Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for Second Life

Check out theses very handy keyboard shortcuts used in the current Second Life viewer to speed things up during the SL experience. There is a more comprehensive list on the SL wiki which is worth looking at. For UI developers visit this page which is based on operating systems.

User Interface
Ctrl-F Search (previously called Find, hence the shortcut key F)
Ctrl-G Gestures
Ctrl-H Chat History
Ctrl-I Inventory
Ctrl-L Link (selected objects in edit)
Ctrl-M World Map
Ctrl-P Preferences
Ctrl-Q Quit the Second Life viewer
Ctrl-R Run Mode (toggle switch)
Ctrl-T Instant Message open/close
Ctrl-W close current Window (or IM tab page )
Ctrl-Shift-W close all Windows
Ctrl-U Upload Image
Ctrl-Z Undo (once while in edit – chat window off)

Edit
Ctrl-1 Focus
Ctrl-2 Move
Ctrl-3 Edit
Ctrl-4 Create
Ctrl-5 Land

Script Editor
Ctrl-F Find/Replace dialog

Client
Ctrl-Alt-C disable Camera Contraints (Client->Disable Camera Contstraints)
Ctrl-Alt-D Open/Close Debug menu (some systems require Ctrl-Shift-Alt-D)
Ctrl-Alt-M Mouse Moves Sun (requires Debug menu on)
Ctrl-Alt-R Rebake Textures (Client->Character->Rebake Textures)
Ctrl-Alt-T Highlight Transparent
Ctrl-Alt-1 Hide/Show UI
Ctrl-Alt-6 All Fog Off (Fog is SL default…no fog must be reset every log in)
Ctrl-Alt-A Toggle Animate Textures On/Off
Ctrl-Shift-A Start/Stop Movie to Disk
Ctrl-Shift-L Unlink (selected objects in edit)
Ctrl-Shift-M MiniMap
Ctrl-Shift-N Force Sunset
Ctrl-Shift-S Snapshots
Ctrl-Shift-1 Sim Stats (you will need to turn off or move the minimap to view the full stats page)
Ctrl-Shift-3 Texture Console (to view textures on a particular object right click and go into
edit and then press ALT 3 , the textures for all sides of that object will be highlighted in yellow)

Rendering
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-= Turn particle effects on/off.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-3 Remove all Linden trees. This is a toggle… press again to turn trees back on.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-5 Remove ground cover. This is a toggle… press again to turn ground cover back on.
Shift and Drag Copy object in edit

To pan around an object hold down the Alt key and left-click an object or avatar then use the left and right arrows to pan around (this function goes circular around an object) & page up and page down to move closer or further away. To change the zoom, you have to use the following keys:

Ctrl-8 Zoom out
Ctrl-9 Reset zoom
Ctrl-0 Zoom in

Strafe Camera
Hold down Ctrl-Alt-Shift and left-click an object or avatar then use the arrow keys to strafe left right up or down. (this goes vertical and horizontal on an object view).

Which SL keyboard shortcuts are your favourites ? 

 

Linden Lab launches new Dio

Linden Lab has officially launched Dio today which is a “new creative and social experience that allows anyone to make and explore unique places based on anything”. It’s in open beta at the moment and if you are interested then you can request a invite on the top right side of the Dio website. The Dio website will be updated with new features and new tools every two weeks according to the press release. What is Dio?

Linden Lab Dio Press Release (29th Janaury 2013)
Linden Lab introduces dio – a new shared creative space

Official Dio Website
dio | Linden Lab

Dio Video Tutorials
DioPlaces – YouTube

Dio video by Linden Lab

Will you be trying out Dio ?

Pool of Hope Charity: Date Auction

A interesting event is coming up in Second Life called Pool of Hope Charity: Date Auction starting from Sunday 3rd February 2013 through to Friday 22nd February 2013. It’s been a huge annual event since 2010 and this year this event will be much bigger in attendance during 2013. The main aim is to raise money for breast cancer awareness in Second Life. This event is located at Gardens of Absentia.

2013 BCA Pool of Hope Charity – Date Auction

2013 BCA Pool of Hope Charity – Date Auction
DATE PARTICIPATION FORM
I understand that I willingly offer to participate in a charity event where I will offer 2 hours of my time to be with an individual, to be determined, that will bid to win this time as a “date.”  You will be expected to arrive at last 30 minutes prior to your auction time.

First Name:

Last Name:

Do you have a preferred time that you would like to participate:

What is your ideal date:

Tell us a little about yourself:

Please forward your completed notecard and a face shot of your avie to IPUNIN PERA OR FILO TANI.

