Shared Media Dashboard v.0.35 Author: Graham Mills (avatar name) The dashboard allows users with creation rights to rez a cluster of seven shared media screens from a follower. The pages displayed can be specified via suitably configured notecards. The notecard
can contain a sub command that means subsequent placeholder text in the
notecard is automatically replaced by the substitute text. The follower
can also carry multiple landmarks and open a teleport map when one is
selected. If
the user is not running a shared media-compatible client such as Second
Life Viewer version 2, a default texture is displayed on the screens. You can see a demo here: http://tidalblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/shared-media-dashboard-concept-demo.html (best viewed fullscreen) Please bear in mind that this is unsupported beta quality software: no warranties, etc. Menu The screens are configured via the menu obtained by touching the follower. Options are as follows:
The follower The
follower needs to be rezzed by the owner (who therefore needs
appropriate permissions) although other avatars can use its screens. It
contains the display screens, landmarks and notecards and, as its name
suggests, follows its owner. It cannot, however, follow during a
teleport and automatically deletes itself when the owner teleports away
using the Teleport
menu command. It will not automatically delete if other means are used,
e.g. during a crash, but will re-follow if the avatar returns to the
same location. It presently fails to successfully negotiate changes in
height and may be found to hover over the head of the avatar in some
circumstances (just delete and re-rez). Following behaviour can be toggled on and off via the Follow menu option. Note
that the follower always positions itself behind the avatar so you need
to use the right or left cursor keys to bring the screens into view.
Thereafter, touching one of the screens will zoom it into view.
Adjacent screens on the same row will appear at the edge of the view
and can be selected by touching. Note that touching the very edge may
activate the follower menu.Using the mouse scroll wheel to zoom out
enables you to quickly swap between screen rows by touching the desired
screen. Adding URLs to the display This
can be done either via the URL field or by dragging favicons from the
browser onto the desired screen.The URLs should be retained when the
display is closed and reopened using the Open&Shut menu command. Display menu command: using notecards to specify URLs URLs can also be specified by notecard. The notecards are placed in the root prim and must be named named CD1-CD9 followed by a space and a single word of up to 7 characters, e.g. CD1 demo. The notecard text for each URL should be on a separate line in the format with the screens numbered screen1-screen7. The text after the comma is a comment that is generated as the card is loaded and returned subsequently by Report. The comma and space are essential. The Report
menu command generates a list of current URLs in an appropriate format
for copying and pasting from local chat history into a new notecard (may require minor editing). The current card is displayed as hovertext on the follower. Text substitution in notecards: the sub command Incorporating the following text in the notecard sub,YYY,health would cause the subsequent URL to become Report menu command lists current screen URLs Selecting Report from the follower menu generates a list of screen + URL + comment combinations suitable for use in a notecard without further modification (although long, complex URLs may get corrupted so visual checking is advised), extraneous text such as datestamps being ignored by the Display menu command. Security settings, whitelisting, etc These are left to the owner to adjust and by default are set to be fairly restrictive, viz. only the owner can see the (full) control bar and has navigation and interactivity rights. Shared media are, however, set to auto-play (users can override this setting). Other users will simply see the non-interactive web page or, if they are not using a compatible viewer, a default texture.
The dashboard is not an attachment so will continue to function if the
option to view shared media on avatar attachments is disabled in
preferences. Further information is available from http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Shared_Media and from context-sensitive help on build dialogs. Turning following off/on Following behaviour is probably only useful in open spaces. You can switch it off using the Follow menu option. Selecting the same option again re-enables following. Teleport menu command: using landmarks to teleport You can add landmarks to the root prim and these will then be presented in a menu when the Teleport
option is selected from the follower menu. When a landmark is selected,
the follower turns red, indicating that it is in teleport mode.
Touching the follower will display a teleport map with the chosen
destination shown. Landmarks should be named LM1-LM9 followed by a space and a single word of up to 7 characters, e.g. LM1 LUPRC. NB.
Teleporting automatically deletes the follower and it is essential that
a copy of the follower or its contents be taken if they are important. It can, of course, be re-rezzed at the destination. Acknowledgements Second Life, Linden, inSL, SL, and SLurl are trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. Scratch4SL: the follower code Puppeteer: display screen animation Known issues 1.
The follower does not respond well to changes in height, i.e. if the
avatar descends a staircase, the follower may remain hovering overhead. 2.
Screen unpacking can be out of sync such that the screen initially
unpacks and immediately repacks. Just select the same option again. 3. If the avatar logs off, crashes or teleports away, the follower remains behind. This will be fixed. 4. If another avatar loads a different notecard, the owner has no override capability. 5. Report may generate non-functional input for Display. 6.
Text displayed on web pages may be in a very small font. Users should
view the pages in an external viewer if this is a problem. Useful shared media URLs Two
avatars looking at the same screen see the same URL but not necessarily
the same view. The easiest way to check this is to use an external web
browser to view the same page and see whether a change inworld is
mirrored in the external browser. Generally actions initiated via a
link, button, field (including authentication) or by scrolling are not
seen synchronously. This can be mitigated to some extent by use of
tools designed specifically with collaboration in mind as indicated in
the following list: Help Resources Etherpad, http://etherpad.com/ : shared text editor with history and chat functions (recently acquired by Google so on borrowed time) Google Docs, http://docs.google.com/
: can be configured to automatically update the screens of remote
viewers/editors although the experience is inferior to Etherpad. The
Presents tool does not synchronize. Google Wave: http://wave.google.com/ : text will appear synchronously although the majority of gadgets do not work in this way. Twiddla, http://twiddla.com/
: whiteboard with chat function and additional useful feature of
displaying uploaded PowerPoint files synchronously after format
conversion. |