Questions on Calling Cards in Viewers

[ShibariKate]

Hello,

I require a bit of assistance to clarify the Calling Cards folder(s) for me.

I have a screenshot I have taken to clarify what I mean, but as it stands, this is the current folder structure: Calling Cards -> Friends -> All.

https://gyazo.com/535bcfded5c7ab7eabcf87e2a483b937

Each is nestled in that order, and each has cards, with hundreds of duplicates and triplicates depending on which folder they are in. My questions here are -

What is the difference between the "All" folder inside "friends" and the main "Calling Cards" folder ?

Can I delete that "All" folder if it's just the same function as the main Calling Cards folder. (I'd assume the main Calling Cards would be for all cards anyway, and my friends would be the nestled folder already there. ).

And do calling cards for friends need to be in the main Calling Cards folder AND the Friends folder, or can I simply keep my friends' cards in the Friends folder and delete the duplicates from the Main Calling Cards folder ?

 

Sorry for the long-winded post, but this is something that been puzzling me for sometime and I am finally get around to asking about it ( well more like I'm old and forgetful and finally acting on it while it's in my head lol).

 

Thank you in advance for the help

[Fionalein]

I think the system creates a new card for each friend in the default folder (it moves them to trash on unfriend). Maybe different viewers create them in different subdirectories.

Fun fact: you won't have your own card unless sent a copy by a friend.

[Henri Beauchamp]

In the past (v1 viewers time), calling cards could be obtained in two ways:

1. It could be given to you by someone (this is still possible today), e.g. via the pie menu you get when right-clicking on the avatar you want to give your card to.
2. It could be given to you by the server on behalf of another resident, at the moment you accepted to befriend them (this is no more happening).

These ”genuine” calling cards bear a creator UUID corresponding to the avatar they are linking to. You could either keep them, move them or delete them, to your heat's content.

Then, in v2 viewers, LL decided that they would automatically re-create calling cards in the ”Calling Card” folder whenever they were ”missing” when compared with your friends list; so, should you move them away from that folder, or delete them, they would be re-created in the ”Friends” sub-folder of the ”Calling Card” folder. These calling cards bear you own avatar's UUID as the creator (i.e. they are considered as created by yourself, which was only possible for your own avatar's calling card in v1 viewers), and the UUID of the avatar they are linking to (which is needed to know what avatar profile must be opened when they are double-clicked) is instead stored in the description field of the inventory item. You may, too delete or move them away, but they would reappear in the ”Calling Card”|”Friends” sub-folder when logging in with a v2+ viewer (not with the Cool VL Viewer which still behaves as a v1 viewer in this respect and never performs things ”behind your back” in your inventory).

Recently, LL went one step further and removed the automatic creation on behalf of your newly befriend residents by the server as described in point 2 above (so, I had to add a special function to my viewer to allow re-creating, on demand by the user, the ”missing calling cards” corresponding to new friends).

Edited August 21, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Qie Niangao]

I'll be interested in the answers here because these are pretty mysterious objects. I'm pretty sure however that you do not want to get rid of the All folder because I believe it contains your actual friends, and the entries at the top-level Calling Card folder are a mixture of friends you've accepted and calling-cards you've received, but neither seems to be a proper subset of the other. For example, I have two friend entries and two calling card entries for the same avatar, and of those four just one (a calling card) has the description recording "A friend you invited to Second Life" (and they have one with "The friend that invited you to Second Life" as the description).

I realize there can also be entries within the Friends folder but outside the All folder and I have no clue about those. I have just one of those, total, and no recollection why it's there instead of in the All folder with all the others.

Incidentally, you can copy and paste calling cards into into other folders and change one calling card into that of anybody you want just by putting their UUID in the descriptions field. You can give them away—they're full perm—but adding one to your Friends folder doesn't appear to give that calling card the online-tracking ability that actual friends get.

Regarding the actual question, though: I don't think I've ever deleted one so you're on your own there.

[ShibariKate]

8 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I believe it contains your actual friends, and the entries at the top-level Calling Card folder are a mixture of friends you've accepted and calling-cards you've received

That would seem a bit redundant then, would it not ?

