Tag: SL Mobile

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, July 7th, 2021.

These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article, and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties Updates

• Operating system updates are still on-going; the tools work has been continued through the last month as a well.
• The Land Store has had some cosmetic updates.
• World API and Map:
  • There has been some work on the World API to make it faster.
  • Searching for an empty string on the Map should no longer generate an error message.
• New user sign-up: two small improvements:
  • E-mails are now validated when entered during the sign-up process.
  • The viewer download link no longer opens a separate tab to display the download button – on sign-up the browser is now directed to the download page / button.
• Marketplace improvements:
  • Work has started on updating to the new Second Life blue logo.
  • Test deliveries have been fixed so they no longer generate an error message.
  • There have been updates to search / keywords to better match the maturity of words against the maturity rating on the item. This was largely due to some creators were adding punctuation marks into their adult item descriptions in an attempt to get around the maturity rating and have the item show up in results where the user has otherwise restricted what they want to see to General / Moderate.
• Premium downgrading:
  • Until now, if a Premium user decided to downgrade their account from Premium to Basic and then changed their mind, they would have to contact support to cancel the downgrade.
  • It is now possible to cancel a downgrade request directly from the website without any need for Support intervention.

New User Experience

See also: Poking at the new Welcome Islands.

• The new Welcome Islands that form a part of the new user experience are now undergoing A/B testing alongside the existing Learning / Social Islands and monitored against Firestorm’s Community Gateway for the next month or so.
• These islands are used in conjunction with the Guidebook that is now part of the official viewer (and starting to be included in TPVs).
• There is a “Welcome Back Island” that is physically identical to the Welcome Islands, but which is open to general visits for those who are curious.
• During the A/B Testing, the Lab will be particularly looking at the numbers of retained users who come through the various points of entry (Welcome Island, the Learning / Social Islands / Firestorm Gateway) and how each performs.
• If the Welcome Islands / Guidebook prove to be successful, then the Guidebook will likely undergo language localisation to make it more useful. In the meantime, and during testing, there could be smaller changes to both the Guidebook and the Welcome Islands (e.g. the station for new avatars may undergo further updates and offer a “newer” selection of avatars).
• Both the Welcome Island regions and the Guidebook have been developed as modular units, allowing both to be revised / updated.

Mobile Update

• The iOS version has now been accepted by Apple.
• HOWEVER, it is not currently publicly available through the Apple Store, as the Lab is working on the first set of updates, which they want to incorporate before the app is made generally available.
• At the moment, the iOS version is in testing with some 40 or so users.
• The Android version remains somewhat behind the iOS version and won’t be appearing in the short-term.
• As has been repeatedly indicated, the client will initially be a communications companion and will not include any 3D world rendering – this is on the roadmap (assuming the interest / use of the mobile app warrants the additional development work), but is “way down the line.”
• Those using the app will be logged-into dedicated “SL Mobile” regions for the purposes of communication. Obviously, if the app reaches the point where it is rendering the world, this will all change. However, until then:
  • These regions will not be accessible to anyone not using the SL Mobile client.
  • Those using the App will not have a physical presence within the regions.
  • It will not be possible to engage in local chat within the regions – although obviously, IMs will be possible, and the ability to use Group chat will be added.
• Again, the initial purpose of the App is not to offer a fully-function alternative to the viewer for people on mobile devices; rather, it is intended to provide a means by which people can stay in contact with those they already know / need to contact (via search) when they are unable to make use of the viewer. Although again, functionality will be added as time goes by to move it beyond this initial use-case.

