hyperlinks

i can best suggest this as a scenario. imagine browsing a website with a reference to something in second life and being able to click a hyperlink that will open your client and log you into the grid at the exact location of the reference.

we have this technology now, of course, with the exception that we're logged into the grid at the nearest telehub. so the first part of this suggestion is that web based logins bypass the telehub system. (actually, telehubs should be dismantled and forgotten; but that's another suggestion altogether.)

now imagine seeing an inworld item that references a website via a hyperlink embedded in a script. touching the item spawns the local web browser and loads the referenced page for the user. with this feature implemented, we could effectively shift people's attention between the web and the grid.

at that point, we don't need for lsl to be particularly storage proficient, we can just shift people to a website and use scripting languages there. the they can return to the grid in time for the daily b'day party. imagine what you can do with shopping. et cetera, feel free to post prospective uses here.

This was brought up a long time ago, about when I joined. I think the "official" explanation was that hyperlinks weren't put much in-game because it broke the immersion. I know i always found it jarring in there to zonk between MSIE and There, and that was a browser embedded into the program.

Besides, then you open up a whole new can of worms for spammers, spyware, viruses... "Click this link for $L500!" *click* *spyware everywhere, snags your SL password, you're done*

LF

...because it broke the immersion.

What immersion? Immersion implies imagination, I see nothing imagined in Second Life. What immersion are you talking about?

Besides, then you open up a whole new can of worms for spammers, spyware, viruses...

I see now. I see now. Glory be, praise Ra, I understand! SL caters to the lowest common denominator of the MMOG user. We can't have hyperlinks because it would endanger the idiots, but it's okay to have a blind eye turned to newbie grabbers and land barons at the welcome center. Thank you, Lordfly. I feel enlightened now.

Second Life users are drug addicts, and hyper links would harsh their vibe. Gotcha!

I don't want hyperlinks.

It'd upset MY immersion.

i don't perceive much immersion inworld. i'm constantly being told "gotta feed the kids brb" and "phone brb." it confuses me that people seem to think that adding this feature would destory their gaming experience.

if a group want to build an immersive environment, complete with role playing rules and no fly zones, they're well able to do it. that doesn't require that the rest of the community, including the role players, settle for a limited set of tools and abilities.

the argument i most often encounter is that the ability to link out of second life, or to teleport anywhere without flying from a hub, will destroy the sense of community. that's not true. i don't jump up in the middle of a club meeting, movie, or dinner and drive my car across town just because i can. when i'm in those environment, i limit myself to those surroundings, people and rules. i immerse myself by choice.

people can't play an fm radios in meetings or movies. does that mean we shouldn't have that technology at all because it might ruin sombody's immersive experience one day. well there are cell phones...

I don't think that anyone suggested that clicking on hyperlinks be made mandatory.

my 2 L$.... i get way into SL when i'm on but i don't feel immersed. like it's not a fictional world or something. i'm not role playing. it's more like a hangout place. i don't feel immersed when i go to Barnes & Noble or a bar with friends. guess it depends on your definition of "immersion".

please, don't bust out the dictionary definition all formal. that's just gay.

The issue of immersion or no-immersion is simple to address. Those who require their plots to be detached from 1L for purposes of total immersion would disallow 1L-SL integration links to be placed on their land, and those who are not using SL for immersion would set the opposite condition.

It's not possible for one shoe to fit all on this issue, so provide plot-based control and let the owners decide. We already have similar controls in place for other purposes.

this is a reasonable solution. we can already flip on & off features such as create, fly and scripts. and clients have the option of listening to audio streams or not. so adding a box to not allow hyperlinks to function over that land seems perfectly natural.

I actually posted this in another thread of more varying discussions and silly banter, but thought I would also post it here as well, seeing that this is a more direct discussion of the subject.


I'm not in favor of imbedding a web browser within SL because I'd prefer to choose from the many available. I think the web browser should be a separate and "stand alone" application.

However, I'd definitely like to be able to add hyperlinks within objects that automatically start up my browser of choice (defined in my system preferences) and open the page I've specified. Also typing (or copy/pasting) hyperlinks within chat should become an active clickable link when posted.

