Is there an 'Area Search' in the official SL Viewer?

[AAngel Braveheart]

Used in Firestorm, I need two browsers open, found different browsers better than two identical for lag and cache  issues.

Tried Alchemy, the new version doesn't take screen shots, it freezes.

Trying the official viewer after 12 years and cannot find 'Area Search' anywhere, which we use to d=find Spot-on Movers in dance productions.

Thought it would be more comprehensive!

Any advice appreciated

[Coffee Pancake]

There is not and you are unlikely to ever see FS area search in the official viewer due to the way it works.

[Sammy Huntsman]

2 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

There is not and you are unlikely to ever see FS area search in the official viewer due to the way it works.

Could you please reiterate why won't we see it, due to how it works? 

 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 minute ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

Could you please reiterate why won't we see it, due to how it works? 

Not to bog everyone down with technical details, lets just say it involves a non trivial amount of "brute force" that is at very least "unkind" to the region being searched.

There is an interface from LL we have asked about many time that could be used to create an are search, the pathfinding data that the viewer can request is almost perfect, however it's limited to your own objects rather than all objects (we use this in Catznip to create a way to search for items on your own land). It's still potentially a lot of data to send out, but it's only a fraction of what FS's area search can generate.

[Sammy Huntsman]

30 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Not to bog everyone down with technical details, lets just say it involves a non trivial amount of "brute force" that is at very least "unkind" to the region being searched.

There is an interface from LL we have asked about many time that could be used to create an are search, the pathfinding data that the viewer can request is almost perfect, however it's limited to your own objects rather than all objects (we use this in Catznip to create a way to search for items on your own land). It's still potentially a lot of data to send out, but it's only a fraction of what FS's area search can generate.

So basically FS' area search is like a Brute Force Hack? So what does it like to bombard every object until it gets permission to be able to see it? Is that what you are saying? 

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

So basically FS' area search is like a Brute Force Hack? So what does it like to bombard every object until it gets permission to be able to see it? Is that what you are saying? 

The viewer only has limited information, and sometimes features require far more data than it has on hand,  options on how to get that extra data are often limited and can be more expensive than would be ideal.

Say for example you had a real world warehouse and you needed to know how much the total value of all the stock was worth. The smart solution would be to plan ahead and have records or some kind of database to poke, the bad solution is to go and manually count and scan everything by hand .. FS area search is more of the latter, but in the absence of a data base is the only available option. The sad part is there is actually a database, but it's locked in the bosses office.

Another example of a simple thing that needs a little more data having bad consequences would be seeing a friends last login date. The viewer could keep track of when it saw friends come and go, but that record ends up being incomplete should you not be online at the same time. The other option is to look though all your groups and find one with shared membership and read the date from there. This isn't super bad (ignoring it all being a bit creeper) if you do it manually. If the viewer does it automatically .. and all copies of FS are doing this automatically when the log in .. well now we're setting the group servers on fire and LL are freaking out.

Consequences of scale have put plenty of our "bright ideas" in the trash over the years. 

 

In the context of area search .. one person doing it, it's "bad" .. but it's not world endingly bad. If everyone visiting an event immediately fired it up rather than camming about, well then LL might be freaking out.

[Anicha Heartsong]

4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If everyone visiting an event immediately fired it up rather than camming about, well then LL might be freaking out.

That explains a lot - because that is exactly what is happening at many events, it would seem, and I'm as guilty as anyone. I never realised area search was putting such a load on region resources. Thanks for explaining this.

One question - does this only happen when you open up area search and are actively searching - or is it happening silently in the background all the time?

 

[sandi Mexicola]

14 minutes ago, Anicha Heartsong said:

does this only happen when you open up area search and are actively searching

... I would guess this is the case.  When I first launch area search in FS, it seems to take a little while to populate the results.  

[Qie Niangao]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

the pathfinding data that the viewer can request is almost perfect,

For me, that Build / Pathfinding / Region Objects window in any viewer is usually just as good as Firestorm's "Area Search" because I'm almost always looking for objects I own or can move, which are what gets on the list.

A script interface would be very much welcome for fetching filtered lists of objects on a parcel. There must be a selection of doomed jirae requesting such a feature, which would need to come pre-throttled to limit resource abuse, but done right it could save some a ton of processing done by sensor probes, the only script alternative now.

[Enelya Swansong]

I have been using area search for years now and I noticed in the last 3 days its changed I used to just be able to put in like "sal" for "sale" and it would pull anything up that has those lets in it etc now I have to be "specific" and spell correct and such to get it to pull things up is this an issue or do I have a setting off somewhere?

[Beq Janus]

The reality is that LL do not freak out about it and are looking to implement some form of area search. To my knowledge we have never, in all the years of area search existing had a complaint from the lab about it.  Ideally, they'll provide a more efficient means of achieving the same thing one day. 

On 7/10/2022 at 2:06 AM, Enelya Swansong said:

I have been using area search for years now and I noticed in the last 3 days its changed I used to just be able to put in like "sal" for "sale" and it would pull anything up that has those lets in it etc now I have to be "specific" and spell correct and such to get it to pull things up is this an issue or do I have a setting off somewhere?

unless you changed the viewer in the last 3 days then it must be something that you are doing. 

 

On 6/10/2022 at 12:39 AM, Sammy Huntsman said:

So basically FS' area search is like a Brute Force Hack? So what does it like to bombard every object until it gets permission to be able to see it? Is that what you are saying? 

No, that's conspiracy theory level BS, if there was anything untoward in area search then LL would have asked us to stop years ago and we would have quite happily complied. What Coffee is explaining is the mechanism through which the area search works. The method is entirely legitimate and above board, but it is not as efficient as would be preferred. Many things are not, the world has not ended.

[Beq Janus]

On 6/10/2022 at 7:34 AM, Anicha Heartsong said:

One question - does this only happen when you open up area search and are actively searching - or is it happening silently in the background all the time?

Area search is something that you have to initiate. 

[Aishagain]

On 6/10/2022 at 2:47 AM, Coffee Pancake said:

If the viewer does it automatically .. and all copies of FS are doing this automatically when the log in .. well now we're setting the group servers on fire and LL are freaking out.

I was just scrolling back through some of the cooments and I saw this ^.  What does this mean and is my FS logging in causing some region stress?  I've never noticed it happening for me or my partner who uses the same (more or less) setup.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Aishagain