No-asset option for saving Kitely OARs?

[Dot Matrix]

Might there be a possibility of adding an option to the Export World section NOT to include all the assets when saving an OAR of a Kitely world?

I know the --noassets option exists in OpenSim because I use it in SoaS to reduce the size of OAR files that include assets I know have already been uploaded to Kitely (the UUIDs seem to stay the same).

This would potentially save a lot of bandwidth when uploading and downloading OARs.

To give an idea of the possible reduction in file size, I recently combined several OARs into a 4x4 configuration using SoaS. The combined OAR with assets was 246.8 MB. The same megaregion saved with the --noassets switch resulted in a file of 3.3 MB.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Dot,

Exporting an OAR file without the assets of the region(s) it saves will result in an archive file that is useless outside Kitely, unless you already have those assets in the other grid you import them into.

[Dot Matrix]

Yes, I know that. That's why I suggested it might be an option for people to choose when needed -- maybe in an "Advanced" section so they don't click it by mistake.

If you are working back-and-forth between Kitely and your own SoaS grid, experimenting with different arrangements of single OARs that you already have, it makes sense not to upload and download all the assets each time.

I am already successfully uploading --noasset files to Kitely. For those of us who understand the limitations, it would be nice to be able to do it the other way round -- especially when rural broadband can be so s-l-o-w!

[Ilan Tochner]

We'll have to consider the effect on user experience before we can implement such a function. We avoid adding user-facing features that we don't believe will be popular as they clutter the UI and increase complexity. This particular feature would be quite useful for certain scenarios but could also create quite a few customer support issues. Before we can evaluate this feature request, we'd therefore need to get numerical data on how often people export a Kitely world and then import a modified version of the OAR file they exported.

[Dot Matrix]

Thanks, Ilan. I realise this is a special case.