[x3d-public] [x3dom-developers] [X3D-Public] Prototype

Mon Feb 16 10:37:45 PST 2015

Actually, the entire point of a Web Component is to make it easy to
instantiate custom nodes, for both programmers and non-programmers. Once a
web component is implemented, the user simply instantiates it with a tag,
just like any other DOM element.

Creating Web Components is a little harder than PROTOs, granted, but it's
not too much harder. And creating PROTOs has *never* been easy for a
novice/non-programmer. That's both because PROTOs and the Scripts that
implement their innards have a lot of design quirks, but more so because of
the historical interoperability issues between browser implementations.

IMO the PROTO ship sailed long ago. MNy $.02 is that if X3DOM is going to
be relevant, it should stay away from PROTOs. Nothing but trouble there.

Tony

On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 9:53 AM, Daniel Vera <d.a.vera at warwick.ac.uk> wrote:

> Are there any (even simple) practical examples on how to use webcomponent
> to emulate proto in X3Dom?
>
> Also, was the purpose of PROTO in VRML to provide a simple (i.e.
> VRML-syntax-only and accessible to non programmer) way to
> define/instantiate custom nodes? Having to use something like web component
> that requires additional knowledge and programming, etc, would miss the
> point in my opinion. Does it make sense?
>
> Also, PROTO/EXTERNPROTOS mechanism is (with ECMA script capabilities, the
> event model, etc.) the only thing that differentiate VRML/X3D from "mere"
> 3D interchange formats (I am thinking JT, 3DPDF etc, which are increasingly
> used in my field of application). Reducing X3Dom specification by not
> implementing PROTO might contribute to mitigate this differentiator and
> impact adoption for a certain class of users?
>
> Regards, Daniel
>
> PS: apologies for sending this to multiple mailing lists. plz let me know
> which one this should this be mailed to.
>
>  Behr, Johannes <johannes.behr at igd.fraunhofer.de>
>  15 February 2015 17:41
>
> Don't x3dom components solve the proto problem? I've used them and they seem a lot less obtuse than protos
>
> Partially. You can use x3dom components to provide e.g. a node-library but not to declare new node types as part of your content. This is what you can do with prototypes.
>
> Best regards
> Johannes
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 2015-02-14, at 15:08, David Sankel <camior at gmail.com> <camior at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Alan Hudson <alan at shapeways.com> <alan at shapeways.com> wrote:
> Not too be a hater but I don't think its a good idea to include PROTO's into X3DOM.  The VRML/X3D proto spec + scripting interactions is very hard to get cross platform.  I spent many years dealing with it and its just too much work.
>
> Could you elaborate on specifically where the difficulties lie?
>
> -- David Sankel
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>  Alan Hudson <alan at shapeways.com>
>  14 February 2015 16:51
> Not too be a hater but I don't think its a good idea to include PROTO's
> into X3DOM.  The VRML/X3D proto spec + scripting interactions is very hard
> to get cross platform.  I spent many years dealing with it and its just too
> much work.  Personally I'd rather see that development time spent elsewhere
> improving X3DOM.  It's very helpful to be able to define your own
> vocabulary but as it stands PROTO's are not a proven cross platform way to
> do it.  Maybe the other web native routes will have better luck.
>
>
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>  Andreas Plesch <andreasplesch at gmail.com>
>  13 February 2015 20:54
> Indeed, not having a PROTO node is a substantial lack of functionality in
> the x3dom code base and a loss if compared with standalone x3d browsers. At
> the risk of misinterpretation, to me it looks like there was conscious
> decision by the x3dom developers at some early point that the certainly
> very substantial cost of developing such functionality outweigh the
> expected benefits. This may have changed by now, x3dom-developers ?
> If not, it follows that there would be a large demand for guidance in
> terms of documentation, tutorials and perhaps tools on how to
> convert/translate PROTOs into x3dom compatible js code or custom x3dom
> nodes. I tried to provide some initial pointers but clearly input by the
> x3dom group is what is really required.
> -Andreas
>
>
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