12. Using Grid Info

Opensim contains a powerful feature, called Grid Info, that allows you to provide your users with useful information and added functionality. However, only viewers that support Grid Info can fully utilize all of its features, such as the Hippo Viewer. The SL Viewer can only use one of the Grid Info features, and that will be described.

Basically, Grid Info returns information to the viewer, once it has issued a get_grid_info call, that auto-configures the viewer for you. All you need to do, in the Hippo Viewer, is to provide the hostname and port number of your server, press the Get Grid Info button, and all the other fields will be auto-populated for you. See these BEFORE and AFTER screenshots.

Click on Apply to permanently store the data, then on OK.

The first thing you will notice is that the splash screen changes, and now shows the nifty drop-down box containing the names of all the regions in your grid. The user can then select which region they wish to arrive in, then login. In fact, the splash screen changes depending on the time of day in the region, be it Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, or Midnight.


Step 1: Setting up Grid Info
To set things up, go into opensim.ini, and near the end you find the Grid Info section.

The options are as follows (and the values I have given below are the ones that produced the AFTER screenshot above):

; login uri: for grid this is the user server URI
login = http://anubia.servegame.org:8002/

; long grid name: the long name of your grid
gridname = "Anubia"

; short grid name: the short name of your grid
gridnick = "anubia"


; login page: optional: if it exists it will be used to tell the client to use
; this as splash page
welcome = http://anubia.servegame.org/loginscreen.php

; helper uri: optional: if it exists if will be used to tell the client to use
; this for all economy related things
economy = http://anubia.servegame.org

; web page of grid: optional: page providing further information about your grid
about = http://anubia.servegame.org/about

; account creation: optional: page providing further information about obtaining
; a user account on your grid
register = http://anubia.servegame.org/register

; help: optional: page providing further assistance for users of your grid
help = http://anubia.servegame.org/help

; password help: optional: page providing password assistance for users of your grid
password = http://anubia.servegame.org/password


Tip: If the Grid Info does not match what you have entered into your opensim.ini, try clearing the cache, or stopping and restarting the UGAIM service and opensim.exe.


Step 2: Setting up the Web Interface for Grid Info
Of course, the four pages referred to above, that provide information about your grid, how to register, provide help, and what to do if a user has forgotten their password, have to be written by you, and placed in the Web Interface wamp\www folder.

You may also wish to use your own images for the splash screen. To do this, you will need four images, 1280x939 pixels, in jpg format, named login1.jpg, login2.jpg, login3.jpg and login4.jpg, and put them into the following folder (replacing the default images): wamp\www\images\login_screens\


Step 3: Seting up the Viewer
To enable your users to use Grid Info:

Hippo Viewer
Start the Hippo Viewer, then click on the Grids button, and add this in the Login URI box:

http://anubia.servegame.org:8002

Click on the Get Grid Info button, and all the fields will be populated for you.


SL Viewer
Unfortunately the SL viewer does not currently support Grid Info, but you can provide your users with that nice login screen, with the drop-down Region List. To do this:

Right-click the shortcut icon, Properties, Shortcut Tab,

add this switch to the end of the Target,

-http://anubia.servegame.org/loginscreen.php


Step 4: Changing the Arrival Location within a Region
By using the loginscreen feature of the Web Interface, you will have a drop-down list of all the regions in your grid, and you can decide which region to arrive at by selecting that region from the drop-down list.

However, the location within that region that you will arrive at is set to a default of 128,128,50

Now, that just might be a tad inconvenient. On one of my regions that location was inside a mountain, and on another I appeared within a wall of a palace!

So, how do you get around this?

Step 4a: Set a Landing Point
In each region, go to the place where you would like yourself and others to arrive at, and from your viewer go to About Land (by clicking on the Region name at the top of your viewer screen in the middle of the menu bar), click on the Options tab, set the Teleport Routing to Landing Point, then press the Set button. Do the same for each region.

Step 4b: Turn off the Default Location
Navigate to your Web Interface loginscreen folder, and open the region_box.php file. Look for the line that contains this at the end:

$regionName?">/128/128/50'">

and delete the (/128,128,50) changing it to:

$regionName?">'">

(Note: it finishes with close chevron, single quote, double quote, close chevron)

Save

(no need to restart anything, it will be available the next time you open your loginscreen-enabled viewer)