About the HUD
To use the Presenter HUD, just wear the copy provided for the desired HUD attachment point: top left, top right, bottom left, or bottom right. It will attach to the appropriate HUD attachment point on your viewer screen. We will see what the various parts of the HUD do later in this document. When you attach the HUD it immediately reads the .config notecard inside the object inventory for the projector and chat listener functions. When there's no Presentation Notecard loaded (which happens when first wearing it), the HUD informs us. You'll also see three red panels, with buttons between them, and a column of buttons down the left edge of the HUD.
- The Text Panels
- The Buttons: Navigation
- The Buttons: Preview
- The Buttons: Extra Functions (Left edge)
The Text Panels
The three red panels in the HUD are areas where your presentation content is displayed as you conduct your presentation. Each area has a specific purpose.
Top Panel
Shows the last line that was Sent (i.e. "said" in local chat)
Middle Panel
Shows the next line that is queued to be Sent
Bottom Panel
The presenter's Preview (or "auxiliary") area with current and auxiliary line counters
The Buttons: Navigation
Above the middle text panel is a row of navigation buttons. The large green SEND button reads the next line from the notecard and either:
- "says" the text into Local Chat to be seen by your audience
- "projects" an image onto the Image Viewer
- or "rezzes" an object in the proximity of your avatar
You will see the top number increase as you advance through your presentation, indicating which line of the composed lines is queued up to be delivered to your audience next in public chat i.e. the next line to be sent). For example: Line: 5 / 234 indicates that line 5 of the 234 composed lines in your presentation is shown on the middle panel and is ready to be delivered to your audience. In similar fashion, the lower number (with the tag "aux") shows where the preview (or "auxiliary") panel is currently positioned within the sequence of composed lines in your presentation.
On either side of the green SEND button is a set of red navigation buttons that facilitate navigation through the sequence of lines in the notecard. Normally, these are not needed since the green SEND button will automatically advance one line at a time through the lines of the notecard. But sometimes you may want to skip saying a line that appears in the notecard, or you may want to move back and repeat one or more lines. These buttons allow you to skip forward (right arrow), backward (left arrow), to the beginning (double left arrow) or to the end (double right arrow) of the lines in the notecard.
Any time we output a new line by using the SEND button, or navigate to a different line in the notecard, the middle panel (next line to be said) and line counter are updated so you can see what is queued up to be said to your audience.
Image Preview: If the next line in the presentation is an Image command (beginning with [I]) then the middle panel displays a compressed version of the image, with the [I] command superimposed. This helps you better anticipate what your audience will see, and assures you the image command is properly specified in your Presentation Notecard.
The Buttons: Preview
The pink preview navigation buttons above the bottom text panel allow you to freely navigate and see the lines of the notecard without affecting the natural flow in chat so that you can see in advance the lines that are coming. Clicking the pink left and right buttons allows you to move forward and backward through the lines of the notecard in the bottom panel without affecting the sequence of lines being queued up to be said to your audience. So you can freely look through the lines of the notecard to preview the material that is coming in the sequence.
As you move the preview through the sequence of lines and commands in your presentation, the lower number (aux) to the right updates, reflecting the position of the preview within the sequence of your presentation. For example, Line (aux): 27 / 234 indicates that line 27 of your composed presentation is currently displayed on the bottom preview (auxiliary) panel.
In addition to the preview navigation buttons we have the Sync (green down arrow) and Skip To (green up arrow) buttons, which turn the HUD into a powerful tool. Imagine that you're reading your lines, and you notice that the next line is inappropriate and you don't want it to be sent to chat. You can move forward with the preview buttons and discover, say, ten more lines that are also not to be output. Then you get to the 11th line and that's the next one you want your audience to see. If you click the Skip To (green up arrow) button, the HUD will skip all those lines that you don't want to show in chat and proceed to the line that you want to be shown next. This will display the desired line in the next line to be said panel and update the counter accordingly.
In other cases, after previewing many lines of your notecard you may want to synchronize the preview with your current position in the presentation. The Sync button (green down arrow) does just that.
The Buttons: Extra Functions (Left edge)
From top to bottom:
Load Notecard (blue) button
Clicking this button displays a dialog menu which allows you to select a notecard to load among those that have been installed in the Contents tab of the Presenter. Make sure that the notecards you store in the Presenter have names of 24 characters or less - this is a LSL limitation and can't be overcome.
When the Presentation Notecard is read, the Presenter composes the lines of text and commands that will be produced as you give your presentation. You can see the white text displayed in the HUD toward the right side between the middle and bottom red panels, showing the count of "composed lines" being prepared in memory for your presentation.
Single blank lines between lines of text in your Presentation Notecard are ignored during the composition process, and will not be output to chat when you are giving your presentation. If you want to output a blank line during the presentation, put TWO blank lines in the Presentation Notecard. The first will be ignored, and the second will be included in the lines composed for output.
Note: You don't need to wait until the notecard finishes loading, to begin with your presentation. Click "Load NC" and select your notecard. You can start your presentation almost immediately. The HUD keeps reading the notecard meanwhile, but it doesn't prevent you from using it.
Chat Mode (red) Button
The HUD allows us FIVE chat modes that we can change at any time. Clicking on the Chat Mode button rotates among these five modes:
Chat Modes
Silence
No chat is output; we only see the lines displayed in the HUD. Useful for going back among lines and repeating, if needed.
Whisper
Both the lines from the notecard loaded, and what we say if we use the Chat feature, will be Whispered (10 meter range) if this mode is set.
Say
Both the lines from the notecard loaded, and what we say if we use the Chat feature, will be Said (20 meter range) if this mode is set.
Shout
Both the lines from the notecard loaded, and what we say if we use the Chat feature, will be Shouted (100 meter range) if this mode is set.
OwnerSay
This mode is like silence, but the lines will be output to the owner's chat using an owner say (yellow text).
Chat Input On/Off (green) button
This button controls the presenter to receive typed ad hoc comments manually, to be inserted into the stream of the presentation. Such comments will appear in local chat in green color as if they were part of the notecard.
This button enables (on) or disables (off) this feature. Disabling chat input disables the listener script used, when not needed, thereby reducing lag.
The channel the HUD listens to (channel 3, by default) is configured when we set:
ChatReceiverChannel = 66
in the .config notecard (example from the Configuration section above).
To make an ad hoc comment during a presentation (answering a student's question, for example), go to your chat input line and enter a slash followed by the channel number currently configured, then just type or paste the desired text and "say" it. For example:
/3 This is an example of an ad hoc comment made during the course of a presentation.
You can also use this feature to change the image shown on the Image Display Screen, if you have one in use during your presentation. Just type the slash and channel number followed by [I]UUID, where UUID is the desired texture to be displayed. For example, typing:
/3 [I]e04cba44-9dfe-3bc3-0eeb-d4a08de1d2c5
will cause the Wallpaper – South Western texture from your Library textures to be displayed on the Image Display Screen.
Help (question mark) button
Clicking this button gives you a copy of this .help notecard.
Minimize button
Clicking this button hides the HUD temporarily, leaving just the Minimize button itself visible. Clicking the button again restores the HUD to its normal state.