In Brief

• Marketplace Requests:
  • Bulk image uploads for listings: this has been requested numerous times, and a feature request Jira has been asked for, so it can be logged.
  • Store block list (feature request BUG-230941): the ability for users to compile a list of MP stores where (for whatever reason) they do not wish to shop, and have them excluded from Search results. This is actually something the Marketplace team have been discussing as a general idea.
  • “Discount linking” for listings: the ability for creators to offer links between listings in their own store to give shoppers a discounts.
    • Example: a creator brings out a completely new version of s product (rather than an updated version) – they could use the “discount linking” to allow those who purchased the “old” version at a discounted price).
    • Example: a creator could offer a discount on a new skin or make-up kit for a specific mesh head within a their range of head products, rather than for all of the heads they sell.
    • This is something that, if submitted as a feature request, would receive consideration by the Lab.
  • Variant listing: Keira re-iterated (as per my June meeting summary) that the Lab is considering variant listings (e.g. a single listing for multiple colour versions of the same item). However, this is unlikely to be something that is implemented before 2022.
• Search: an upcoming project is that of Search, encompassing how it currently functions, how the Lab would like it to function and how users expect it to function. This will then hopefully lead to improvements being make to Search, although this may not happen until much later in the year or until 2022.
• Broken Support links: some of the pages on the dashboard at secondlife.com (e.g. Billing Information, Account History/Statements) have a broken Help / Support links due to a missing “secondlife.com” in the URLs. This is a known issue.
• Last Names:
  • The Premium account SL Birthday themed Last Names will be shortly be withdrawn from use and replaced with a new selection of Last Names, possibly within the next week or so. After this, next update to Last Names will likely be timed for Halloween.
  • Feature request BUG-230299 asks for the current Custom last Name programme (US $500 annually for a dedicated last name) to be made more broadly available, if on a more limited basis (and presumably a lower price-point) for those who wish to have a dedicated Last Name for their “family” / community / group. This is something that the Lab is considering, but it is unlikely that there will be anything to announce on it, should it move forward, until some time in 2022.
• Grid-wide user experiences: there has been some further internal discussion on these at the Lab, but right now, they are a long way down the list of priorities.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, August 5th, 14:00 SLT.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article, and the following is a summary of key topics / discussions.

Web Properties Updates

[Video: 0:18-3:20]

• Most of the month has been spent on implementing a new project workflow, for which the primary focus has been on the back-end systems, as per previous reports (post-uplift work, etc.), most of which has been non-user visible. Members of the team should start pivoting towards other work now this is drawing to a close.
• Payments and Purchases:
  • Work has been carried out on the payment system – but no specifics supplied.
  • The issue with non-US Dollar purchases of  Linden Dollars some experienced at the end of May has been addressed.
• Web pages:
  • The Cookie permissions banner common to SL web pages has been reduced in footprint size (when displayed), so as to be less intrusive.
  • Further web pages have been updated to use the “new” blue SL logo rather than the older green one. This is low-priority work, so is only being addressed when pages still using the the older logo are worked on for other reasons.
  • Web page “control panels” for the original Linden Homes received assorted fixes for issues.

Marketplace

[Video: 3:29-3:57 + as indicated by timestamps]

• No updates on any significant Marketplace projects.
• The issue with Quick Fill failing to pull-in the correct information on the non-English tabs for items has been addressed.
• Planning / discussions have started with regards to allowing variants in product listings  (e.g. a single listing for multiple colour versions on an item, which currently each have to have their own listing).
  • This is only preliminary discussions and planning, not actual work to implement.
  • The hope is the work can be formally kicked-off as a project later in 2021.
• [6:27-9:27] Keyword searches: reports that Marketplace keyword searches are failing to return expected results, prompting the question whether anything has been changed. The short answer is, not as far as is known.
  • If there are specific examples that can be cited where this is occurring, the request is for them to be reported via the Jira.
• [15:01-15:25] the Marketplace  team are also working on ideas for additional MP listing categories. Again, no specifics, but additional categories may start to appear some time in the next 2-3 months.

Mobile Client

[Video: 4:05-4:18]

• The iOS version still has not been passed to Apple for further evaluation, as it is still being worked on by LL.
• Android: nothing to report.

Name changes / Last Names

[Video: 4:20-5:15]

• June will see a further set of Last Names made available.
• Some of these will be a general refresh of the available names (e.g. new names replacing some of the less popular names currently on the list).
• Some of the new last Names will be themed after the Second Life Birthday and its  (somewhat generic / bland) theme.
  • As with the April “limited edition” names, these will only be available through the period of the birthday and will then be removed from the list.
  • At the time of writing the list for these “special” names was still being refined.
• All of the updates will be blogged when they become available later in June.

