Last Post For BlindSL, First Post For BlindVW

This is my last post for my original blog, and my first post for my new one. No, I’m not going to quit writing about my experiences in Second Life, but I have to take measures to make sure this blog is not shut down. Linden Lab already went after SLEducation. They appear to be going after anyone who has the words Second Life or the initials sl in their URLs. About the only ones they can’t touch are the ones who have .sl at the end of their domains.

Since I’m already considering legal action against them, or at least encouraging legal action, I’m taking what measures I need to so I can continue blogging.

If you are looking at the old blog, start pointing your browser to

http://blindvw.wordpress.com

The vw is for virtual world user. I will continue writing my thoughts there, and I will see about importing important posts over to the new URL.

As of now, I will also be the one handling all announcements of Guide releases and possible building tools. Talvin won’t be posting further to his blog. He will start putting his code back up at:

http://scriptable.wikispaces.com

New Radegast URL

Here’s a new URL to grab Radegast. It was just updated 8 hours ago. Its not gone yet.

http://code.google.com/p/radegast/downloads/lis

Edited to add: You can still grab it apparently at http://radegastclient.org

Accessing Second Life

I spoke with Latif Khalifa today about the Radegast viewer. I wanted to know if I’d still be able to use it come April 30. He said probably yes, but he wasn’t sure about any further development. When I asked why, he said it was specifically sections 7A and 7D of the LL third-party viewer policy that made him question if he wants to continue working on Radegast. If he doesn’t continue development, he says the client will still be available. I suppose someone else who knows how to program could take over Radegast and continue development and list it in the viewer directory, if it came to that.

It seems to me there are two separate issues tied up in all this.

1. Obviously, LL has made the policy seem very intimidating to third-party viewer providers. You can view the entire policy, including sections 7A and 7D at:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/tpv.php

He (Latif) seems to feel that if I were to, say, delete my home using Radegast, he could be held responsible.

2. Linden Lab has explicitly stated twice now that they are depending on third parties to handle access to Second Life for people with disabilities. On the other hand, just yesterday one of them said that access to Second Life is “all about choice.” It’s not “all about choice” if Lindens won’t even attempt to do any work to make their own viewer accessible. It’s not choice if I will be forced to rely on MaxVoice, Max the Guide Dog, and another viewer when I can do much more with Radegast, especially if Radegast is blocked from SL as of April 30. Max and the associated programs track usage and other data of which I am not aware, and that makes me very uncomfortable. Let’s not forget that Virtual Helping Hands has a history of “outing” people who use their product, without that person’s consent.

Even if Radegast is allowed to be used to connect to SL, if Latif feels he can’t in good conscience continue development, people with disabilities will fall farther and farther behind. There’s a real chance that people with disabilities who can’t use the standard viewer will be prevented from accessing Second Life.

What can be done to prevent this? Well, get informed first. Wade through all of the policy and make what sense of it you can. If you’re not happy, send notes or emails to Lindens expressing your thoughts on the situation.

Maybe we need to talk to some lawyers, and start putting pressure on the schools who use SL, and start filing Section 508 complaints against the government agencies who use it, and bring pressure that way.

Today I made SL History!

Today in the latest build of Radegast, we got even better access to inventory. We can now rez objects, look at the contents of objects, and edit the contents, I know for certain notecards and scripts.

I logged onto SL last night and saw a message telling me I ought to check out the latest build, because I could re objects, look at the contents, edit scripts and notecards, and take the object back into my inventory.

So I did. Talvin gave me a little box to play with, called Dianna’s Little Box, and I rezed it and peeked at the notecard and script inside. I edited the notecard for the fun of it. I didn’t touch the script, though. I had such fun doing that, I took my own TP Favorites list from my Aide object and edited *that* to suit, as well (with some trepidation, I was afraid I would mess things up somehow). And it worked. I shorten all my teleport shortcuts considerably, and they all worked!

So today I logged back in; I had thought, Wow, it’s great; all we need now is the ability to copy things into the contents of an object. And I saw a message telling me to download the latest build of Radegast again. So I did.

