Paladin Pinion

That happens to me when the viewer can't make an initial connection to the servers. You'll get the spin until it does. Sometimes force-quitting and restarting it helps, because that forces it to try a new connection. Other times it works to just wait. Sometimes I've had to wait a minute or more (though it seems longer subjectively) and then finally the window appears. I've always assumed it was the SL servers not responding quick enough, but it could be your connection too. Anything that interferes with the initial contact can do it.

Ziggy21 Slade wrote: what is your excuse for your constant negative spin? I've been trying to figure that out for some time myself. This kind of negativity is not good for SL, and if I were a newcomer and saw these accusations on the forums I would hesitate to participate at all. Why would I put in time and energy if it is so terrible and apt to fall apart any minute? And if all these complaints are true then why would I even want to join? And if all the people in SL are this negative and accusatory, then why would I want to socialize with them? I'd walk away without a second glance, and I would have missed one of the coolest things I've ever discovered. Fortunately I was in SL for a couple of years before these forums were set up, and I didn't know things were so terrible. In fact, I liked it a lot. I'm glad I never saw this kind of thing during my early years, and I hope our new people don't see it either. Thanks for your comments.

I tried IW and found that the server was so many versions behind that some of my scripts didn't work. That was about a year ago, so maybe it's changed now, but it felt pretty much like going back in time. It was also very empty. I didn't log in more than a few times.

Marigold Devin wrote: (and I see what you mean about the name badges).  I wonder if they are using a third-party viewer that has its own non-standard attachment points. That makes attachments appear to be in the wrong position when viewed with the SL viewer.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: Also, I want to get a clear answer on.... If I have 50 boxed items... can I drop the 50 boxed items directly on the OUTBOX (WITHOUT ANY USE OF FOLDERS)? As Paladen stated a few times... we can consider the Outbox to be the magicbox. Well the Magicbox doesnt use flolders NOR DO I WANT TO USE FOLDERS. They already answered that. You can drop your existing boxes directly into the outbox folder.

Qie Niangao wrote: Third, I'm not enjoying the chatbar as an undockable floating window. Maybe I'll eventually find a place to put it where it's not perpetually in the way, but I haven't found it yet. I dragged mine down to the lower left, in line with the bottom buttons, and pop the chat history open and closed as needed.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: Now Paladin might realize the fear many of us have about LL deploying DD. Its beyond they skillset to get it right and we will all suffer on deployment. This one was bad.

CommerceTeam Linden wrote: Merchants may access inventory items through the Merchant Admin to view those items, return them to their inworld inventory, or try a test purchase. I like that. When merchants are able to return store items to their personal inventory, then those who currently use magic boxes as as their master copies will have the same functionality. The store becomes their backup copy.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: >> Always possible, but all we can to to prevent that is test it, communicate our concerns rationally, help each other understand it, and not create unnecessary drama that leaves the average merchant confused and apprehensive of it. I wish I'd been that concise. You summed it up well.

Zanara Zenovka wrote: >> Always possible, but all we can to to prevent that is test it, communicate our concerns rationally, help each other understand it, and not create unnecessary drama that leaves the average merchant confused and apprehensive of it. I wish I'd been that concise. You summed it up well.

Here's their answer, and why I interpret it the way I do: A: The process is not completed yet. "We're writing it but it isn't finalized yet." Once a process is working in test, The beta hasn't been opened to everyone yet, but it's being tested by the closed beta group. we will communicate the details. We are working on a method that will not require each listing to be edited to replace the Magic Box inventory item with a Direct Delivery inventory item. What we're writing is a way to auto-list your items so you won't have to edit your listings manually.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: This DD functionality is one of the critical functions of DD and LL Commerce Team is ONLY NOW TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THIS FUNCTION? If I were coding this, I'd need to have the main part of the system working first before I could design the part that does the transfers. This last bit will depend on how the rest of it works. So yeah, I'd leave this till last. If the beta starts in December -- and LL doesn't say exactly when in December -- then they have around a month or maybe more to finish this piece. I don't know if that's "rushing" or not. We also don't know that the closed beta group isn't going to test this before we do. ETA: The announcement says " We will be allowing a limited number of merchants to Beta test Direct Delivery in production before the official launch, which will not occur until after the New Year." So, at least 2 months before final deployment.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: ....and that's not what the official LL answer said. I interpret that as saying "we do not know yet".... A difference in interpretation, I think. I interpreted it to mean "we have the basic process working, and the last step is to integrate automatic listing updates. We are working on that now and we'll let you know when it is done."

Marcus Hancroft wrote: On Edit: Nope it's still gone. I don't think it was ever in there. The quote came from the Linden post in this thread, here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Merchants/Direct-Delivery-questions/td-p/1205551/highlight/false/page/4

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: I'm having some glitches with inventory too, another reason I'm not up for "testing" It sounds like you won't have time to test, and that's okay. But just so you know, the beta grid isn't connected with the real one. The money there is fake, the inventory there is not your real inventory, and you need a special, separate magic box if you want to test those on the beta grid. Nothing you do there will affect your real inventory, it's all fake. For the creator name problem, are you using objects like megaprims or sculpts that were created by someone else? If those are the root object, it will show that person as the creator instead of you. The fix is to make some other prim the root. For the disappearing magic box items: is the box no-copy? If so, then when you move it to the magic box it will be removed from your inventory.