In Brief

• [36:18-37:04] Premium Plus: no  significant news, other than still under consideration, but is very much in the “thinking about it” arena, but may be revisited in the “next couple of months”.
• [38:54-41:00] User-defined grid-wide experiences + larger scripts:
  • Grid-wide experience by users are still under consideration, but no real movement either way on possible implementation or not.
  • Offering larger scripts is something the Lab have discussed in the past, and is something the might be offered in the future, once everything is bedded-in to AWS, but nothing planned for the immediate future.
• [15:31-23:31] A general discussion on how the marketplace works, various behaviours and feature suggestions (e.g. bulk upload of product images, dynamic keyword – so a creator can specify a set of keywords across their listings, and can then change / remove words dynamically on the basis of how the perform),  with the latter again referred to Jira feature requests.
• [24:00-27:32] a broader discussion on how to put ideas to LL and where / how creators can make contact with LL. The former remains feature requests through the Jira. The latter is best achieved through LL user group meetings.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, July 7th, 14:00 SLT.

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar. A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found at the end of this article.

Web Properties Updates

[Video: 1:04-9:18]

• General post-Uplift internal work is still continuing, but the end is coming into sight. Most of this work in non-user visible.
• There is also some back-end / infrastructure changes in progress, which are again not visible to users, but are intended to “help in the future” in terms of deploying new feature,  etc.
• Housekeeping work on tools related to the lab’s management of the Marketplace and other web properties has been continuing.
• The revamped secondlife.com splash / join / login screen was revamped in April, and has been receiving a lot of (not always positive) feedback on the use of a person, rather than an avatar. My personal take on this is that:
  • a) The image is taken from the upcoming broadcast advert for Second Life, and thus is part of a broader strategy rather than a standalone decision, which some people seem to be missing.
  • b) Why not use a “real” person? After all, a good part of Second life is about setting your imagination free, so to me the image speaks to that and offers an enticement to click to find out more.

• An issue with people receiving e-mail in a foreign language if they’d previously followed a link to an MP listing in that language has been fixed.
• The issue of people being randomly logged-out of the Marketplace whilst browsing, trying to make purchases, etc., should now be fixed.
• The April “limited Edition” Last Names  (the OwO and UwU names) have been removed from the Last Names list. These apparently proved to be very popular, so the Lab is considering more such “limited offers” on names with a specific focus (these two having appealed to the furry community in particular).
• The What’s Hot part of the Destination Guide has been revised so it actually lists places where avatars are actually at when the section is being browsed.
• Keira Linden is putting together a plan for Marketplace updates based on feedback from merchants / users. This work will not be immediate, but will be commencing at some point in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. Those with specific Marketplace feature requests in mind are asked to check the Jira before filing, as a fair number are already recorded and Accepted.

Mobile Client

[Video: 11:58-12:24]

• iOS Version:
  • The App still did not make it back to Apple in April for their testing as a result of LL’s QA finding more issues that needed to be addressed internally.
  • The hope is to get it back to Apple Soon™.
• Android: nothing to report.

Place Pages

[Video 37:50-52:40 (text chat)]

• Place Pages have been around for some four years now (see: Linden Lab announces Second Life Place Pages available).
• They have not received a lot of TLC since they, and it is hard to determine how well they are used (I did provide a short tutorial on setting them up  in 2018 after some updates had been made – see:Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages, for whatever that is worth).
• There is interest at the Lab in probing hold well they are used, and how they might be improved (one issue with Place Pages is that while they have a search capability of their own, they aren’t actually referenced by any of the other common search tools, such as web search in the viewer, which tends to limit their visibility). Some suggestions are made in chat during the meeting.

