Screen Names and older viewers

[Domitan Redenblack]

When you look in Profiles etc, it does not show screen names, nor "in world" etc for avatars. I can see them in SL web home, but not anywhere else. Is there a way with LSL to get the screen name?

ty

 

[Cerise1488303085]

Hi, yes, see llGetDisplayname and llRequestDisplayName. llGetDisplayName is easier to use, but not as reliable. It is much more reliable than it was a few months ago!  If you want to check the online status, use llRequestAgentData, even those fancy viewers have to cheat and use LSL to get that information.

When display names first came out, I make this little example to make the old viewers hurt less.

[Rolig Loon]

The real challenge for me is that as display names become more popular, people will become more accustomed to thinking of them as their "real" names, but all formal transactions will still need to be tied to their user names.  There's no way, for example, that a merchant can handle correspondence with a disgruntled customer who identifies himself as "Bob" but is only identified in sales records as "Bob12562J".  As another example, we're already seeing confusion and mistaken identity as landowners try to ban griefers that they identify easily only by display names. They're like amateur RL police trying to sort out aliases from real names. 

Except in times of stress, of course, it's fairly easy for people in world to distinguish between display names and usernames. Making it as easy for scripts to do means adding new layers of complexity to everything that we write, if it refers to an avatar by name. It also potentially takes memory and time.  Yes, we can do it, but it's an increasing nuisance and one more place to screw up.

/me climbs down off the soapbox and puts the old argument back into the briefcase.

[Domitan Redenblack]

 

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Rolig Loon wrote: [display names lecture ]

/me climbs down off the soapbox and puts the old argument back into the briefcase.

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*Applauds loudly* -- and this is what LL spend their time and money on! Woob woob woob woob!

 

- @Cerise -- Thanks for the reference to the LSL code!

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I rather gave up on trying to get my head round some of the problems associated with trying to script stuff that uses people's Display Names for communication because of the problems llGetDisplayName was having, and concentrated instead on making sure stuff could handle one-word usernames and handle both legacy names as well as legacy names in a username format (that is, it can cope with names in the formats bob123, Bob123 Resident, innula.zenovka and Innula Zenovka).

Is llGetDisplayName now reliable enough to merit time working on again?  I've not seen loads of ???s above people's heads lately, but I don't know how much to read into that.

 

[Cerise1488303085]

 

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

Is llGetDisplayName now reliable enough to merit time working on again?  I've not seen loads of ???s above people's heads lately, but I don't know how much to read into that. 

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I think that LL caught up with the load, it could get worse in the future I guess. The only serious DN problems I see now are on regions that are very sick, with ~2 fps and crashing frequently.

 

[Rolig Loon]

I've pretty much given up on it too, Innula, mostly because there hasn't yet been a screaming demand for me to do much.  Established merchants don't seem to be in the mood to have a scripter rebuild all their greeters, traffic counters, and security systems.  As Display Names continue to infest SL, though, the pressure will increase.  Maybe by then llGetDisplayName will be stable and I'll put more attention into the problem.  For now, it's easier to sit and grumble. :smileytongue:

[Void Singer]

like Cerise I'm not seeing much in the way of failures for those functions anymore, but they seem kinda slow so I don't use them much.

I did throw some conversion functions for user/legacy names on the wiki to make them a little less painful to use

[Innula Zenovka]

I've not been asked for it a great deal as yet, but I fully expect so to be as people find it increasingly difficult to find one-word names that haven't been taken as usernames and, understandably enough, lose patience and call themselves jane123 on the basis they can choose a more sensible display name later.

When I have been asked about it, it's been primarily for interactive devices for the RP market; for example, I make stuff that lets you animate (and do other things, if your willing victim uses RLV) another avatar.   People like the menus to say "what do want to do to Innula?" or give a list of names, and I can quite understand that, if someone's gone off to Gor or the realms of fairie and adopted a suitably Gorean or Sidhe name, they'd rather the toys use their adopted name than insist on calling them "bill789".

My main problem is deciding how things that refer to you by your first name, if you have more than one, should cope with someone like "The Mighty Quinn" or "Old Mother Hubbard."   I suspect they'll have to put up with being called simply, "The" or "Old," but I'm suspending judgment on that one for a bit.