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1WoMan is a virtual world account and viewer manager, mostly of the SL
2(Second Life) variety since that's my focus. Most SL style virtual
3world viewers can be invoked with options to start them logging on, and
4skipping the login screen. So this project aims to be that login
5screen, doing all the things that can be done from the meta-impy login
6screen, plus more. Once the user hits the login button, woMan figures
7out what parameters to pass to what viewer, then starts it up and gets
8out of the way. Following the ClientHamr philosophy of breaking the
9viewer up into modules that do simpler tasks, and do them well. So that
10means that meta-impy will eventually loose it's login screen, to be
11replaced by woMan.
12
13WoMan starts off looking like any other viewers login screen, showing
14the login page of the default, or last visited grid, a small menu at the
15top with the usual functions, and the usual login buttons at the bottom.
16Added to that will be a better grid manager, with proper user
17management, suitable for people with more than one account per grid.
18The user will have the ability to choose a virtual world viewer to be
19the default, and even to associate a particular viewer with a particular
20grid. This is useful, for instance, for grids that have their own
21custom viewers, but the user wants to use a more generic viewer for all
22the other grids. Or if the user wants to use one viewer for OpenSim
23grids, but another for LL (Linden Labs) grids. Coz perhaps their chosen
24viewer is not TPVP (Third Party Viewer Policy, an LL thing) compliant,
25and LL are just more anal than the rest of the universe.
26
27NOTE: since I started this, LL in their *cough* infinite wisdom *cough*,
28decided that support of OpenSIm was a Really Bad Thing, so their viewers
29are no longer capable of dealing with other grids. LL have even gone as
30far as try to get other viewers to not support other grids. As far as
31woMan is concerned, this just means that LL viewers, and viewers that
32drank the LL koolaid, are less functional. shrugs
33
34The grid manager will also include some sort of search capability, as is
35currently being discussed by various people in the OpenSim universe.
36There might even be several search systems in place, so supporting
37existing ones, and the ability to add more might be useful. WoMan
38should be the only thing registered to handle hop:// and other such URLs
39in whatever web browsers you are using. Though most viewers want to
40register themselves, so tends to be that which ever one you started up
41last, or first, gets that privilege. That's a whole can of worms, sane
42policy and code should help.
43
44It might be useful to have woMan be able to download viewers,
45including checking for updates and offering to download them. As well
46as updates to common things like viewer tag definition files.
47
48WoMan, unlike the LL viewer code base, will be designed for relogging.
49Once the viewer it starts quits (or crashes), WoMan, which was still
50running, can pop again and let the user relog, or log to some other
51grid, or same grid as different a user, or even same grid as same user
52with a different viewer.
53
54Viewers can be made woMan aware, like meta-impy will be (since it's
55handing it's login screen functionality to woMan). A few more things
56make sense to be added in this case. For instance, you might want to
57have some or all of your LMs (LandMarks) be usable at the log in
58screen, so you can log directly to them. The user might want the choice
59when they HG (HyperGrid teleport) to actually start up a new viewer and
60just login to the other grid instead (if they already have an account
61there). While HGed to some new grid, the user might want to add that
62grid to the woMan grid manager at a simple click of a button, perhaps
63complete with an LM for their current position. The grid searching
64capabilities mentioned earlier might be needed while in world.
65Certainly the grid manager functions in meta-impy will be handled by
66woMan, even if in world.
67
68In order to display the login page of a grid, which is a web page, a web
69browser will be built into woMan. It could be used to display web
70pages within an woMan aware viewer. Though perhaps not for MOAP
71(Media On A Prim), unless woMan grows the ability to incorporate
72itself into the viewers 3D landscape as part of a prim. Which is a good
73idea, then meta-impy no longer needs a web browser. Though other things
74in the viewer are implemented as web pages, and LL are moving more stuff
75to the web.
76
77One of the things on the login screen is the menu option to start up the
78preferences window and change the viewers preferences. Viewers use XML
79files that not only store the preferences, but also a description of
80them. The preferences window and it's various parts are also stored as
81XML files. There is a bit missing that is in the viewer source code
82that ties all of this together. So it might not be possible to do this
83for all viewers. WoMan aware viewers can naturally provide the
84missing bits to woMan, even if not running, or even pass that entire
85functionality to woMan, just like meta-impy will do.
86
87For the purposes of keeping resource usage low, it should be possible
88for the user to configure woMan to go away when it starts a viewer.
89Might be a good idea even for woMan aware viewers, that can start it
90up again if it's functionality is needed while in world. Note this "go
91away" means to stop running and free up any resources it was using;
92which is different from the "gets out of the way" it usually does, still
93running, just not on screen.
94
95
96The problem with the web.
97-------------------------
98
99At least that's the theory. In practice, a web browser takes up almost
100one third of the viewer, and is only used for three things. Login
101pages, simple built in browser window, and MOAP (Media On A Prim). For
102the first two full blown web browsers are massive overkill. MOAP is not
103supported by meta-impy yet anyway.
104
105WebKit is a pain to compile at the moment, for reasons I wont go into
106right now. At the opposite of the spectrum is dillo, which is not quite
107up to spec enough for login pages that have fancy stuff. There does not
108appear to be any middle ground. So right now, I'll work on using random
109web browsers as external windows. That will suffice for everything but
110MOAP, which I can leave until later. Just discovered netsurf, a little
111smaller than dillo, but perhaps better featured? Might be useful.
112
113The web is a bloated mess, so it's not surprising that a fully featured
114web browser component like WebKit is also a bloated mess.
115
116
117Design.
118-------
119
120A thin window on the left.
121
122Menus across the top.
123View tabs.
124 Grids Accounts Viewers Landmarks
125
126Grids tab is the grid manager, though you can also drill down / tree out
127the accounts list per grid.
128
129Accounts shows accounts, though can drill down to grid list per account.
130Also consider launching thin viewers, text only ones and such. The
131account view is almost a natural for extending into a IM style thingy.
132
133Viewers lists the installed viewers, can install more, and allows
134preferences editing. It can handle viewer installs, upgrades, even
135compiling them from source.
136
137Landmarks manages LMs from viewers, or log in spots, or SLURLs etc.
138
139A user configurable web browser can open up to fill the right of the
140screen.
141
142Log file management features, including viewer stdout, check if only
143Linux viewers do that. Including chat logs.
144
145Dillo and uzbl can insert themselves into the windows of others. Should
146check that out. Netsurf is allegedly easy to port to things, might be
147able to port it to EFL.
148