In Brief

• Names Changes / Last Names: it is possible that thought may be given to how the Premium member Name Changes / Last Names capability might be enhanced.
• No further updates on Premium Plus, other than it is still percolating in the background.
• The question was asked why LL originally stopped allowing last names in SL.
  • The short answer is that studies of users sign-ups revealed that having to pick a first and last name as part of the sign-up process resulted in a high volume of potential users failing to complete the sign-up process – possibly because people didn’t like being limited in their choice of last name.
  • The decision was therefore taken to remove the last name selection process and introduce Display Names, they idea being people could quickly sign-up with an account name of their choice, and then use Display Names to freely create their preferred avatar name.
  • OK, so it wasn’t quite such a short answer…
• Further language localisation of properties such as the Marketplace is being considered.
• The ability for a single account to hold multiple Marketplace stores has been the subject of multiple requests over the years (see feature request BUG-226927, for example). Whilst not on the Marketplace roadmap, Keira indicated a willingness to explore the idea.
• Jira status “Ready for Development” – this started appearing in a swath of bug reports and feature requests fairly recently (both those in progress and those that many have been completed). It appears to be related to a issue with the cloning tool LL uses when producing a duplicate of a report from the public Jira to their internal Jira,  and does not indicate a new workflow status for any given bug / request.
  • In fact, some reports said to be displaying a “Ready for Development” status appear to have reverted to the more usual “Accepted” in the last 24 hours.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, June 2nd, 14:00 SLT.

The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, April 7th, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar.

When reading these notes, please keep in mind:

• This is not intended as a chronological transcript of the meeting. Items are drawn together by topic, although they may have been discussed at different points in the meeting.
• Similarly, and if included, any audio extracts appearing in these summaries are presented by topic heading, rather than any chronological order in which they may have been raised during the meeting (e.g. if “topic X” is mentioned early in a meeting and then again half-way through a meeting, any audio comments related to that topic that might be included in these reports will be concatenated into a single audio extract).

Web Properties Updates

• General post-Uplift internal work is continuing, particularly the fine-tuning of various web services.
• The secondlife.com home pages have received a “spring refresh” with new images. etc..
• A general clean-up of web pages is in progress. This includes things like:
  • Enabling unicode support in the DMCA complaint form (important for those with accented letters in their names).
  • Web profile fixes: removing a bug that prevented interests from being deleted on web profiles;  correcting an issue that caused an error to appear at the top of the About section of a web profile; (finally) removing the link to “Open Groups in the sidebar” that hasn’t existed in the viewer for almost a decade…
• A  number of the Lab’s own tools for managing / maintaining the Marketplace were also worked on, but no details supplied.
• Resident search has been updated to ensure all those who should be showing in searches are showing in searches.
• Additional work on Search in general is still on-going.
• The problem people are having in being suddenly logged-out of Marketplace for no accountable reason (such as going from browsing to the check-out page or when editing a listing) is still being looked into.

Marketplace – The “Catwa Incident”

At the end of March, Catwa ran a Marketplace-only promotion for a fully feature Bento Head priced at L$1. The resultant demand overloaded the Marketplace system. The outage lasted several hours, causing considerable upset, some of which was exacerbated by the poor quality error message that was given to those trying to reach the MP, and which included commentary on the state of the infrastructure in being unable to scale with the load placed on it.

• In terms of the error message, this has apparently been updated to give more meaningful information should a repeat situation occur in the future.
• As a result of that situation, the Lab has now implemented changes that should allow the MP to better leverage the AWS environment and correctly scale to meet similar massive increases in demand, should they occur in the future.
• The was the first time the MP had faced such a massive demand, one which far exceeded anything previously seen the the MP’s history.

Mobile Client

• iOS Version:
  • The app didn’t make it back to Apple for further evaluation before the end of March, but is now “very close” to being ready to go.
  • The Lab will be running an internal test with the updated app during the upcoming week or so.
  • Assuming no issues are found as a result of this testing, the app will be passed to Apple once more for their evaluation.
• Android: nothing to report.

In Brief

• Linden Homes: the Chalet theme (see: Lab announces Linden Homes Chalet Theme released) is now regarded as “mostly released”. The total volume of available Linden Homes means that the Lab is no longing “selling out” of new homes immediately on a release or batch release.
• Last Names: at the start of April, the Lab introduced a couple of “limited time” last names to the Premium Name Changes capability. The two names, UwU and OwO, were introduced specifically for the furry community, among whom they have apparently proven popular.
  • According to a tweet from Soft Linden on April 8th, the two names will be removed from the active list “shortly”. So, if you want either one – now’s the time to grab it.