That would ROCK!!!

Frankly I don't see any benefit of having an in-game browser, it would be just another maintenance hassle for the Lindens and would slow development of the more important unique features people have been asking about for a long time now.

If you read the original post, it is not about hyperlinks in SL. It is about the fact that secondlife;// protocol links take you to a telehub near the destination, instead of the destination.

For the umpteenth time, we need this in SL. Not want, need.

need which? an inworld browser or scripted hyperlinks that launch a new window? i proposed the latter at the beginning of the thread and still think it's the way to go. i wouldn't complain if they added both; but i'm not convinced that inworld is better than outworld.

Not if it's Mozilla based. I'm just sayin. Of course. But an integrated mini-browser function would be kinda nice.

Having hyperlinks as a land option would just be silly. If you don't like hyperlinks, don't click them.

Anyone who would use this for spamming would be against the TOS and delt with.

SL NEEDS: hyperlinks clickable in chat history (why the hell we STILL don't have this yet, baffles me to a great ammount), hyperlinks clickable in notecards (again, baffled).

And I endorse the original ideas, however, if its an object that when touched opens a window, I would like a dialog approval, and the tooltip for that object to also point it out.

This is because currently, an object being clicked only does in-world functions, while these can be harmfull to your avatar and could rez an object with a texture of goatse, it rarely happens. I imagine though people would be more likely to have objects that open up to random websites I might not wish to see at that time.

So when an object that opens up your browser (object acting as a hyperlink) is clicked, I'd like a dialog that said "<objectname> wishes to open your browser to the URL: <url> Continue? Ignore?" etc.

The hyperlinking from outside web-pages into SL as mentioned would also be cool, currently the links to places kinda are buggy, it doesn't work if you have SL loaded already, and teleporting to telehubs is just annoying and confusing.

Objects that have web-sites on them to allow for in-world browsing would be awsome, imagine having a web-browser displayed on a prim face, fully usable, and fully realtime to anyone around, allowing multiple people to watch as you surf, same as RL. I'd love to see that.

Also objects that can directly teleport you to a location in-world would be neat, kinda like hyperlinking within SL to locations.

And what I find funny is when people go against any linking. If SL is to truely become some sort of metaverse, hyperlinking *NEEDS* to happen. SL can not be any internet replacement or any sort of comparision to the internet if hyperlinking doesn't happen.

Sadly ActiveWorlds had this better down. AW allowed you to do the following: Have objects that launched websites (either built in browser window, or default browser), the URL was displayed on the face of the object in text, when clicked = launchy. Have objects that directly teleported you to locations, click = teleport you to coords given, this was less of a worry, because AW has "back" and "forward" buttons simular to a web browser, clicking them would send you back or forward to your previouse teleport locations, so if you accidently click a sign you can just hit back and go back. Have objects that load images directly from URLs.

Hyperlinks by their very nature are an OPTION. You opt out of the link but doing nothing! Just don't click. On the other hand, trying to get a URL out of chat history is a pain in the bum.

Here's a regular expression for replace both http://www.foobar.com style links, as well as one for www.foobar.com style with a full HTML anchor tag... feel free to use this, I hereby release this to the public domain (PHP style, but can be used with anything supporting regexp):

function formatgraph($txt) {
  //  First match things beginning with http:// (or other protocols)
  $expr='/(?<!"|href=|href\s=\s|href=\s|href\s=)(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\w]+(.[\w]+)([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:\/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&\/~\+#])?/i';
  $txt = preg_replace($expr, "<a href=\"$0\" title=\"$0\" target=\"_blank\">$0</a>", $txt );

  //  Now match things beginning with www.
  $expr='/(?<!"|href=|href\s=\s|href=\s|href\s=)(?<!:\/\/)www(.[\w]+)([\w\-\.,@?^=%&:\/~\+#]*[\w\-\@?^=%&\/~\+#])?/i';

  return nl2br(preg_replace($expr, "<a href=\"http://$0\" title=\"http://$0\" target=\"_blank\">$0</a>", $txt));
}

Hope that helps!

-Flip