and element initializer.
  • Migrate internal bug tracker, possibly to GitHub.
  • Update the "FURWARE info board" to use the open source version of text.
  • Make more open source example (controller) scripts.