Please tip me generously!

Ok, I'm not talking about "Linden Love" so you can save your feigned outrage for another thread . I was reading HoneyBear Lilliebrook's blog today and she shared a great little tip to her readers which inspired this forum thread: http://virtual-freebies.blogspot.com/2009/03/freebie-of-different-kind.html

I love being able to share helpful little tips to friends and people I encounter to make their experience a little better. What I like even more is coming across a "ooh did not know that" tip. The forums are chock full of information such as this so I thought I'd throw this out there. What are some of the helpful, perhaps obscure but useful, tips you like to share with newbies and oldbies alike that often garner a "ooh did not know that" ? Sharing is caring!

No. 1 Tip: There's a whole thread for this stickied at the top of the forum.

The ones that I took a while to find out for myself:

You can edit the textures, repeats, offset, glow and shininess for any face of a prim individually. Looking at some builds, I suspect this isn't as well-known as it could be.

You can open two inventory windows at the same time, using a menu option in an inventory window. It makes managing inventory so much easier.

CTRL-SHIFT-Y sets time of day (and therefore lighting) to midday.

If you're editing a script within an object, you can close the object-edit window but keep the script window open. You can edit and recompile the script repeatedly without editing the object.

My #1 (money saving) tip: Always deed your land to a group with your alt and save on tier payment. Also, consider renting tier if you live in the EU.

Well, yes I'm aware of the stickied thread thread for those newly born but I guess I'm talking more about obscurish ones that you pick up along your travels that aren't necessarily all that well known .. things that even oldbies might not even be aware of.

I find some of the keyboard shortcuts come in really handy such as making all avatars disappear when perhaps you're in a crowded sim at a sale or something and just want to look at the vendors:
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-4 --> Advanced > Rendering > Types > Character
Or things like being able to enable multiple viewers without messing with the "--multiple" in your shortcuts by using the advanced menu > debug settings option of setting AllowMultipleViewers to true.

Also for those just starting out with content creation after having been around a while, debugging permissions to make setting next owner permissions a little easier:

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=4417&task=knowledge&questionID=4107

A couple of scripting tips even though I'm a bad one:

Use this standalone LSL editor to compile scripts & execute outside of SL if you don't want to be in-world. Helpful for auto-formatting scripts as well (ctrl-d):
http://www.lsleditor.org/

Handy website for collaborative debugging of scripts:
http://lsl2.pastebin.com/

Here is one I'll share since the last two times I have mentioned it inworld, people did not know:

When taking pictures, if there are objects that you do not want in the picture, you can hide them. Under the Advanced menu, Rendering, click Hide Selected. Now when you edit something, it will go invisible, with just the outline showing (which does not show in pictures). You can select additional objects to hide by using the Ctrl key and clicking on more things. Then just move the actual edit window out of your way and you can now shoot the scene without that obnoxious tree or all those poseballs.

This also works well if you need to find something that you have moved inside a wall or floor or such.

Yeah I really like the hiding things kinda tips because they are super useful for finding lost items and in photography. I also tell people to use the hide ground shortcut if they've lost stuff as well:

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-8 --> Advanced > Rendering > Types > Ground

Here's a tip for photographers. When you take a snapshot there is a capture dropdown menu in the snapshot preview window. If you choose 'color' you capture the basic screenshot. 'Object mattes' lets you capture a flat colored set of cutouts for different objects on the screen and 'depth' captures a gray scale image that shows close objects in black and gets lighter as it recedes into the background.

If you take all three capture types of the same scene you can use the object matte and depth captures to enhance your shot with programs like Photoshop. The mattes help you select items specifically for treatment while depth can be used with Pshop's masking tool to create effects based on the depth of the picture. e.g. You can make a gradual blurring of the background that blurs objects the further back they are.

Oooh! That was definitely a "did not know that" tip for me. Thanks

Something slightly obscure but pretty useful: If you need to move an object to a new location in-world where it is important to keep the same UUID, e.g. because it is communication with another object (client-server), don't take in the old place and rez it in the new place, but rather wear it (anywhere on you) and "drop" it at its new place.

