So why do you disable your away timer?

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Back in the olden days, we did because after a certain amount of time in away mode you would get logged out.

However this hasn't been the case for a while I believe, and a few weeks ago I decided to turn it back on since i figured it's probably helpful for other people to know when I'm not actively watching my SecondLife window.

So why do you have it off? What's your story?

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I always hated the dumb away animation. Only found it hilarious when watching folks at a bar, sipping on a drink, then headbanging straight back against the counter. But yeah.

Thanks to Firestorm, I prefer to set my custom "warning texts" and manually set myself to busy / away / unavailable when idling inworld.

[Cindy Evanier]

3 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

Thanks to Firestorm, I prefer to set my custom "warning texts" and manually set myself to busy / away / unavailable when idling inworld.

Same.  Then I forget turn it back and end up apologising to people for inadvertently spamming them with my afk message

[Phil Deakins]

I'm still used to the auto-logout, so I always set myself to 'never', even though there are many times when I'd prefer to be seen as afk. I'll try setting it something other than 'never'..

[LittleMe Jewell]

Last I knew that dump AFK animation was still around and I don't want to be standing somewhere with my head dropped down.  I have a few AFK objects that I sometimes attach to let folks know that I'm gone for a bit, but I don't use them often.

If I know that I'm going to be away for an extended period then I usually TP home and turn on the Firestorm Autoresponse option.  I remember to turn it off by leaving the confirmation box showing until I return.

[Paul Hexem]

Because SL needs all the concurrent users it can get.

[Penny Patton]

I haven't touched the "Away" settings in so long I honestly forgot that was a thing. I do recall that back when it was an issue I did disable it because, if I'm remembering right, it would not give you a warning when it was about to log you out and I was often right there at my computer working on stuff for SL when it would suddenly log me out. Also the "away" animation was always annoying.

I did like it when "sit when away" was added.

I'd almost certainly keep the logout timer enabled if there was a warning before it booted you and you could set it longer than 30 minutes. Little convenience features that SL has always been lacking.

[Ceka Cianci]

There is no real big reason,other than it being on my list of things to turn off when I have to ever redo my settings..

[ThorinII]

I just dislike that default "Away" pose with the bent body and dropped down head.

I regularly take breaks from the keyboard to prevent RSI, so I'm away from keyboard quite often, like 10 minutes break after 40-45 minutes activity. So, if no-one is around when I go away from keyboard for longer than my usual RSI break, I rather put my avatar on "Busy" ;  and if my girls are around, I simply tell them that I'll be away for some time.

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by ThorinII

[Syo Emerald]

I disabled it so many years ago (mainly because of the terrible default animation), that I easily forget about it...that and I was a regular visitor of clubs that hold "best in..." contests and sploders (the kind that are now not allowed by the ToS) and those events usually went for at least two hours. I wanted to be able to something from the kitchen, go to the bathroom and open facebook on the browser during that time, without making it look like I wasn't there at all (because with my unfortunate luck, people would just look right in the moment where I needed a short break).

[Richardus Raymaker]

First thing you do is disable this function.

- the animation in away is terrible

- And you always got logged out, that's terrible to.

Edited May 27, 2018 by Richardus Raymaker

[Fionalein]

There is no need to turn it off, avatar_away.bvh is priority 2 ... all modern AOs will automatically override it

[Maitimo]

Mine's off because I'm often logged in but busy on Photoshop/Flickr/my blog etc. I keep the stream on as background music.

And that stupid animation is like narcolepsy.

[Fionalein]

I think it is supposed to be looking like an "android turned off" animation

Edited May 27, 2018 by Fionalein

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Fionalein said:

There is no need to turn it off, avatar_away.bvh is priority 2 ... all modern AOs will automatically override it

I dropped my away time down to 2 minutes and then logged in an alt to watch me.  After the two minutes, my head dropped, then one of my stands took over, then my head dropped again , then a stand took over.  My stands are set to randomly change periodically, so I'm guessing the head bob is just popping in briefly as the stands change.  It still looks really odd, so I think I'll continue keeping that set to 'never'.

