Character sets and IM

Character sets
This should first of all be a requriment and not a suggestion, it should be a requriment to be able to send messages to SL with character sets except the english strandard (crap) which it only allows you to do. I been pulling hairs and what not while trying to reply in my own language, without being able to use 3 extra characters we have in our alphabet, it could make little sense at times and i belive it would'nt make much sense for other languages such as german, italian, french and what not. I suggest this is added shortly as it not only cause a lot of hassle, it also descriminates use of other languages than english.

Now, do what ever it takes to make the mail program you use to accept characters that are not english cause they can send out those characters but not send in. (Wierd!)

Instant Messages
You should be able to log on to a web based client that allows you to communicate with other people in SL when you are not currently on a computer capable of handeling 3D rendering or you just want to have a little window with chat only. Now I'm just thinking Instant Messages and a online list. Much work? No! I have made serveral chat clients for a other game and that was even more complex than what is asked for here, that game had other formating and stuff of the text, which is not in SL.

Hard to make? No. Very usefull for a lot of people? Yes.

Just use Ajax(xml reqeusts in javascript, all the big browsers support it.) or good old keep-a-live http connection with web server flushing, you can do it easy with PHP. If you cannot do this, make a small way to make developers develope a chat client 3rd party, im pritty sure i would want to make one if it became possible.

To yur first point, that iss already standard. The Japanese SL community routinely types in Japanese. Perhaps you need to upgrade your software that you use to type your language?

For your second point, since what you type and hear is determined by where you are in the game relative to other avatars, it would be extremely hard technically to accomplish standard SL chat. And if you are considering 1:1 chat, well, there are a dozen programs that already fill that niche.

I use GMail and that mail service is very compatible with internatinal standards thank you very much, if SL is unable to read these character sets or ISO formating, then SL needs to be upgraded.

Since you have not read what i wrote, i will explain it again. Instant messages! Thats all that is needed for a chat client i had in mind, not the vicinity chat, but chating with people you ONLY KNOW and only contact VIA SL, should be a posibility. Trust me it's not that hard to make. Mabye group chat aswell would be nice to have.

These are very simple things that does not requrie huge amount of coding, unless they really got a messy code and framework :|

Have you tried sending a short email to their "UUID@im.secondlife.com"? I believe that will show up as an IM to someone in-world as long as the sending email account is associated with your SL account.

You can check which of your friends are on line through http://secondlife.com/community/friends.php as well.

~Boss

Why should SL recreate things which are already possible? I see so many 'feature' requests for things which users can already do.

You want to communicate with your friends in SL, while you're online but away from SL? Use a freakin' IM program. There's several programs that works with multiple IM protocols, and then you have your basic AIM, Yahoo!, MSN apps.

If LL were to add the ability to IM directly into SL, then they would also need to add privacy features for the new 'feature'. Because I wouldn't want to be bothered while I'm in SL, by someone who is NOT in SL at the time.

I think everyone who wants this feature should get together, choose a particular IM service, and create accounts with their SL names. Then, run SL, run your IM client, presto! Instant message capability for anyone who wants to be bothered by it, in or out of SL.

DoteDote Edison seems to have also not readed my posts, anyhow the SSL layer provides enough privacy and SL chat is what i last hear, not cryptated, even the login stuff can be handled by SSL, which they do already have a login system for

I really like for those who want to comment here, to read what i have said and understand it, instead of going on about stuff that is not said and things that are pritty clear

Please don't get snotty and accuse me of not reading your words. It's rather unbecoming of someone who wants to be taken seriously.

Anyway, as I said, SL is fully capable of handling unicode and non-English character sets. Hop over to a Japanese sim (pack your Japanese fonts first) if you don't believe me. An unrelated issue might be the way SL forwards IMs to email. They don't include any character set headers. A decent email client would examine the content to see if the pattern matches any known character sets, or else default to the user preferences for a character set. The fact that your email client fails to examine the content for possible character set matches and either has not been given or cannot be given a default character set beyond ISO-8859-1 suggests that it isn't actually as advanced as you claim.

Sorry, but while Gmail is good in many ways, but a true email client it isn't.

As for your second proposal, which amounts to an IM program, LL has better things to do than reinvent the wheel. fwiw, I routinely have two different IM programs running in the background while playing SL, and it doesn't affect SL performance at all (my graphics card is my bottlneck, not processing power). I don't find it hard to believe that teh majority of SL citizens are the same. There7s no real need to make a separate IM-only client.

First off, i hope you read this right, cause with "An unrelated issue might be the way SL forwards IMs to email."? You do know this is about:

E-Mail -> SL not SL -> E-Mail?

I really doubt google making something broken, all i have seen by google is very well made, so don't think other wise.

GMail sends out my emails atleast, in ISO-8859-1 defined in the header:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Then SL coughs up and gives error or simular, when trying to send messages that has a proper charset specification:

This is the Postfix program at host data.agni.lindenlab.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

                       The Postfix program

<mailtoim@data.agni.lindenlab.com> (expanded from
   <d3d9dd4a-c5ce-a2df-7636-996763ac4904@im.secondlife.com>): Command died
   with status 100: "/opt/linden/indra/tools/mailglue/mailglue --grid=3Dagn=
i
   --system=3Dim --rpcserver=3Dhttp://xmlrpc.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/xmlrpc.=
cgi".
   Command output: Fault from http://10.0.129.45:12035/xmlrpc/postmaster:
   RPC::XML::fault=3DHASH(0x8b1a57c)->as_string()



Final-Recipient: rfc822; mailtoim@data.agni.lindenlab.com
Original-Recipient: rfc822;
d3d9dd4a-c5ce-a2df-7636-996763ac4904@im.secondlife.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Command died with status 100:
   "/opt/linden/indra/tools/mailglue/mailglue --grid=3Dagni --system=3Dim
   --rpcserver=3Dhttp://xmlrpc.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/xmlrpc.cgi". Command
   output: Fault from http://10.0.129.45:12035/xmlrpc/postmaster:
   RPC::XML::fault=3DHASH(0x8b1a57c)->as_string()

Mabye you dont see the need, mabye others have, but the point is - it does'nt take much to make such a client, would be very helpfull for people who don't allways have the ability to be on a computer well enough or is firewalled and wants to spend some time chating and catching up with friends they only contact via SL. And if you don't know, some people stick to SL as their only way of communicating with others in SL, so point is valid. There is some privacy concerns around for people and having a IM screen name or e-mail address can easily break that privacy.