Another one: Using beacons to locate sound and particle sources. Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N brings up the beacon selection window. It helps switching to midnight if the background is too bright to see them.

always look left and right before crossing the road

I'm flattered and grateful for the shoutout Joshooah. Wonderful thread, wonderful tips...please keep them coming, I'm learning tons here!

If you have IM's set to scroll on Local Chat you can open the local chat window and drag it almost all the way off the screen to temporarily stop seeing group IM's (or local chat too) without leaving the group or going into busy mode. This also preserves the discussion so you can go back and catch up if needed.

Don't forget to illuminate the surface you're taking the color of or else you'll get the wrong color.

Hey Josh, here's a tip for you:

Lose the insulting sig icon and tag under your name?

Who wants to take advice from someone who greets others with the term Avatard?

Didn't you learn from Obama last week?

I guess it is a matter of folks having a different sense of humor. I don't see it as insulting, but then I also don't seem to get as easily offended at stuff as a lot of people do.

From below, the inside of the flares of long trousers look like a disc that takes on the colour of your socks or skin. So, if possible, wear black socks with long trousers for a more realistic look. It should be possible to make black ankle bands on the sock layer that will do the trick even if you don't want to wear proper socks.

I love it, not least because there's more than one way of reading it - and who on earth would take it personally?

Chewing a rubber band with a spoonful of raspberry jam makes a cheap and tasty alternative to gum.

Hint: Chew a party balloon instead if you prefer bubble gum - but avoid condoms.

Gee, and this thread had such a promising beginning

Don't worry - there's always someone wanting to stir trouble - just look away and pretend it isn't there- best sort of Ignore. Joshooah, it's YOUR store- you don't need anyone but LL's approval on its name.

Very cool thread, I did the photo thing last night - now if I only knew enough photo editing to put it to use... And Lil - never thought of using Render hide edited to sue in pic taking, thanks.
Great thread. There are lot's of things some folks take ad obvious that others may not have thought of- like me and the apply texture directly to object thing that surprised someone not long ago in another thread cause after so long here I had not known it.
OK- yesterday in Pivot Building class- there is an option in the Edit window that reads Copy (use it in combo with Keep Tool Selected) you create the same prior object with all it properties just by clicking - another one of those, "oh wow! Never saw that before!" moments.

(Edited cause my typing sux)

A common one that's not listed yet - View Admin Options in the advanced menu lets you fly on no-fly land, and also allows you to offer teleports to anyone.

Calling llTakeControls allows a script to run on no-script land. There's some other considerations to this so you'll need to look it up.

Annoyed by folders opening too fast in inventory when you're trying to move something to a different folder, thus causing you to lose the place you were going to drop them? There are debug settings that let you slow this down so the inventory panel doesn't go spastic on you. I'll look them up later and edit this once I find them again.

A joke has occurred.

Lighten up. It ain't the end of the world if you aren't amused.

Sorry I didn't amuse you - darn- I allways look forward to your 'roars with laughter' oh well.

here's a couple more i just remembered:

list of keyboard shortcuts and downloadable tip sheet:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/All_keyboard_shortcut_keys
http://www.kippiefriedkin.com/resources/secondlife-viewer-cheatsheet.pdf

list of debug menu options (please be careful!!!):
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Debug_Settings

I read somewhere there is the ability to change a debug setting so that you could potentially disable your cam to go beyond 512 and up to 4096 but I can't remember where. My poor computer would probably blow up if I tried that though.

edit: found it! it's the debug setting for "renderfarclip"
And another fun debug: NumSessions - How many times have you successfully logged into Second Life? A fun piece of trivia. (This gets reset if you reinstall Second Life and delete your settings file.)

If you need some a specific megaprim and don't want to download the huge freebie megaprim packages you can use the SALT hud and get the specific sized megaprim sent to you:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=712605

I'm not affiliated with these businesses in anyway but if you have a small business, subscribeomatics are free now for up to 500 subscribers:
https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=323598