Wishlist for Second Life / Drupal integration
I have immediate interest in exploring the following Drupal/SecondLife integration elements: (not a comprehensive list! :)
-Have SecondLife chat transcripts autopost as nodes to a corollary Drupal site
-Map SecondLife accounts to Drupal accounts and vice-versa
-Have registering for an Organic Group on a Drupal site automatically add a user to a SecondLife group and vice-versa
-Have Nodes on a Drupal site automatically publish as posts in a SecondLife group and vice-versa
-Easily publish movies (video capture) of SecondLife activity to a node... A machinima (http://secondlife.com/showcase/machinima.php) plugin for Broacast Machine (http://www.getdemocracy.com/broadcast/) anyone? ;)
-Capture metadata such as L$ (Linden Dollars) from an SL account in a corresponding Drupal account and CiviCRM record
SecondLife plays pretty nicely with XML RPC via "config reader and “feed requester” and other scripts I'm told, but I don't have direct experience. Anyone here an expert with SL's API beta (http://www.programmableweb.com/api/secondlife)?
My favorites
Hi all,
I just joined because I am very interested in this issue and I have a Drupal page where I aggregate a lot of Second Life related news, forums and blogs ( http://infopirate.org/second-life ).
I am also very interested in the following wishes of ahoppin (although I'm not a developer and I don't know exactly how to help):
-Have SecondLife chat transcripts autopost as nodes to a corollary Drupal site
-Have Nodes on a Drupal site automatically publish as posts in a SecondLife group and vice-versa
may cause copyright problems, since "Anshe Chung attempts to censor subsequent news coverage of an SL event by claiming copyright infringement"... (1)
Hrm.
Anshe Chung is just using bullying tactics to try to cover an embarassing episode. The episode's coverage is arguably covered by 'Fair Use', and really isn't something I would consider a problem as much as a legalese temper tantrum. Of course, I am not a lawyer (but I have been involved in copyright and trademark disputes).
That said, the issue of autopublishing is a real concern - mainly in the context of chat logs. Authorization has to be given from the people within the transcription for it to be posted. Posting character likenesses should probably follow the real world guidelines.
Autopublishing movies seems like a bit of a stretch to me - the manner of doing this is not automated within SecondLife, saving the file still requires control with the file menu of the SecondLife client AFAIK. Therefore autopublishing to a Drupal site is really 'uploading a file attachment', which is probably better done with the existing mechanism.
Posts from nodes in a SecondLife group can already be done by email to IM, but requires someone to use their 'voice' (account) as the one coming from the Drupal site. RSS is a bit of a challenge with the limiitations of LSL (namely, llHttpRequest) but can be done.
A lot can be done. It is simply a matter of doing it, and having the time to do so.
KnowProSE.com
The use case here...
I believe the use case people are concerned with is capturing a chat within SecondLife from some sort of a 'marquee' individual.
I agree, this sounds more like a Second Life solution than a Drupal solution. Emailing a chat transcript appears to be a semi-standard thing in Secondlife, there is a description of presentation rooms I found here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=12&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecons...
... that describes such a system (also has a powerpoint presentation system).
Perhaps Drupal gets configured to accept posts through email and autopublish the message as a node? Perhaps a filter to convert the screen names of people in the chat into icons (which could be tied to user accounts)?
M
But where is the value?
When we get down to the nitty gritty - and I have - email messages get you 4096 characters at a time from within SecondLife. XML-RPC gets you 254.
When you do send the text through either interface, you either determine categories and whether it is a page, story, blog entry or even a CCK based on... what? So that has to be determined somehow from the text. Then you have to have to scan either the emails or XML-RPC to find whether it is the end of the transcript or not - or if it is the beginning of a new transcript... etc.
After spending some time with it, and fiddling with the XML-RPC interface as well as forcing cron through llHttpRequest is that (1) Sim load is a major factor, (2) Server ability of the Drupal installation isn't that grand, and (3) copy and paste from a chat logger takes very little technical knowledge and can give the user more option in terms of how the node is posted and even published, (4) May violate the Terms of Service of SecondLife if used improperly.
