Hi All,

I received an e-mail from Steve Shelby about this thread on scripting
plugins and FullMoon. I didn't know a discussion about this subject was
going on here! I will follow this newsgroup closer from now on.

FullMoon addresses many of the requirements posted here:

. Scripting language (Lua, http://www.lua.org), no C/C++/whatever compiler
necessary;
. Abstraction of Moray's internals making plugins programming *very* easy;
. Easy reuse of code;
. Objects extensibility (use one or more objects to create another);
. Small size (they can be compressed, FullMoon.dll uncompresses them
on-the-fly);
. Reasonably fast execution.

I also think that this plugin is underestimated (hi Arne ;-) but it's in
part my fault. Let me make some suggestions to change this and comment other
suggestions I found here:

. Write a Lua tutorial: there is already a lot of information about Lua on
its website, let me know if it's not enough;
. Write a tutorial on writing FullMoon plugins: I thought that the
readme.txt file distributed along with the DLL was already a good tutorial,
I'd like to receive some suggestions on how I can make it better;
. Windows Scripting Host: can someone tell me what it is? I choosed Lua
because it's *so* easy to embed and its syntax is *very* easy to learn.
. Promote code exchange between users: well, Arne and Philippe already sent
their contribution to my website (http://www.geocities.com/andre_leiradella)
and I hope they continue to do so ;-) I ask if there is someone else using
FullMoon to please send it to me along with an image so I can publish it.
All details about it are in the readme.txt file that goes in the
distribution. Note however that programmers are not obligated to post their
plugins in source code format; they are free to send them in bytecode; note
also that bytecode format doesn't allow others to reuse the code but *does*
allow others to extend and/or use it as a part of another object (see
dice.lua in the distribution);
. Update FullMoon to include newest Moray features: Moray's Plugin SDK has
changed a lot since the last release of FullMoon. Lua itself has changed too
from version 3.2 to 4.0 with a lot of changes to its API. It will be a lot
of work, but since people is showing some interest I will see what I can do
(no promises!)
. Rewrite POV includes (the Internet is full of them) as FullMoon objects. I
have about 100 includes (some of them being 5x7 led matrix, tree generators,
book piles, diamond generators, butterfly gen., chain gen., explosion gen.,
gear gen., lightning/spark gen., rock gen.) I someone is interested in
translating them to FullMoon let me know;
. Support users of FullMoon: as Arne said in his post, I'm always available
to answer questions about FullMoon and Lua.
. Implement object categorization: group objects by category (astronomy,
sci-fi, households etc.)
. Consider suggestions from users: just write me!
. Spread the word: I'm counting on you!
. Suggestions?

One note to Lutz and to others who may have read my post on Moray's SDK
mailing-list: I'm *not* going to implement the Java plugin anymore as I'm
going to focus on FullMoon. The Java plugin wouldn't be any better than
FullMoon anyway and it brings some problems as Java is more difficult to
learn, it requires a compiler and I would have to test my bytecode
interpreter a lot before releasing the plugin. I'm going to release my java
bytecode interpreter as soon as I have it revised though.

Andre de Leiradella
lei### [at] writemecom
http://www.geocities.com/andre_leiradella

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This can be a huge step ahead in Moray modelling. Keep up the good work! :)

-- 
#macro N(D,I)#if(I<6)cylinder{M()#local D[I]=div(D[I],104);M().5,2pigment{
rgb M()}}N(D,(D[I]>99?I:I+1))#end#end#macro M()<mod(D[I],13)-6,mod(div(D[I
],13),8)-3,10>#end blob{N(array[6]{11117333955,
7382340,3358,3900569407,970,4254934330},0)}//                     - Warp -

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