Darrius Gothly wrote: However, on that topic, I still maintain that insulating SL Users from the skill of unboxing an item is akin to insulating a child from learning to walk because .. *GASP* .. they might fall down some at first. *facepalm* Yeah, agreed. I had a friend who wouldn't let her toddler play on the lawn because it might have been sprayed. People will still need to know how to unbox though. Some things will have to be boxed due to their content, and a lot of the items -- probably all of them at first, anyway -- will still be boxed. It's the merchant's choice, and choice is good. Merchants who want to make things easier for customers will eventually choose to pass folders instead of boxes. Right now I see lots of attempts to fake that, like auto-unpackers disguised as cute shopping bags (I hate those) and similar attempts to insulate new users from the horrors of unboxing. So I think there's probably some support out there for an easier method, and it may reduce customer support for merchants too. I've seen an awful lot of pissed off people writing to the forums here about how they paid good money for something and all they got was a box, and they want to warn people about this or that merchant who ripped them off. They get pretty mad, and even if they learn quickly what's going on, they still shouldn't have to go through all that. As an aside, I think that "Basic" mode was a much poorer decision on LL's part than this one. It solved nothing, and was crippling and intrusive, the opposite of what they wanted to accomplish. In comparison, this decision solves an actual, serious problem, and whether I drop market items into a box or into a folder doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. The drop point is really the only thing that's changing. Darrius, when the beta starts, will you go with me to the testing grid? I've promised to give a fair report, and I will, but people will believe your input more readily at this point, I think. I have some canned goods somewhere I could sell you as a test.

Darrius Gothly wrote: The net result would have been a solution that caused almost no disruption in how we work now, would not have required any changes in documentation, and would have resulted in the loss of only one feature ... delivery of folders instead of a single boxed item. Apparently the value of that one feature outweighed the benefits of "minimal disruption" .. or they don't consider disrupting us as having any value. Either way, it appears to me exactly as Lasher stated ... they do their level best to obfuscate anything they do. True. But I suspect the number of problems newcomers have with unboxing was a big part of the decision. It fits in with LL's decision to dumb down the viewer (stupid "basic" mode, thankfully now on the way out) and other measures LL has taken to make the initial experience easier. I remember when I first started, I had a box on my head too. I had to ask someone why. It's so common it's become a standing joke, and at some point LL moved the default attachment point to the right hand to help prevent embarrassment.

Mickey, I'm sorry it sounds like I don't have empathy. I didn't mean it to. What I've been saying has nothing to do with any of the things you mention, none of those will change. To use the new delivery system all you must do is: Shift-click a few of your boxed sales items in your inventory. Copy. Open the outbox folder. Paste. That's all, you're done. How does this interfere with your land investment, your income, your commission, or your business? You don't have to even use the system until you hear that other people say it works. You can keep the magic box until you are sure. I'm not being condescending, I'm just puzzled why people think this is going to be so hard. I do understand that they are worried about bugs, and about the system not working properly. That's a very legitimate concern, and I want to know it's safe too before I use it. The more people who test, the better the result will be. But you don't have to test if you don't want to, you can just keep the magic box until you know it works. I'm honestly confused about your reaction.

Mickey Vandeverre wrote: You have less than 100 listings. It's not a concern for you. True, I've got it easier. If I had as many as you, I might just move a few boxes per day over the course of several months. You won't have to change them, just drop them in.

Mickey, I'm not counseling anyone, I'm just speaking for myself. We do have to wait, because we can't test until next month. I personally prefer that people also wait to criticize until they actually have some experience with the system, but that's probably wishful thinking. But remember, you don't necessarily need to do anything right now. The magic box is not going away yet and you can continue to use it for some time. You can try moving one item to the folder, and see what happens until you are comfortable with the new process. More important, you don't need to rebox or change anything you are already selling, everything will already work whenever you want to use the new delivery method. You don't need to change the items you already have, just move them into the folder. No need to unpack or repackage. You can move 1 or 500, it doesn't matter. Just drop them in. You are telling us that we are wasting energy. I don't think so. Sounds to me like people just want information in order to get organized. so that they don't get thrown off course pretty rapidly. I said it was a waste of energy to criticize a process we haven't seen yet. I agree 100% that people want and need information. A few of us have been trying to help explain the online info but it hasn't been very well received. It's true that the answers are there though, and they are much simpler than people want to think.

