Opinions Wanted:Offline Landmark Storage

I'm currently developing an offline landmarking system, and it's coming along swimmingly, it should be live very soon. It uses the Linden MapAPI (I.E. it uses their map system as seen on the frontpage) to draw the map, meaning you will be able to see where you're TPing to.

I'm developing two versions;

The first version will be the full-screen version you see in the attached image. Perfect for the alt-tabbers among us, it works perfectly with Firefox and Internet Explorer, with your landmarks and controls overlayed onto the map.

The second version will be a sidebar affair for those of us that keep SL in a non-maximized window. The map will occupy the top of the window, with the controls below that and landmarks lower still.

Basicly, my questions are;

How popular do you think this service would be?
Would you use it?
What features would you like from the service?
Does Torley really need to wear such bright colours?

I hate to burst bubbles of creativity, but the biggest problem I see is that change, churn, and movement is so frequent in SL that even internal systems like Find->Places are often outdated and so even if your tool was a wild success, you'd have a nearly impossible task keeping the data current. There have been attempts to build similar directories when the grid size and in-game population were ten or hundred times smaller and failed for this reason.

And Torley would lose her essential Torleyness if the colors were changed. I think she's waiting for 48-bit color so she could be 256 times as contrasty.

But that's the thing, you see. I don't have to keep the data current.

Linden Labs offer the map system and even show you how to hook your own code into it. This map is generated by the same processes that draw the in-game map. The MapAPI also makes it easy to TP someone or launch their copy of SL.

The only data that needs to be kept up-to-date is the user's landmarks, data they keep current themselves.

--Edit

Ah, I see, you thought I meant as a way to find places listed by others.

This is meant to be a personal landmark system, though that's a great idea. I could see that as a source of revenue.

A personal, offline landmarker. Sounds good to me. Give me one less reason to go through my inventory and I'll give you a hug.

Check out the Landmarker project. It's goal is different as it is supposed to be more like del.icio.us.



Would be cool to be able to mark bookmarks as public or private and allow others to subscribe to an RSS feed of public bookmarks. Since RSS is essentially a one-time thing you wouldn't have to worry about keeping it current. That would be a nice way to see what kind of places people find worthy of bookmarking at glance.

Also it'd be great to have an API that lets me access my bookmarks from other apps/sites so I can do SL mashups (currently there isn't much data available from different sites to facilitate a good mashup).



Yes! Don't ask again. One demerit for Gleeb.

Great, more good ideas! I love them

RSS is a strong possibility, as I'm going to be using XML for client/server data transfer, it wouldn't be hard to cobble together a nice little RSS feed

Being able totag bookmarks would be great. Both for private bookmarks (so I can quickly find the places that I enjoy buying "shoes" and for public bookmarks (so I can find where others enjoy buying "shoes".

Also I don't know what your in-world mechanism is, but I'd suggest a HUD or an open framework that allows people to build their own HUDS.

Yeah, about that... I dunno how to do that, so it won't be available immediatly, but you'll be able to do it through the web interface.

Anyone want to tell me about the finer points of having a linux server act upon incoming e-mail would be thanks profusely.

One really easy way is to make a user account, and then just create a .forward file in the home directory. Then all mail sent to that user will be piped to a program.

----------------
.forward
----------------
|~/Parser.pl

Yeah, if you want to make it easy, sure ¬_¬ (Thanks )

Looks like we're gonna have a nice thing up and running pretty darned soon... or as soon as my server comes back online.

I tried to add a landmark in Lostfurest dAlliez, but that sim's not listed. I can find it on your map, but I can't add a landmark there because you can only add one through your pulldown (you can't type a sim name or add a landmark by clicking on the map), and Lostfurest dAlliez isn't there. It's not because it's two words (Da Boom is listed) or because it's an island (Taco is listed)... what gives?

Landmarker isn't mine. They don't have nefrax, my home sim, either.

Does Torley have a bear yet? Is it a watermelon?

HIGH-DYNAMIC RANGE! Muhahaha.

No sowwies I don't have a bear and/or card yet. Hopefully when I get an opportunity to sit one and really focus on it! And I'll be like "Hey dere... hey bear..." and there'll be like the sound of a banjo plucking and cooking pots rattling in the background, one of those sceneseque countryside things, kind of like "What if Martha Stewart met Harry and the Hendersons?" BUT I digress.

I'd like better ways to organize my landmarks. Several of my points for the future, using an openended approach, include:

1. When will the "Add Landmark" be back in the FIND directory? Used to be in 1.5 and before I think, you could acquire landmarks without having to actually TP to a place. VERY handy. I built up whole chains and traversed!
   

1. When, in IMs, will we be able to type a place and coordinates and get them "hyperlinked" as a landmark, and when can we drag-and-drop a landmark into an IM window, including group ones, and have it appear and be clickable? Great for meetings, especially those where someone goes, "Where's the meeting?" (And yes this does relate to other kinds of inventory drops.)
   

1. When will there be an easy way to convert something like secondlife://Plum/69/14/99 to Plum (69, 14, 99) and back and forth? It gets to be a pain to do the edits. If any landmarker tool had something like that, I'd be like "w00t! Easier to link now!"
   

It occurs to me there are several holes that Resident-created tools could fill nicely. I am watching out for kewl usages of the Map API, since clearly, organizing landmarks is important! (What good is a list of places if you can't get from here to there easily?) Altho from personal experience, I find it difficult to make more fully-formed opinions unless I give something a spin for myself, and work with it for awhile. I'm very hands-on that way.

Keep the news coming, Gleeb.

I just missed seeing this, I can't imagine why it would have been removed, it seems like an obvious thing to have.

You're the Linden, you tell us!

I'd also like to be able to bring up just the people I've added notes to in Find. If there is a way, tell me.