Day: March 21, 2012

Direct Delivery: the launch

Posted on by Inara Pey


Update: I’ve been informed that Viewers that have the Merchant Outbox as a folder may need a code port in order for it to work.  

The long-awaited Direct Delivery system was launched today in what amounts to a very low-key announcement that hasn’t been promoted to the Featured News section of the blogs and people’s dashboard. In development for around a year or so, the system has been subject to a range of issues, technical and otherwise and – at time – a dearth of information coming out of the Lab, something which itself has caused no small amount of concern from merchants.

What is Direct Delivery?

New DD folders as they might appear in some TPVs.(Note the Merchant Outbox FOLDER as displayed may be non-functional in the early days of DD)

For those not in the know – and there are some going on the number of “What’s that?” I’ve received when asking if people are ready for its introduction – Direct Delivery is, in a nutshell:

  • A means by which content creators and merchants can manage the goods they sell through the SL Marketplace without the need to use Magic Boxes to store inventory in-world. Everything can be handled directly from within their inventory / within their Viewer
  • A new means by which anyone buying from the SL Marketplace will receive items they buy / received gifts other have brought for them via the Marketplace, using a new section of the inventory panel / a new folder called Received Items.

The system uses two new elements in the Viewer: the Merchant’s Outbox panel / folder and the Received Items panel / folder. Whether a panel or folder is used is the choice of the Viewer developer.

Torley is back (Go, Torley!) with a video overview of Direct Delivery:

Essential Information for Merchants

As a part of the launch, LL have announced the following for the overall migration from Magic Boxes to Direct Delivery:

  • April 2 through 13, 2012: In-world Q&A sessions on using and migrating to Direct Delivery
  • April 18, 2012: All listings priced L$10 and lower must use Direct Delivery
  • May 16, 2012: Magic Boxes no longer allowed for any Marketplace listing
  • ANS is currently NOT supported with Direct Delivery – it will be “turned on in the next couple of weeks”.

Receiving Goods via Direct Delivery

Until the launch of Direct Delivery, items from the Marketplace would require that you manually accept them (via an in-world pop-up) before they would be delivered to the OBJECTS folder in your inventory.

With the launch of Direct Delivery, this now changes:

  • Any items you purchase from the Marketplace  – or which are bought for you as a gift – will automatically be received; there is no need for you to be on-line when they arrive
  • Items will be received into a new panel, called RECEIVED ITEMS, which is either a panel that will become visible at the bottom of your inventory floater when you have received one or more items from the Marketplace (most V3-based Viewers), or which will appear as a folder in your inventory (V1-style Viewers – see image above).
Direct Delivery: from the Marketplace to you (some steps omitted, example uses a V3-based Viewer with Received Items panel within the inventory floater) – click to enlarge

You can then drag and drop folders from the Received Items area into your inventory, from where you can rez items in-world as usual.

Notes: 

  1. If you don’t see Received Items ether as a panel in your Inventory floater or as a folder, then try following this link and obtaining your Direct Delivery Linden Bear (limited time offer from LL) – note you may have to log-in to SLM to get to the page. This will trigger a delivery to your Received Items panel / floater.
  2. Until the 16th May, merchants can continue to use Magic Boxes if they wish, and some may opt to do so while Direct Delivery “beds in”. Where this is the case, please note that items purchased from the Marketplace will continue to arrive in the OBJECTS folder of your inventory.

Converting Magic Box Contents to Folders for Direct Delivery

Note that boxed items can still be delivered via Direct Delivery, if required – boxes will be delivered within their own folder.

You can convert your current Magic Box items ready for Direct Delivery as follows:

  • OPEN the magic box and COPY TO INVENTORY. This will create a folder of all the items in your magic box – including the Magic Box’s own scripts
  • Delete the Magic Box scripts, as they are not required
  • Drag the first item from the Magic Box folder in your inventory to the ground and:
    •  EDIT it
    • Copy the name of the item from the General tab (highlight & CTRL-C)
    • Create a new folder in the Magic Box folder in your inventory and re-name it the same as your item (CTRL-V)
    • Open the Contents tab of the item in EDIT, and select / drag the contents from the item into the newly created folder in your Magic Box folder.
  • Make any required adjustments to the contents of the folder itself (i.e. if you have additional boxed items, these can be placed in suitably named sub-folders and the additional boxes themselves deleted)
  • Delete the original item from in-world and your Magic Box folder
  • Repeat for the next item.

This process is summarised in the diagram below.

Notes:

  1. In order for your items to be automatically linked with your existing Magic Box listings, it is important that the folder is given the same name as the original item (hence the advised use of copy/paste above when creating the folder).
  2. If a folder is named differently to the original item, it can still be linked to an existing listing, but this must be done manually.
  3. Once you have converted your Magic Box items and uploaded them to the Marketplace (see below), there is no need to keep the Magic Box folder – you can upload to the Marketplace from anywhere in your inventory.

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