Sassy Romano wrote: Toysoldier Thor wrote: Only LL and the closed Beta testers - and none of them want to answer questions. I suspect the reason is that when they have, they have either been ignored or feel that any post they make is one to be jumped on and called out as "one of them, the LL defenders". Accurate answers have been given, the FAQ decoded without being in breach of any NDA since the information is already public but if people choose to ignore and attack the information then it's no wonder that further input will be sparse. I understand what Paladin is saying, she's not saying that the Outbox IS a magic box, only that it's the new process. Like it or not, that's what it is, at this point further berating of the process is pointless. As to fixing "delivery issues", it seems to be the problem that Ruby on Rails is single threaded and gets backed up with the inherrent delays with LSL script functions. Magic box uses outdated protocols. It would seem that they'd either need to re-code Ruby on Rails to be multithreaded (unlikely an option), update all the magic box scripts as an alternate option or use something completely different. Does it really matter if the source of delivery is a magic box that you can look at or if it happens to be the asset database? The objects aren't really in the magic box anyway but are merely pointers to the item in the asset database. The method IS, upload to MP and that's now your "master". That's it, that's what it is. Thanks for this, Sassy. I do feel it isn't politically correct here to actually like Linden Labs, and woe to those who are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Josh Susanto wrote: >I don't know why LL can't read our current magic box and transfer the listings Please do not encourage LL to take unnecessary control over additional parts of the process. You know why. I agree with you. Someone asked why LL couldn't just grab our box contents and use those as the source, and I didn't know why. But now that I think about it, I'd much rather be in control of the process, and maybe LL considered that too. It's likely that most of us will want to start with only a few transferred items, and then gradually move the rest over after we see how it goes.

Toysoldier Thor wrote: So you say you read what we all read and yet now you say a new number that I have not read about the bulk of uploads to MP... 50?? I read 100. Where did you pull 50 out of the air? Again, unless you know something. Yes, sorry, you're right. I thought I remembered 50, but I just re-read the Linden note here and they do say 100.

Lasher Oh wrote: So when it came to replacing the magic boxes all it needed was to create a Magic Folder in our inventories. Then just decant contents of magic box into Magic Folder. Simple - done dusted tested and rolled out. Uh...that's pretty much what they're doing. It's just about exactly what they're doing. You will not need to create folders unless you want to, and you won't need to create any at all if you continue to sell your objects as boxed items. You just need to drop copies of all your items in there at once. They will be sent to the marketplace in batches of 50. The outbox folder is exactly a "magic folder", just as you want it to be. I don't know why LL can't read our current magic box and transfer the listings but if there is a technical problem with that, I don't have any problem dragging copies of my stuff into the folder manually. It only has to happen once. If you have 500 listings, just drag all 500 boxes in there and that's all you need to do. No other preparation is required. LL has said they are implementing a way to auto-link your folder items to your marketplace listings. That means you won't need to change anything in your store. Could this screw up? Sure. That's why we'll test it before it goes live. Again, everything I know about this process has come from reading the same online materials that are available to everyone. I still have some questions the same as the rest of you, but the things people are talking about here are already answered in those materials. I have not yet seen the system in action because the beta grid won't activate the tests until December. When it does, I'll tell you how it goes. I do not consider testing to be "free labor" for LL -- I consider it self-preservation. I'd think that anyone who has a vested interest here would jump at the chance to see what's going to happen and find any problems before the public starts relying on it. Toy asked why I entered this discussion. It was because I don't like fearmongering and unfair accusations before the facts are in. Until we see the process in action, the things that people are afraid of are conjecture. I don't like conjecture. I like facts.

Madeliefste Oh wrote: As a Merchant, you will send folders to your Marketplace inventory that you plan to list for sale. You will do this by placing items in a system folder called the Merchant Outbox and sending the contents to your Marketplace inventory. Each top level folder in the Merchant Outbox represents one sellable item in the Marketplace. Once all folders are successfully sent to the Marketplace, they will disappear from the Merchant Outbox. Where do my items go, when they disappear from my Outbox? What is this marketplace inventory exactly? Can you please explain more about this? Can I enter my marketplace inventory, can I edit my marketplace inventory? Were will my creations be stored exactly? Actually my most important question is: Can LL garanty the safety of my merchandise in this new inventory system? In world my items are not safe for copybotters or copyclients. To me it seems that adding a new kind of inventory is adding a new place from where my merchandise can possibly be stolen. How can I be sure this is not going to happen? I think I understand how it will work so I'll take a chance. I'm in this thread up to my neck anyway. "Inventory" really just means "database". It's just a list of stuff you own on a server.The only thing that is changing for merchants is how that list of items gets delivered to the marketplace servers. Right now, the marketplace communicates with your magic box via some scripts that report the box's contents. The change will be that instead of communicating with a box, the marketplace servers will read a folder in your inventory. When something new appears in your folder, the marketplace will notice and update its list of things you can sell in your store. Everything else about your store will be the same as it is now. No one can copybot your store listings regardless of how the information arrives there. And since there will be no rezzed objects anywhere, there is nothing in-world to copybot. The marketplace "inventory" is just the list of things you see when you edit your store, nothing more than a list from a database. You will be able to see and work with your store just as you do now. The only thing that's different is where your store gets its item lists from.