Day: March 27, 2018

Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Holly Kai Park Place Page banner
Introduced in 2017, Place Pages are a means to allow region and parcel owners to create a web browsable page (hosted by the Lab) for their location(s) in-world. These pages can then be shared through blogs, websites, Twitter, Facebook, etc., offering a means to promote those places to a broader audience, advertise events, etc so on. Table of Contents

In addition, all published Place Pages can be searched via the Place Page home page, or browsed as thumbnails.

There is an official Knowledge Base article providing information on creating and using Place Pages, but I thought I’d offer a step-by-step guide to setting-up one or more Place Pages.

Place Page Features

A Place Page showing the use of images, descriptive text and the inclusion of an events calendar. Click for full size

By default, every region and parcel in Second Life has a Place Page associated with it, derived from information in the parcel’s existing profile. These are provided in a default format, complete with place holder image. Each page comprises a number of features:

A banner “hero” image, together with additional images which can rotate as the page is refreshed or as a slide show; descriptive text; options for:

  • Listing a calendar of events.
  • Showing a region’s covenant – useful for residential rental regions).
  • Showing items for sale.
  • Adding a YouTube video.

Buttons to allow visitors to the page to launch their viewer and teleport directly to the location (assuming they are Second Life users – if not, they’ll be taken to the SL sign-up page).

In addition, a region’s Place Page can include a list of surfaced parcel Place Pages, and parcel Place Pages will include a link back to their “parent” region’s Place Page.

Prerequisites for Managing Place Pages

In order for you to be able to use the Place Pages to promote your in-world locations, certain criteria must be met:

  • You must own the parcel / region in question OR you must be assigned a the group ability to Toggle ‘Show Place in Search’ And Set Category within the group owning the land
  • For a parcel’s Place Page to be public, About Land > Show Place in Search for the parcel must be checked (incurring a weekly fee of L$30).

Managing Your Place Pages

Setting-Up a Place Page

  • Visit the Place Pages dashboard and log in using your Second Life credentials.
  • Access your available place pages either by clicking your name in the top right corner of the page and selecting My Places, or by clicking on My Places just below the banner.
Accessing your available Place Pages
  • Depending on your land holdings (e.g. the number of regions, the number of parcels on those regions), your list of available Place Pages might be short or long. Each Place Page item provides a summary and a default image.
  • Note:the Is Viewable? column in the list determines whether or not a Place Page is viewable or not.
    • True indicates the page is publicly viewable.
    • Not Viewable indicates the Place Page cannot be publicly viewed, either because you as the owner have set it that way, or because it relates to a parcel which does not have Show Place in Search checked within its About Land floater.
Sample Place Pages listing – note the region / parcel differentiator

When you have located the Place Page you wish to edit, click Edit on the right of the listing to open the Page in default / edit view. This comprises a number of easy-to-understand sections, complete with explanatory text.

  • Details: this section allows you to determine if the Place Page is publicly viewable, and define the information it displays.
    • Disable This Place Page: prevents the page being publicly displayed.
    • Show Covenant: displays the covenant associated with the land (if provided).
    • Items for Sale: item must be set to Show in Search on the General tab of the object editor window, and will be listed with price, description and a teleport button. Note that items not for sale will also be listed, but will appear at the end of the list with Not Available in the price column.
    • Show Calendar: displays a calendar of events for the region / parcel. Event must be created via the  Events section of your Second Life dashboard at secondlife.com.
    • Title: the title for the Place Page – shown overlaying the banner image.
    • Tag line: 150-charcter tagline for the Place Page, shown overlaying the banner image.
    • Description Editor: for entering formatted descriptive text to be displayed on the Place Page.
  • Optional: this section provides you with the ability to set the page, font, and link colours used on the page. There is also a space to provide a YouTube URL.
    • Note that at the time of writing the link colour only applies to the links in the Parcel Information section of your page; it does not apply to any links you may include in the description section of your page or any events listed with a calendar (if present). That can create visibility problems with these links, depending on the page background colour selected.
  • Images: Section for uploading at banner / Hero image and additional images that are displayed in rotation on the finished page.
  • Stats: general information on the region / parcel automatically displayed on the finished page as Parcel Information.

