A Plea to Firestorm from OpenSim

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

A person coming to Kitely without any viewer installed would actually get a much better user experience. After they press they Enter World button it will turn into an Install Kitely Plugin button. Once the plugin is installed it will detect that no viewer is installed and will then turn the button to Install Virtual World Viewer button (that sends the user an installer for the OpenSim version of Firestorm once pressed). Once both the viewer and the plugin are installed the button will turn back into an Enter World button which can be used to enter the world.

The problem for experienced users arises when they try to use a viewer that the plugin recognizes but which no longer works with OpenSim (e.g. the popular SL-only version of Firestorm).

[Marstol Nitely]

I have had to walk friends through the login process to get them to Kitely and it is laborious. Their eyes kinda glaze over when I mention getting a different viewer, lol.

I had the same problem Adagio. For some reason they couldn't get the plug-in to work and trying to get them on without it used to be a real pain. Now it's pretty simple with the latest Opensim Firestorm if you have friends who are averse to the plug-in.

Go to the settings on the Kitely page and uncheck "Use Kitely Plugin to launch the viewer automatically"
Enter your world or a public world (I stay logged in on the webpage to eliminate a step).
Open Firestorm and choose "Whovever@Kitely" type in their password and hit enter as soon as the world loads.

After the first time, the only thing that's different from logging in anywhere else is starting up the world first.
(My 4x4 is generally loaded close to the time I get my password typed in).

It looks like the Firestorm SL users are about to start on wild ride themselves. The Firestorm team has a lot on their plate. It's great that they are still interested in helping us out despite the storm that appears to be headed their way:
http://www.firestormviewer.org/qa-results/
http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/02 ... rly-looks/
http://blog.nalates.net/2013/02/13/fire ... g-summary/

[Adagio Greenwood]

Yikes!

[Graham Mills]

Side issue -- Kitely export flag mentioned in comments needs clarification.

http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/02 ... rly-looks/

PS would be good to mention need for flag support in viewer long-term

[Ilan Tochner]

Thank you for the heads up Graham.

As per you suggestion, I added a comment with a clarification about our upcoming Export permission and the value of adding that permission to the viewer.

[Constance Peregrine]

http://modemworld.wordpress.com/2013/02 ... nscript/2/

I particularly like their new export function mentioned at the end of the article-))

[Dinero Outlander]

Yeah, that's true; I have had to walk friends through the login process to get them to Kitely and it is laborious. Their eyes kinda glaze over when I mention getting a different viewer, lol. I have been thinking a lot about the fact that it is the experienced virtual world citizen who is coming to Kitely now cuz they can cope with the process but we will need the less experienced citizens to come here too if Kitely is to grow beyond a small population.

Adagio

Yeah I am a veteran and I found the process a PITA myself. I will be super glad when Kitley enables the easier standard login process.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Dinero,

You can login to Kitely via the viewer by following the setup instructions listed here: http://www.kitely.com/startviewers

At this time, if you try logging into a world that is currently inactive the viewer login will fail and give you a message with a link to the world page where you'll be able to press the Enter World button to activate the world (this additional step will be eliminated once Kitely implements Transfer Stations, see: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-new ... -stations/ ).

You can use the Enter World button on world pages without installing the Kitely Plugin by setting an option in your account's Settings page, see the Start Viewers Manually section of: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world-new ... supported/

[Adagio Greenwood]

Yep, I just brought another buddy in the other night, a casual virtual world user but very sophisticated computer user in other areas, and, even though he had FS-opensim and FB it was a long process, finally successful at the end. As you might not be surprised to hear, he commented that the whole ordeal of getting in might be an impediment to many.

Adagio

[Ilan Tochner]

Do you have any suggestion for how we can easily improve the login experience when not using the Kitely Plugin given that:

A) Worlds must be activate in order for the viewer to be able to connect to one of their regions.

B) You can't login into the Kitely grid (or any OpenSim-based grid for that matter) without connecting to some region in it. In other words, if there is no region to connect to the viewer login fails.

C) We can only tell if your desired destination is active, and start activating it if it isn't, when you try connecting to it.

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Would connecting to an always-on gateway world and being automatically teleported to your desired destination once it's active be okay? (the aforementioned transfer stations will enable login into world-specific waiting areas but implementing them is time consuming and we're currently focused on implementing the Kitely Market)