Kitely upgrade to OpenSim 0.7.6
Kitely has finished work on updating to OpenSim 0.7.6 so the migration can take place in the next build.
Kitely is now working on adding a few of the requested features and fixing additional OpenSim issues that have been causing people issues, especially ones relating to content import. The current ETA for the next site update is end of next week.
This build has taken much longer than expected.
Market delivery to other OpenSim grids
Once the upgrade is complete, the next big milestone is enabling the hypergrid-delivery system for Kitely Market The current ETA for that is 2--3 weeks after the upcoming site update.
Bad news for Kitely browser plug-in
Unfortunately, the next updates to Firefox and Chrome web browsers will break the Kitely web plug-in. This is because the Firefox and Chrome teams will no longer support executable browser plug-ins, much to the chagrin of many browser plug-in developers (not just Kitely).
Because about 67% of Kitely users use one of these two browsers, Kitely is being forced to change how the Enter World button works, and dropping Kitely Plugin support from all browsers.
The alternative way of entering Kitely is by choosing it from the grid manager menu on the start-up page of Firestorm, Angstrom, and other supported world viewers, and logging in directly. A lot of people already use this method.
Several at the meeting voiced dismay at the loss of a very user-friendly way of logging into Kitely ("Just press the big blue button, Enter World.")
We will need to put together clear, step-by-step instructions to help people new to virtual worlds to log in; a video tutorial is another option. Another suggestion was to put together a small .exe file to launch the viewer (though that solution would be for Windows PCs only; a fair number of us use Macs).
As Ilan commented, "We're seeing more than 5% of people who get to the site actually end up inworld, which is quite good considering all that is required. The biggest drop-off in the conversion funnel is going from opening an account to successfully logging into the grid."
Using Stored Inventory (SI)
Although development on SI stopped in 2009 and the user interface is horrible, quite a few people still use it to transfer creations between SL and OpenSim grids.
Some have reported problems with clothing layers not importing correctly, i.e. not showing the correct type. Ilan asked if any at the meeting had encountered this: "We need it to work so SL merchants who use SI will be able to import easily."
Kitely is thinking of developing a workround for this problem, perhaps by detecting when SI is being used, and doing something to fix the wrong type definitions.