At the foot of the page are buttons to Update the page with any changes you have made, or Cancel them. Note that clicking Update will refresh the page and display your changes.

Including Parcels in a Region Place Page

If you have more than one parcel in a region, you can automatically include all of your visible parcel Place Pages in the region’s Place Page. Note, again, parcels must have how Place in Search set within their About Land floater (incurring a weekly L$30 fee) in order for them to appear on their “parent” region’s Place Page.

Parcels in a region can be listed in the region’s Place Page

Continue reading “Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages” →

Sundarban in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Sundarban; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrSundarban – click any image for full size

Update: This location has closed, the SLurl have therefore been removed from this article.

“Sundarbans is a vast mangrove forest located between India and Bangladesh, well-known for being the habitat of the Bengal tiger,” Gabrian Lascelles (gothicgaylord) writes in his introduction to his new Homestead region, Sundarban. “It’s my vision of India,” he informed me in passing an invitation to Caitlyn and I to visit. “And as I’m from Sweden, it’s been a lot of research for me, but if I’ve managed to catch just a breath of India, I’m happy!”

Gabrian is perhaps best know for designing and building Costa Blanco (see here for more), and as a landscaper at Amazon River. We both thoroughly enjoyed Costa Blanco, so with Gabrian’s invitation in hand, we hopped over to Sundarban to have a look around.

Sundarban; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrSundarban

The physical world Sundabarans lies in the vast delta formed by the by the super confluence of the Ganges, Hooghly, Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers as they empty into the Bay of Bengal, straddling India to the west and Bangladesh to the east. It is a huge ecosystem encapsulating both freshwater swamps and the world’s largest area coastal mangroves, around 10,000 square kilometres (6,250 sq mi). As Gabrian notes, the area is the home of the endangered Bengal Tiger, but it is also home to other endangered species besides, such as the estuarine (or saltwater) crocodile, the northern river terrapin, the South Asian river dolphin (freshwater dolphin), barasingha swamp deer, as well as more widespread breeds of mammals, bird, fish and reptiles.

For his build, Gabrian presents a coastal area made up of low-lying muddy / sandy islands, some linked by bridges, others by zip lines, while little motor boats provide the means of puttering around the waters to reach all of them. The landing point sits on an island on the north side of the region, where sits a little shanty store. Elephants are bathing in the water close by – although they are of African, rather than Indian, origin (don’t blame Gabrian for this, African elephants in natural poses are a lot more popular with creators than their Indian cousins).

Sundarban; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrSundarban

East from here, over a low wooden bridge, is a second island. This is home to an old corrugated iron shack, a small shrine, and a path leading up to the wooden jetty on the north side of the island where the motor boats can be obtained. For the adventurous, a set of zip lines have been set up behind the old shack, providing a way for people to travel to / from the island to the south without the need for a boat or getting their feet wet.

This island is probably the largest by visible landmass in the group. It arcs to the south and east, a slender ribbon of grassy dunes sitting under the shade of trees reflecting the physical world’s Sundarbans freshwater forests, before ending in a finger of rock pointing up at the sky. An ancient ruin can be found here, converted into a rest spot complete with canopied massage table looks towards the eastern islands in the group, and another pair of zip lines link it with the nearest of them. Before riding one of them, however, it’s worth walking down to that finger of rock I mentioned – you’ll pass more of the local wildlife along the way and find a most unusual perch up in the rock itself.

Sundarban; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrSundarban

Those seeking the tigers will need a motor boat, as they are on a small island to the north-west, separated from the rest by water. Just heed the sign as you approach the island’s little bay, or you might find yourself on the menu – as seems to have been the case with the last couple of visitors, porcine and human!

Sundarban is Gabrian’s personal vision of an exotic part of India, and a place that’s easy to explore and easy on the eye. Throughout the islands are numerous places to sit and cuddle (although be aware some do have distinctly adult poses in them!), and plenty of opportunity to take pictures. Should you enjoy your visit, please consider a donation towards the region’s upkeep – just look for the beggar / trader near the path to the motor boat jetty.

Sundarban; Inara Pey, March 2018, on FlickrSundarban

SLurl Details

  • Sundarban (Enchanted World, rated: Adult)