[ODE] Re: XODE Extentions

[William Denniss]

On 13/08/2005, at 2:51 AM, Georg Martius wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have a question and a suggestion to the <ext> field. Currently it is
> specified as either a location of a color, where the location has  
> no type at
> all, i.e. ANY content. Is this intended?.

Where did you get that impression?  (I ask so I can make it clearer).

The intention of the <ext> is that you can put whatever you want in  
there.  You just give it a name.

<ext ename="com.tanksoftware.MyExtension">

.... whatever you like, could be hex data for all I care.

</ext>

Using the domain name prefix is a good idea to prevent namespace  
clashes.

Readers which don't support your extension simply ignore it.  Editors  
(i.e. which write XODE files), should in a perfect world store your  
extension data, and keep it attached to its node to be written out  
verbatim on saving.


> What if I want to represent a generic extention?
> Suggestions:
>  1) add an additional option e.g <generic> with arbitrary content
>  2) let <ext> to have no subtypes and has just arbitrary content

I think it already does what you want.

> Another question:
> Juice supports a global definition of some constants like gravity,  
> global
> friction, ERM and so on. How should this be specified in XODE?

These should be specified in <world>.  They will be for the next  
version.  This is a gap in the spec.

> Thanks for your help!

No worries.

Cheers,

Will.