I mean, Why have a nestled folder called "Friends" inside of a main folder called "Calling Cards", where I'd assume (logically speaking of course) that any "active" friend (meaning currently on the friend list) would be listed inside the "Friend" folder, and anyone you've either received a calling card for, or was removed from your Friend list would also be removed from the "Friends" folder, but not the main "Calling Cards" folder.

The "All" folder nestled inside "Friends" just does not make any sense to me at all. Almost like complicating something that should be simple in the first place.

I really don't see the logic in the "All" folder being there.. at least not nestled inside the "Friends" folder. If I knew if it was safe to delete that folder and just use the other 2, then I'd do it. I just don't know if it is or not.

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, ShibariKate said:

That would seem a bit redundant then, would it not ?

Sure is, but as I mentioned, apparently not completely redundant because I have that friend whose Calling Card folder item has a different description than either of their corresponding Friend folder items. (I suspect in that case the system automatically created the Calling Cards before the two avatars ever encountered each other, when we exchanged mutual Friend entries.)

For whatever it's worth, there are three pages of "calling card" topics in jira, and no telling how many support cases. I realize it seems incurious, but personally I tend to practice "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" when it comes to inventory.

[Perrie Juran]

6 hours ago, Fionalein said:

Fun fact: you won't have your own card unless sent a copy by a friend.

I have never heard of anyone that did not have a copy of their own card.

Everyone has it by default.

After all  there is  function in the pie menu to "give card."  That would make no sense if you did not have a card by default.

[AmeliaJ08]

9 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

I have never heard of anyone that did not have a copy of their own card.

Everyone has it by default.

After all  there is  function in the pie menu to "give card."  That would make no sense if you did not have a card by default.

Yeah. I've never been given my own calling card but it is the very first one at the bottom of the folder.

I always wondered what they were for really, I assumed they were from the olden times and served some bigger purpose then. Can be useful to drag into a notecard though, it will make a link to your profile

Edited August 22, 2023 by AmeliaJ08

[Love Zhaoying]

Would it be fair to assume that your "own" Calling Card is created from your Profile by default unless you change it?

I had 3 copies of my Calling Card, and I am pretty sure it creates a new, updated Calling Card when you change anything your Profile.

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I had 3 copies of my Calling Card, and I am pretty sure it creates a new, updated Calling Card when you change anything your Profile.

The Calling cards are just inventory items with a reference to the corresponding avatar UUID (either in the creator field of the item, for your own avatar cards you give away, or old ”genuine” calling cards that were automatically created by the server and given to you when befriending another avatar, or in the description field for ”new” calling cards).

Then, the viewer uses this UUID to fetch the profile info and display the corresponding avatar's profile: but there is no profile data whatsoever stored in the calling card itself.

When they ”open” a Calling Card, the (recent) viewers first looks at the description field: if there is an UUID in it, they use it to open the corresponding avatar profile. If there is no UUID in the description, they use the UUID of the Calling Card creator and open the corresponding profile instead.

If you got several copies of your own calling card, it could be due to a slow or incomplete Inventory loading on login with v2+ viewers: the viewer does not find your calling card (because the Calling Card folder is not yet fully loaded, or the inventory cache was corrupted), and then it recreates it... Another possibility is that you moved your calling card to another folder (then a new one gets recreated in the ”Calling Cards” folder on next login)...

Edited August 22, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Aishagain]

...Pardon?

I must assume that I am just too thick to follow all the above, but right now I am confused as heck!

I didn't used to worry and I innocently assumed this was a minor matter and LL really had this sorted.  No longer.

[Perrie Juran]

For some history about calling cards I would refer you to:

https://secondlife.fandom.com/wiki/Calling_Card

I do still make use of them. Occasionally instead of friending someone  I will ask for their card.

Also I will embed mine in a notecard. I usually do this when contacting a merchant to help facilitate them getting back with me.

I do believe there have been some instances when overly full calling card folders have been associated with log in problems.

[AmeliaJ08]

17 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

I do still make use of them. Occasionally instead of friending someone  I will ask for their card.

This is brilliant, I never thought of it but I have run into a few times that friending someone seemed a little too much but I did want to have some reminder of their name, I even sometimes made notecards to this end. Never thought of asking for a calling card!