• • At the WUG meeting, Keira Linden indicated that the Lab is considering doing more such “limited edition” last name options from time-to-time and that may be geared towards particular events or holidays, or towards a particular community. The next example of these “limited offers” is liable to come around the time of the Second Life Birthday celebration in June 2021.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, May 5th, 14:00 SLT.

The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar.

When reading these notes, please keep in mind:

• This is not intended as a chronological transcript of the meeting. Items are drawn together by topic, although they may have been discussed at different points in the meeting.
• Similarly, and if included, any audio extracts appearing in these summaries are presented by topic heading, rather than any chronological order in which they may have been raised during the meeting (e.g. if “topic X” is mentioned early in a meeting and then again half-way through a meeting, any audio comments related to that topic that might be included in these reports will be concatenated into a single audio extract.

Web Properties Updates

• General post-Uplift work is continuing, much of it internal to the Lab. This means that it is likely to still be a while before new features and capabilities (including the Marketplace) start to be worked on again, although issues will continue to be addressed.
• Name Changes: the next refresh of Last Name options will likely be in June 2021, around the time of the Second Life birthday. This should also see the list of last names put into alphabetical order.
• As noted in my UG meeting summaries in week 8, the Land Store was re-enabled after encountering post-AWS transition issues. Further problems were encountered over the last weekend of February 2021, but is believed these have now been fully resolved.
• A new link has been added to the secondlife.com home age + related pages. T-shirts and Gifts will take people directly to the Lab’s physical world merchandise store hosted by Red Bubble.

• There have been non-user visible updates to the back-end of the communities services pages, and the World API has been updated to correct an issue with information being fed to the viewer splash screen.

Marketplace

• A lot of work has been put into the Marketplace back-end systems.
• This work includes:
  • Correcting the delivery delay issues that were being encountered.
  • Fixing a 404 error appearing on some pages.
  • Fixing a error with store managers being unable to open the correct management page.
  • Correcting the need for Support to clear Unavailable Item errors.
  • Updates to the French language pages.
  • Fixing an issue with new users being unable to log-in to the MP.
• MP updates used to be published to the forums, but it has been suggested making them available more as release notes might be beneficial. This will be looked into.
• BUG-230262 “Marketplace Website Bug/Error” causes people to be randomly logged-out of various web properties (notably the Marketplace). It is not clear if this is related to single sign-on confusion or a problem that is more generic or browser-specific.
• It has been suggested that reviews on MP purchases be subject to a timed delay (e.g. you cannot leave a review for, say 24 or 48 hours following an MP purchase), to allow the purchaser time to contact the creator in the event of problems / confusion, etc., and act as a deterrent against bad reviews airing from simply misunderstandings, etc. The Lab have requested this be made as a formal feature request so that it can be properly reviewed / considered.

Single Sign-On

• Single sign-on is now in place across many of the Lab’s web properties.
• This means users with multiple accounts cannot have different accounts signed-on to these pages at the same time.
• See Single Sign On, Coming Soon for more.
• This should not be confused with Two-Factor Authentication (2 FA), which is still in development / discussion and no deployment date is currently available.

Premium Plus

• Roll-out of Premium Plus was delayed in 2020 for a number of reasons, including the AWS migration work and the impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
• The feature is currently being re-evaluated, including whether it should be rolled-out as originally planned.
• In addition, further work may be required as a result of the migration work.
• In short:
  • Work on the feature will be resumed in due course.
  • There is no identified date for when this might be, or when roll-out may commence.

Mobile Client

• iOS Version:
  • Issues resulting from the last round of Apple Store testing (apparently related to how chat / communications are handled) have been addressed.
  • These fixes are currently subject to internal testing at the Lab. Providing this is successful, the app will be passed back to Apple for further testing at their end.
  • It is hoped the latter will occur towards the end of March 2021.
• Android:
  • Development is still behind that of iOS.
  • However, the Lab now has devices to allow internal testing of the Android flavour of the app, although it will still be a while before anything becomes visible for users to test.

In Brief

• User-created grid-wide experiences are still on the cards, but again, the capability is not being worked on at present, and there is no available time frame on when work will resume nor any indication of potential deployment.

Next Meeting

• Wednesday, April 7th, 14:00 SLT.