AjaxLife: Browser-Based Second Life Viewer?
I couldn’t get this to work yesterday and I still can’t today, but one of the Electric Sheep got it working and it sounds fascinating. Someone (said to be a teen) has created an Ajax-based client for the virtual world of Second Life. Is this the start of browser-based SL use? That’s a potentially revolutionary idea. From the original post describing AjaxLife:
Due to some combination of boredom, wanting to talk to people in SL, and inspiration from a vague memory of something Interfect Sonic did, I decided to start work on an AJAX based SL client.
It’s still under heavy development, but the result so far is an application/page/site called AjaxLife.
It now works on the MG (I think!)
Features
* Basic map
* Teleports
* Accepting/declining teleport offers
* Local chat, instant messages (partially — you can’t start them except with online friends)
* Inventory received notifications
* Friend on/offline notifications
* Balance change notifications, etc.It also correctly logs you in and out, and notifies you if you were disconnected for any reason.
Let us know if you get it going. [Via Vint Falken.]
Feeds
I got it going. It’s really sweet.
It seemed to work fine for me last night.
It showed me which of my chums were online, and offered me chat and IM options. I could also view the map and change my location. There didn’t appear to be any control on my avatar tho (correct me if I’m wrong) - so I couldn’t walk about and stumble into walls etc (unlike SLeek).
The advantage over SLeek is that it does not requre a big .NET download.
I would like some assurance though that my login details have not been syphoned off for some nefarious doings. I don’t want to login on the LL viewer to find all my money gone, my land wrecked and my meagre reputation in tatters! :-)
For some reason it didn’t let me log in from work - which is probably a very good thing - but I was quite able to from home.
Aleister: I posted in Ms Berry’s blog comments about this, but some sort of sensory attachment that also incorporated voice-activated “follow X around” and “nudge yourself N/S/E/W a bit” commands, and reported back collisions, location and so on, would be quite easy to do. If I get the chance I might put one together, I have all of the components already really. It should probably also have an indicator pointing out that one’s avatar is somewhat impaired.
Oh, and it is indeed “really sweet”.
It would, theoretically, work anywhere that has the required browser - that’s a large part of the point (not blocked at my school. :p)
Unfortuately, it crashed when a few hundred people tried to use it at once. The server wouldn’t respond to anything other than pulling the plug out the back. :p
Hoping to have it on another server by the end of tomorrow.
I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t produce some lengthy document about whether or not I’ll steal your password - so I’ll just promise I won’t, and also state I don’t log names, let alone passwords. WIll that work? (Linden Lab would probably appreciate it if I remind you that giving out passwords is bad, although they tried it with some “Tester” accounts and apparently liked it.)
Logged in from work - IE 6.0, PC. Was indeed very easy to work with. Am excited to see what comes of this.
Is this something that will require users to have their own server to access SL? Or do you foresee providing a server as a service in the near future?
I intend to continue providing a server (and starting in the near future, a much more reliable one than I have now. :p), although I’m also going to provide the server to allow others to download and run the server on their own machines.
Katharine,
I think it’s incredible that you’re offering this service (and renting server space) for the broader SL community, and would love to see you continue doing this. But a question comes up in my mind: you’re 15, and have no steady income. Maybe people might interested in chipping in to continue to see this happen, or perhaps you could move it in a direction where it’s not draining your personal resources?
(I imagine you’re already thinking about all this, but thought I’d ask in any case.) Keep on rockin’ Kath!
Hello everyone, and thank you Katharine for your wonderful work. I am try to run ajaxlife locally on winxp SP2, and the login seems to work, but stops after “Connecting to SecondLife”, not ever moving to the “main.kat” for the UI function. Is anyone having this issue or know how I might be able to address it.
The debug console seems to hang here:
DEBUG [Cindi Allen]: Running event queue for IBM 6 (72.5.13.52:13004)
I have tried with seperate local server for .js files and using “https://ajaxlife.katharineberry.co.uk/ajaxlife/” , I get the same issue. Thanks in advance for your help.
Josh
I’ve used and was blown away out how well it’s designed.
For those having trouble I have a screenshot here:
http://www.socialham.com/images/ajaxlifelarge.jpg