We can now copy things into objects, and copy contents from objects into our inventories! This means … we can now edit scripts! This means Talvin doesn’t have to be the only one working on the Guide! This means that we as blind and visually impaired users (or sighted ones who use Radegast) can now take a greater hand in the project, maybe even take it over if we want! This is what Talvin was aiming for all along!

Talvin had given me a bunch of prims, and I copied one of them, moved it to a folder I created for objects in progress, renamed it, rezed it out, and edited the script to say something other than “Hello Avatar!” It says, when you click/touch the box, “I am a part of SL history!” I just took the new script you always get when you create a script and edit it like so:

default { state_entry() { } touch_start(integer total_number) { llSay(0, "I am a part of SL history!"); } }

Then I saved it and tested it and it worked. A big thank-you to Latif for making this possible!:)

You can see a screenshot of this at

http://blindlsl.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/slhistory.jpg

Today I Made History In SL!

Today in the latest build of Radegast, we got even better access to inventory! We can now rez objects, look at the contents of objects, and edit the contents, I know for certain notecards and scripts.

I logged onto SL last night and saw a message telling me I ought to check out the latest build, because I could re objects, look at the contents, edit scripts and notecards, and take the object back into my inventory.

So I did. Talvin gave me a little box to play with, called Dianna’s Little Box, and I rezed it and peeked at the notecard and script inside. I edited the notecard for the fun of it. I didn’t touch the script, though. I had such fun doing that, I took my own TP Favorites list from my Aide object and edited *that* to suit, as well (with some trepidation, I was afraid I would mess things up somehow). And it worked. I shorten all my teleport shortcuts considerably, and they all worked!

So today I logged back in; I had thought, Wow, it’s great; all we need now is the ability to copy things into the contents of an object. And I saw a message telling me to download the latest build of Radegast again. So I did.

We can now copy things into objects, and copy contents from objects into our inventories! This means … we can now edit scripts! This means Talvin doesn’t have to be the only one working on the Guide! This means that we as blind and visually impaired users (or sighted ones who use Radegast) can now take a greater hand in the project, maybe even take it over if we want! This is what Talvin was aiming for all along!

Talvin had given me a bunch of prims, and I copied one of them, moved it to a folder I created for objects in progress, renamed it, rezed it out, and edited the script to say something other than “Hello Avatar!” It says, when you click/touch the box, “I am a part of SL history!” I just took the new script you always get when you create a script and edit it like so: default { state_entry() { } touch_start(integer total_number) { llSay(0, “I am a part of SL history!”); } }

Then I saved it and tested it and it worked. A big thank-you to Latif for making this possible!:)

You can see a screenshot of this at

http://blindlsl.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/slhistory.jpg

A note: Apparently the post got deleted, but I recieved a comment in my inbox from someone. Good luck figuring out Entombed! I haven’t gotten out of the dungeon yet, either. I am on floor 15!

For those who are interested, Entombed is an audio game with a demo you can get at:

www.blind-games.com

More about radegast

Here’s what I wrote up today after I updated Radegast.

Hi there.

I downloaded the latest version of Radegast from

http://radegastclient.org/files/radegast-latest.exe

Here is the help.  My comments will be added beneath it.

*begin help*

In chat input pressing Enter produces normal chat.
Ctrl-Enter shouts.
Shift-Enter whispers.

Tabs:
Alt-1: Chat
Alt-2: Friends
Alt-3: Groups
Alt-4: Inventory
Alt-5: Search
Alt-6: Map
Alt-7: Objects
Alt-8: Media
Alt-9: Voice

Ctrl-Tab: Next tab
Ctrl-Shit-Tab: Previous tab
Ctrl-W: Close current tab

Ctrl-G: Open map and go to the SLURL in the clipboard
Ctrl-Shift-H: Teleport Home

*end help*

Now for my thoughts.

1.  Important! important! important! Use control-s to  save your notecard before jumping away to answer an IM or to chat in local chat.  I didn’t, and I had to restart this project several times because I thought all my text was gone.  It Wasn’t, but it takes some work to get back to it.  It’s a good idea to save in any case.