[Claireschen Hesten]

As soon as i knew how disable Away mode i disabled it as at the time if you AFK'd more that 30 minutes you were logged i sure i must have been caught out by the time out once or twice. i now just stick with busy mode if i'm going to be AFK for long periods

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Well you don't get logged out when away anymore.

I'm surprised that there is no AO on the market that has an override for this pose, there is some untapped potential there.

[Phil Deakins]

Way back, there used to be a scripted object that you wore to prevent you from being logged out. I don't know if it prevented the 'away' pose though. It's probable that 'never' wasn't an option back then.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Claireschen Hesten]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

Way back, there used to be a scripted object that you wore to prevent you from being logged out. I don't know if it prevented the 'away' pose though. It's probable that 'never' wasn't an option back then.

I used to use an anti-AFK HUD for a time and it prevented you from going in to and activating away mode if you tried to activate 'away' it would stop it half a second later you never got the away pose 

[Penny Patton]

3 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

Well you don't get logged out when away anymore.

I'm surprised that there is no AO on the market that has an override for this pose, there is some untapped potential there.

You don't automatically get logged out, but at least the viewers I've been using have all included the option for "Logout after XX minutes", the problem is they only let you choose up to half and hour and you still get no warning before it logs you out. It's quality of life features like these that SL desperately needs. Individually they might not be any big deal, but they add up to an overall better experience.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Kyrah Abattoir said:

I'm surprised that there is no AO on the market that has an override for this pose, there is some untapped potential there.

In the LIbrary, there is a Gesture called AFK that results in that 'bent over head down' stupid pose.   And even with my AO on, that pose pops in for 1/2 second or so as my AO randomly changes from pose to pose after my 'away' time has kicked in.  Thus maybe internally, the system is actually invoking that Gesture when you hit your 'away' time and the Gesture and AO poses are then competing with each other.

I did discover that if I turn off my AO and "wear" one of my AFK objects, the typical away pose/gesture never seems to take over after I become 'away'.   Since all of those objects contain no-mod scripts, I can't actually peek to see what is really happening when the object is worn.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Yeah I read what you wrote, I mean AOs that have a specific override pose when you are in away mode, what you describe is telling me that your AO probably isn't designed to even handle the possibility of you being away.

From a scripting perspective forcing the afk pose to stop is pretty trivial but it would be better integrated into the AO logic.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Kyrah Abattoir

[LittleMe Jewell]

Ahh, I see.  After playing with the AO settings, it is definitely the scripting in the AO (the Firestorm built-in AO for me).  If I turn off the cycling of the poses, then the AFK pose never pops in.  It only takes over briefly when cycling, so the script isn't handling the AFK default within its cycling of animations.

[Maitimo]

9 hours ago, Claireschen Hesten said:

I used to use an anti-AFK HUD for a time and it prevented you from going in to and activating away mode if you tried to activate 'away' it would stop it half a second later you never got the away pose 

I used to have one of those. I used it for camping chairs, logged in all night.

[Klytyna]

Why did I disable the afk timer in my viewer?

Three reasons.

1. It's nobody's damn business if I step away from the keyboard for a min or two to refill the coffee mug, or get a sandwich or whatever.

2. The damn slumped over animation is even dumber than the typing animation which I also disabled.

3. Even when it was enabled, it didn't bloody work, something about my setup, maybe some "quiver" in the mouse drivers/hardware, means that about 5 seconds after I'd set AFK, and take my hands off the keyboard, SL would assume I had moved the mouse or something and mark me as back again, so it was completely pointless.

If I feel some urgent need to provide a visual clue to my AFK status, I'll just add a rotating glowing AFK sign over my head that I made from some full perm mesh letters freebie I got off the MP ages ago.