New Proposal: 1392 re: inventory

I just made a new proposal regarding inventory:

1 -- that there be a capability of sorting/re-organizing/deleting inventory from a web login (you would still have to log into SL to crate things in prims, tho)

2 -- ability to designate ACTIVE and INACTIVE inventory -- only ACTIVE inventory would be immediately available in-world

This would not only save residents alot of time in-world that we could be doing OTHER things (fun things, like building, shopping, dancing, snuggling with a particular fave person...) and would reduce the load on the servers.

Merlyn, I'd like to recommend you divide your two-part proposal into two different proposals. While I generally like the idea of an active/inactive inventory (this would be akin to using a banking system in an MMORPG), I do not support the idea of a web interface for managing our inventory.

I actually cannot really think of any compelling reason to be managing our inventory outside of the SL client itself - except to get around certain limitations in the interface. And in my view, LL needs to address these limitations and fix them in SL first, before it even thinks of writing a while new interface. I also have security concerns with a web interface that directly manipulates an inventory.

Still, I think your idea of an inactive inventory is interesting. It would allow us packrats to hoard items without concern that it is a constant drain on the primary asset server. Perhaps if we had a special root folder in our inventory with items that are stored on a secondary asset server. The contents of this folder would not be streamed or searched unless it was explicily opened by the user.

Moving to Feature Suggestions .

But you can turn off search for some folders in your inventory...
so I don't understand why you'd need active/inactive when you can use the current folder set to do this same thing now?

What needs to be added is the ability to search inventory on the Description field as well as the name field.

This proposal may make inventory management easier but it would not reduce load on the servers. Your inventory is just metadata matching names to content on the asset server. Putting stuff in your inactive inventory doesn't mean that the assets pointed to aren't in someone else's on-line inventory. Or you could have scripts in active inventory that refer to content in inactive inventory. Determining that an asset is globally inactive is prohibitively expensive and probably impossible. So the asset server can't do anything to reduce load based on your movement of content to inactive inventory.

Now this part of your suggestion would be great. My inventory is up past 24,000 items because every time I come in-world to clean up inventory, I'm accosted by a multitude of people. I would love to use some off-line time to clean up my inventory.

Someone once suggested an equally nice option: phantom login. The ability to log in totally invisible to everyone else and everyone else invisible to you. Anything you build or alter does not appear in-world, but only on your client screen. Theoretically, this would allow multiple people to use the same sandbox at one time without ever seeing each other there. It would be a mega-boon for builders and scripters and would allow them to build away from prying eyes.

Right now I'm in a contest that I'd really prefer no one saw what I'm working on until I'm finished. While I could build a sky-platform on a private sim with a security grid spanning 100m, that's still not going to prevent a fly-by camera-zoom space invasion. Being able to do a full-phantom-login would be absolutely wonderful. You couldn't affect anyone else. No one else can affect you. Everything you do is updated to your inventory. That would rock.

dont know if you have actually ever built something but most builders i know oncluding myself tend to have an inventory full of "objects" and some of them are needed. As well as many people have an inventory full of clothes (a lot with names like "blue pants"
I dont know about you but i sure like to see the things i am deleting before i delete them
Altho this idea has a little merit i think the lindens time would be better spent fixing the problems that everybody has and not just the people too lazy to log on and go thru thier inventory. If you use the time you spend on your website ripping people apart to sort your inventory Merlyn you probably wouldnt have this issue

This is Feature Suggestions. Merlyn can suggest just about any feature he wants to suggest.

As far a "people being too lazy to log on"... I'm one of those who would LOVE to be able to work with my inventory out of the public eye-- and you can believe that has nothing to do with laziness. It has to do with 600+ group members that make it difficult to find five minutes to myself.

Don't get me wrong; love the group. It's just that there is no provision on SL for someone to just come online and work, undisturbed. The BUSY option might as well not exist for the little good it does.

Combining the ideas of phantom login and preview things before deleting.

So that it doesn't disturb the main client, how about a separate client exe (effectively a vastly nerfed regular client) that will do the following:

1. Manage inventory

2. Have a rez pad where the item you selected rezzes for your inspection.
purpose: so you can be sure of the item you're looking at

3. You can rotate the item (panning too?)
purpose: see above

4. You can inspect and edit and recompile scripts but can't run them
purpose: some items differ only in subtle changes to scripts, and see above.

5. You can edit the item descriptions.

How will the above be of help? I build, and in even just a short session I can wind up generating 10 versions of the same object. Due to the speed of developing versions I slip on updating the version numbers. The above will help in sifting through the hundred or so obsolete versions for the obsoletes I want to trash and the obsoletes that have some reason to stay in my inventory.

Deleting would be a more convenient function if we have a quick way of inspecting the object without having to explicitly rez it. As it stands a full deletion with inspection takes 1 rez action and 4 delete actions (delete the inventory entry, delete the rezzed object, delete both again from trash). If we had a preview then this will be reduced to 2 actions (delete inventory entry, delete trash).

You make some interesting points, but I think it would be too little. Most people's work encompasses more than just building. They have to figure size of land involved, sometimes have to build right on the spot itself. The only thing I can think of that would be sufficient would be a "mutual invisibility" mode, wherein the user is invisible to other users... and they are invisible to him. Everything that he does has absolutely no effect in SL. Other people cannot see his builds. If he explodes a bomb, it affects no one.

The basic idea is a "parallel dimension" wherein the user can see everything except other avatars or new prims being created. Same vice versa... other users cannot see him or his new builds. Once he is done building, he can take the build to inventory and then place it where he wants it once coming back online. I know from experience that a build that covers up to 4096m and 1000 prims can be moved (if handled very slowly and carefully).

So this would be an ideal option for people who would otherwise have their time taken up by friends IMing, sending photos, notecards etc. It would be terrific for group leaders who need to do paperwork, and would be especially great for managing unruly inventories.