2.  You now have the ability to actually make notecards, as you can see, since I gave you this one.  It’s not documented, but it’s there.  Here’s how.

a.  Go to Inventory, Notecards and hit the applications key.

b.  Arrow down till you hear New Note.

c.  Hit enter, and wait for the plugin to say, ” Enter name of notecard and hit enter.”  Do so.  After a moment you will be placed in the notecard editor where you can paste text or type in your own.

3.  When you’re satisfied with your work, hit control-s.  Wait and you should hear the plugin tell you the card is saving and then you should     hear OK.  At that point, just hit alt-1.  That will put you back into chat.  If you find you need to edit it, go back to the notecards folder inside your inventory  with alt-4 and hit the tab eight (8) times.  When your screen reading software shows you are inside the edit window, you can arrow around using a screen reader and add/delete/modify to your heart’s content.  Just remember to use control-s to save and alt-1 to get you back to CHAT.

More thoughts on Notecards

There is no way to save objects embeded in notecards, such as landmarks,but you can still access them using Radegast.  This is  not the most elegant way of doing so, but it is what it is and it works.  You need a screen reader running while in Radegast for this to work.

When you are given a notecard and you think there may be landmarks attached, open it.  Once inside the notecard editor, hit control-tab. You will see a menu that says notecard.  Tab once more and you will se another called attachments.  Arrow around the list of attachments and when you find the one you want, hit enter.  You will be placed in a window exactly as you would be for landmarks in your inventory.  You can teleport to the location , close that window, and set a landmark that will go in your inventory.

In addition to the attachments menu there is a detach button that will put the notecard in another window.  I haven’t played with this option yet.

And that’s Radegast updates in a nutshell.

Today In SL

Since today’s Thanksgiving, I don’t plan to be on SL much.  I mostly have to sort my inventory some more for tomorrow night’s event.  Maybe if anyone’s playng I’ll go listen, but I don’t expect to hear much music.

Last night in SL was terrible!  I couldn’t teleport anywhere, so I missed a concert I wanted to go to.  Maybe things will have improved today.  I sure hope so.

Random Thoughts

Nothing much actually happened in Second Life Monday night, except I went to two concerts.  I’m slowly gaining more confidence in looking around and exploring unfamiliar areas.  At the first concert, Talvin had to give me a hand finding a seat, because the chairs were all named the exact same thing, but that wasn’t too bad.

At the second concert, the owner tried to help me find the dance machine, and I saw it, but I never could get it to work.  I imagine I did the wrong thing.  I had fun nonetheless.

I’ve discovered that Talvin’s follow script works much better than the follow feature in Radegast.  I’m glad I have both options.  It made things easier for me.

Last night was Unday at The place, and that was fun.  I left that a little early to go to an early Thanksgiving Day celebration, and I had a lot of fun even if I didn’t talk very much.  I got to dance and listen to cool music, so that worked out wel.

Really, there needs to be a better way to introduce myself to people.  “Hi.  can someone tell me what the name of the dance object is?  I can’t quite tell.”
When they tell me to click on the yellow balls behind me, ‘I can’t see those.  I’m totally blind.  My client just gives me object names.”

It feels weird just saying, “Read my profile.”  So I end up telling new people almost anytime I go to a new location about how I do things in SL.  It gets old, but it’s necessary if I want to fully participate.

I feel like i need to get out more, do my own thing more.  Not that Talvin and I don’t do things together, obviously we do.   So I try out new things and see how well I manage. Most times things work out well.  Other times it’s something as simple as chairs not being labeld so I can tell them apart to take a seat.  Speaking of which, did you know that if you put an invisible prim under a chair or other object, and give it the name of the object, Radegast takes *that* as the chair name, or whatever the object is?  I didnt until Gentle Heron explained it to me.

Why do that?  Why put extra prims in,, even if they are invisible, and bring your prim count up?  Why not just rename objects?  As a short term solution it works, but over the long term I’d think you would want to go ahead and just give objects different names.

I have no plans for tonight; there is nothing special going on, unless I go to some more concerts.  I’ll have to see how I feel.

Quick Update About radegast And Other Thoughts

I confirmed last night that you can search for and join groups with the Group search function in Radegast. One of my SL friends introduced me to a new musician, and I liked him so much I asked for the group name and joined. Yay! It’s always good to have more concerts to go to. I guess I’ll just be more of a groupy than I already am.

