Second Life Forums Archive - Show SL grid status on a webpage?

Optimus Paul

Autobot Commander

Join date: 26 Sep 2006

Posts: 6

10-13-2006 04:11

Hiya,

We are getting this site off the ground: www.sloodle.com - to allow teachers to easily integrate Second Life with the open source VLE Moodle.

I would like to write a Moodle (www.moodle.org) block that shows the Grid Status of second life - and was wondering if you could share the PHP code that picks up on the status of the grid?

Something as simple as Grid Status Online/Offline etc would be very handy - this way schools, colleges and universities could add the block to their Moodles so they would know if it's possible to access SL without having to leave their VLE.

Any help is most appreciated.

PS: If SL was integrated with Moodle you'd get instant buy in from loads of schools & colleges & uni's - in the UK over 60% of all colleges use it, there is a whitepaper on how we think the system could work over at www.sloodle.com

Cheers.

Paul.

Jeska Linden

Administrator

Join date: 26 Jul 2004

Posts: 2,388

10-13-2006 14:17

Cool project! You can view the grid status here: http://secondlife.com/status/ - there is a link available at the bottom of every page on the web site.

Eventually we'd like to have a web service to make this easier, but currently you should be able to scrape the information from that page. Also, the web team has said that if we can help make the scraping easier (such as by putting status information in the title of the html), please let us know!

_____________________

"The opportunity to participate in the creation of a new world is really a rare one, and so I hope you cherish it."
- Mitch Kapor on Second Life at the 2006 SLCC

Optimus Paul

Autobot Commander

Join date: 26 Sep 2006

Posts: 6

SL Status in title of HTML - yes please!

10-14-2006 01:58

"Eventually we'd like to have a web service to make this easier, but currently you should be able to scrape the information from that page. Also, the web team has said that if we can help make the scraping easier (such as by putting status information in the title of the html), please let us know!"

Jeska Linden

[left]I got it working!

Needs to be wrapped up as a Moodle block but the php is working.

Here it is for anyone else that wants it - I left the links in to the site where I nabbed the code from...

<?php

// Example script, by Dennis Pallett // http://www.phpit.net/tutorials/screenscrap-rss

// Get page

$url = "http://www.secondlife.com/status";

$data = implode("", file($url));

// Get content items

preg_match_all ("/<h3>

[^`]*?)<\/h3>/", $data, $matches);

echo $matches[0][0];

?>

Thanks a lot - I didn't know it was called "scraping" y'see so didn't know what to search for!

[/left]

Torley Linden

Enlightenment!

Join date: 15 Sep 2004

Posts: 16,530

10-16-2006 13:16

[MERGED] We have an Autobot commander here.

Thank you Optimus, I'll forward this to our web developers so they can check it out...

_____________________

Jeff Linden

Linden Lab Lifeform

Join date: 28 May 2003

Posts: 79

10-16-2006 15:36

Good job, Optimus!

One note I'd like to suggest is to add some additional error checking.

While scraping is very useful, the chance of the data changing out from underneath your feet is much higher than other types of web development.

In general it's nice to write scraping code that fails gracefully; for example, if you can't read the page or if you don't find any <H3> tags, to simply display "Status unavailable" or a more drastic error message.

The unfortunate observation is that while we don't try to break folks who scrape our pages, we don't have a process in place to communicate who's scraping what, and what change will break what scrapes. Caveat scrape-tor! =)

_____________________

Enhancing your Second Lifetime... one life at a time.

Show SL grid status on a webpage?
Optimus Paul Autobot Commander Join date: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 6	10-13-2006 04:11 Hiya, We are getting this site off the ground: www.sloodle.com - to allow teachers to easily integrate Second Life with the open source VLE Moodle. I would like to write a Moodle (www.moodle.org) block that shows the Grid Status of second life - and was wondering if you could share the PHP code that picks up on the status of the grid? Something as simple as Grid Status Online/Offline etc would be very handy - this way schools, colleges and universities could add the block to their Moodles so they would know if it's possible to access SL without having to leave their VLE. Any help is most appreciated. PS: If SL was integrated with Moodle you'd get instant buy in from loads of schools & colleges & uni's - in the UK over 60% of all colleges use it, there is a whitepaper on how we think the system could work over at www.sloodle.com Cheers. Paul.
Jeska Linden Administrator Join date: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 2,388	10-13-2006 14:17 Cool project! You can view the grid status here: http://secondlife.com/status/ - there is a link available at the bottom of every page on the web site. Eventually we'd like to have a web service to make this easier, but currently you should be able to scrape the information from that page. Also, the web team has said that if we can help make the scraping easier (such as by putting status information in the title of the html), please let us know! _____________________ "The opportunity to participate in the creation of a new world is really a rare one, and so I hope you cherish it." - Mitch Kapor on Second Life at the 2006 SLCC
Optimus Paul Autobot Commander Join date: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 6	SL Status in title of HTML - yes please! 10-14-2006 01:58 "Eventually we'd like to have a web service to make this easier, but currently you should be able to scrape the information from that page. Also, the web team has said that if we can help make the scraping easier (such as by putting status information in the title of the html), please let us know!" Jeska Linden [left]I got it working! Needs to be wrapped up as a Moodle block but the php is working. Here it is for anyone else that wants it - I left the links in to the site where I nabbed the code from... <?php // Example script, by Dennis Pallett // http://www.phpit.net/tutorials/screenscrap-rss // Get page $url = "http://www.secondlife.com/status"; $data = implode("", file($url)); // Get content items preg_match_all ("/<h3>[^`]*?)<\/h3>/", $data, $matches); echo $matches[0][0]; ?> Thanks a lot - I didn't know it was called "scraping" y'see so didn't know what to search for! [/left]
Torley Linden Enlightenment! Join date: 15 Sep 2004 Posts: 16,530	10-16-2006 13:16 [MERGED] We have an Autobot commander here. Thank you Optimus, I'll forward this to our web developers so they can check it out... _____________________
Jeff Linden Linden Lab Lifeform Join date: 28 May 2003 Posts: 79	10-16-2006 15:36 Good job, Optimus! One note I'd like to suggest is to add some additional error checking. While scraping is very useful, the chance of the data changing out from underneath your feet is much higher than other types of web development. In general it's nice to write scraping code that fails gracefully; for example, if you can't read the page or if you don't find any <H3> tags, to simply display "Status unavailable" or a more drastic error message. The unfortunate observation is that while we don't try to break folks who scrape our pages, we don't have a process in place to communicate who's scraping what, and what change will break what scrapes. Caveat scrape-tor! =) _____________________ Enhancing your Second Lifetime... one life at a time.

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Show SL grid status on a webpage?