I don't really see how we're improving upon (3). Here's a script for a chat logger which assures ToS compliance. When done, it formats the output in HTML, giving different avatars different colors of name for easier reading.
Until SL's XML-RPC interface and email interface become more capable, I see little use for anything more technical. The cool factor is high, the practicality factor is diminutive.
KnowProSE.com
Still a problem?
Ref. "email messages get you 4096 characters at a time from within SecondLife. XML-RPC gets you 254."
Do the mentioned limitations still exist? (old post)
If so, I assume they are SecondLife-specific, as both Drupal and RSS/XML-RPC can handle long text chuncks. Any solution on the horizon in SecondLife?
about the size limitations
actually, these limits are still the same
dont forget that xml-rpc requests are also limited by time ( 1 request by object every 3 seconds )
and email request are very laggy ( 20 seconds delay when object to object email ( can be bypassed with parrallelism scripting ) and there is a big queue from outside to inworld so sometimes, emails from outside take a long time to receive )
the best system to communicate from outside to inworld stay xml-rcp or hammering the web server from inworld every second :)
for the future, lindenlabs is testing a system to allow objects to handle a "mini web server"
in this case it will be able to send and receive values from objects with http requests
i hadent tested this option already but its available in the beta grid
more infos here : http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_http_server/design
and there http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_http_server
about OpenSim, there is only llHttpRequest that is implemented and the xml-rpc "remote_data" event is on the way to be implemented.
Mailhandler
As you probably know already, but also for any newcomers here:
"accept posts through email and autopublish the message as a node" can be done using the contributed Mailhandler module.
Update - almost there.
Based upon workload, I expect that a module for the chat transcripts will be done initially - I have already GPL'd a LSL Chat logger which handles permissions related to the ToS of SL. There's some fuzzy stuff going on, but expect a release from Trellon within the next few weeks... or maybe even days.
KnowProSE.com
Well, maybe not.
XML-RPC and email limitations of 254 chars and 4096 chars (respectively) can provide a cool solution, but not really a practical one. Its still easier to copy and paste a chat transcript, it would seem.
I'm holding off on this solution until limitations are raised... it otherwise seems like something impractical when CTRL-C and CTRL-V can be more efficient.
KnowProSE.com
opinion on today
"-Have SecondLife chat transcripts autopost as nodes to a corollary Drupal site"
** it is possible **
"-Map SecondLife accounts to Drupal accounts and vice-versa"
** it is possible btu only in one way because we cannot choose the full username in sl **
"-Have registering for an Organic Group on a Drupal site automatically add a user to a SecondLife group and vice-versa"
** possible but needs a "bot" account made with libomv ( libsl ) **
"-Have Nodes on a Drupal site automatically publish as posts in a SecondLife group and vice-versa"
** possible but needs a "bot" account made with libomv ( libsl ) **
-Capture metadata such as L$ (Linden Dollars) from an SL account in a corresponding Drupal account and CiviCRM record
** dont know any function to check the money amount from an account without parsing the account profile page on the linden's site or using a "bot" ( need access ) **
L$ -> Userpoints
The Linden Dollars can be represented in Drupal as Userpoints. Userpoints has a module that uses XML-RPC, via the Services module, but if we implement Drupal users to SecondLife users mapping, I prefer to use that, since it will have authentication.
Drupal performance tuning, development, customization and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc..
Personal blog: Baheyeldin.com.
about L$ and users integration
about the users mapping :
i have made a module that uses SecondLife framework to link Drupal users with SecondLife users but im waiting for the cvs account approval to publish it.
more infos here : http://groups.drupal.org/node/17557
about the L$ :
the problem is to get the amount of money available for a SecondLife account.
there is no lsl function to know the money amount.
the only way to know the amount is to read a user account page or to use a bot made in C# with lbomv ( we need to know the SecondLife credentials in both ways )
if my module is granted to be in the Drupal's projects, i can try to build an extension to map L$ to Userpoints module like this, people would be able to buy points from inworld.
added userpoints integration
hello
i have added the userpoints integration building a "sub" module in the sluser module
this module gives ability to define a L$ amount for 1 point and users can pay the terminal to get points.
http://drupal.org/project/sluser see version 2