This is good; I get to explore more places and send other sighted friends there to look around and enjoy the surroundings.

I am most amused by an underwater ballroom that I keep going to. I can’t quite say why the concept is so amusing, but it is. I guess it seems surreal to listen to a guitar player underwater. That’s the beauty of Second Life, I think. You can do so many things you normally never could do in your Real Life. I’m sure there are even more surreal places and things to do besides going to underwater ballrooms to dance and listen to music. I’d love to know what they are so I can explore and send others to explore, too.

More About Radegast

I had a nice post all ready to go earlier this week about how Radegast has improved, and it’s a good thing I held off from posting, or I’d have had to do multiple updates. It really has gone through quite a change compared to September when I first wrote about it. Maybe the changes won’t seem significant to some, but they are definitely significant to me.

First, the interface has been improved on. You don’t have to use control-left-arrow or control-right-arrow to move between tabs. You can now get to the 9 standard ones (Chat, Friends, Groups, Inventory, Search, Map, Surroundings, Audio Streaming, and Voice.) by using alt-1 through alt-9–in that particular order I wrote. You can also navigate between those tabs, plus all your group and people IMs using control-tab and control-shift-tab. Trust me, both ways of moving around are helpful. Control-w in an active tab will close that tab and put you back into Chat, which is nice, because now I can close IM windows.

Also, you can now do group searches. I have searched for groups but have not actually joined one that way, but I think you can. Group search is one of the tabs under search. You can get to that tab with alt-5.

On the speech plug in side, improvements have been made for saving voice assignments for avatars, and a bug involving parentheses (don’t ask me to explain because I can’t) was fixed. Absolutely wonderful.

But the best improvement literally happened around 5:45 PM Eastern Monday night, when the lead developer told me he had just put up a new build of Radegast with more inventory functionality …

All hail the absolutely wonderful, marvelous, terrific copy, cut, and paste actions! Not only do they work on moving objects from one folder to another, you can copy folders as well and put them in different parts of your inventory!

I am now discovering the joys (and slight frustration) of creating my own outfits. Remember that when I first had ability to wear and remove clothing, I was using the Restrained Life Viewer. Talvin had to create my outfits a certain way, all in a folder called #RLV, with a folder for each outfit. So now, to make Radegast play more nicely with my clothing and attachments, I have to create more folders under Clothing and copy everything from each folder. You’d think that’s not so daunting, except that the way the Restrained Life Viewer works, you have to have several sub-folders, so I have to open up each folder and copy each object from it and paste it where it needs to go.

But I Am Able To Do This At Last! Yay! Anyhow, it was fast to let Talvin help me, so he did.

As of 9:00 PM Eastern that same night, Give functionality was added, as well. As long as an item is copied from inventory, I can go into any profile and a Give (alt-g) button appears. I hit it, and the person gets the item. I even get verbal feedback telling me that I offered the item and know if they got it or (I presume) if they decline to take the item. That was added in sometime between Monday and Wednesday when I did another download of the latest build.

Tuesday I had a blast playing bartender at The Place, because I was able to give patrons drinks they asked for. I have over 100 drinks in a folder specifically for that, now. It’s lots of fun.

There is a bug when switching outfits, and that is that whenever I switch to a different outfit I have to use the set appearance command and the rebake textures command, which is a little annoying. But at least I can switch outfits, now. Adding new ones eventually shouldn’t be that difficult, either.

Finally, we have voice support, now. I have yet to fully test it, but I know that I can at least transmit. I managed to spam an entire sim with static. Oops!

And that’s Radegast in a nutshell; you can get the latest build at

http://radegastclient.org/files/radegast-latest.exe

But I wouldn’t recommend downloading the file all the time. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Unless of course there are new features you want to take advantage of.

You can find the Radegast Users group doing a Group search and join it. They will post notices of new releases, and it’s a general way for those who use Radegast to connect, share tips and tricks, and ideas they may have for future development. They are very intent now that they know disabled people are using the client, to make it as accessible and friendly as possible.