Pool of Hope Charity Blogger Highlights

• Pool of Hope co- directers are Ipunin “IP” Pera and Filo Tani
• Pool of Hope exists in Second Life as a memorial to those that have survived/passed on from         cancer.  The Pool of Hope is located at the Gardens of Absentia (
• –  This will be the fourth season of raising funds for charity
• –  Events
• Date Auction (one time event in February, with the final auction on Saturday February 23rd)
• Participants can sign up to be auctioned or bid on those being auctioned
• Fair for a Pair Designer Showcase and Hunt (April and the Hunt is the first two weeks in May)
• Second Life designers come together to offer creative items
• Music Festival (various dates and venues from February to June)
• Live performances by SLs best entertainers
• Main Sponsors: Best of SL, Meshworx, Energy Club, Templemore City, Gardens of Absentia, Mystic     Atalntis
• 100% of the donations go to the charity
• The Pool of Hope charity donation URL: http://www.the3day.org/goto/poolofhopecharity
• Contact Ipunin Pera or Filo Tani with any questions.

Mark this event on your calendars. 🙂

(Dis)Ability in Second Life: Ongoing research

Attend this event coming up called (Dis)Ability in Second Life: Ongoing research on Wednesday 30th January starting at 11am SLT over at The Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island. There is a repeat of this event on Saturday 2nd February 2013 starting at 8am SLT. Find out about research findings about people with disabilities and SL identity. This event is open to all and Ambrosia108 Azalee will be hosting the event.

The Sojourner Auditorium

Event Press Release 

(Dis)Ability in Second Life: Ongoing research.
PRESENTER: Ambrosia108 Azalee
WEDNESDAY January 30, 11am SLT
or
SATURDAY February 2, 8am SLT
The Sojourner Auditorium

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/53/172/23

Find out about an ongoing qualitative study on (dis)ability and Second Life… and why it’s important.

PRESENTER BIO:
Ambrosia108 Azalee is an MA student in Educational Technology at Concordia University, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her primary academic interests relate to (dis)Ability, human experiences in virtual environments, virtual identities and communities, and implications of technology and its design.

Presentation in text and voice simultaneously.

Mark this event on your calendars! 🙂

Kitely is opening their SL Marketplace in mid April 2013

It’s been announced in the Kitely Forums that the new Kitely SL Marketplace will be launched in mid April 2013 which is the target date. I’m very interested in the launch of the new Kitely SL Marketplace and I’m looking forward to using it when it opens in mid April 2013. I love the idea of selling items to users from other opensim HyperGrid enabled grids which will be very popular with opensim users. This will for sure impact the opensim community in a positive way and hopefully more people will be interested in opensim (more signups) when it’s opened officially.

The OpenSim Grid Kitely is opening their own unique version of the SL Markeplace. The target date is Mid-April. The Kitely Market will enable you to sell to Kitely users and, within a few months of opening, will also enable you to sell to users of other OpenSim Hypergrid-enabled grids as well. Hypergrid is a system which enables teleporting between grids. For example, being on the Kitely grid and teleporting to the Avination Grid, arriving with your avatar and inventory.

The new upcoming Kitely SL Marketplace will be a big opportunity to reach out to other opensim grids and it’s going to benefit everyone I think. I can’t wait!

Kitely will only enable Hypergrid access once it includes content protection mechanisms to prevent the content you sell from leaving the Kitely grid unless you gave it a type of Export Permission. The creator content protection feature is not currently in place with the current Hypergrid system but Kitely intends to add this functionality to items sold via the Kitely Market. Thus you, the merchant, will be able to define which items will be exportable form Kitely and which will not. The opening of the Kitely Market therefore provides a thoroughly unique opportunity to expand your customer base, from the Second Life marketplace to OpenSim-based virtual worlds as well.

These details about the new upcoming Kitely marketplace listing fees sound interesting and the good thing is that there are no 10L$ fees that SL charges when uploading. Woooot!!!

There are marketplace listing fees, however all Assets (textures, objects, scripts, animations, and sounds etc.) are free to upload into the Kitely Grid (e.g. there no 10 L$ fee that SL charges when you upload a texture).

Kitely Market listing fees are one-time and charged whenever a new product or variation is created. There are no ongoing listing fees and you aren’t charged again when editing an existing marketplace listing.
The listing fees are designed to prevent low quality content from being added to the marketplace and were supported by the Kitely Mentors group so that high quality content can be more easily found.

Check out the early bird promotion on the Kitely Blog for more details and how to get the 50% discount on listing fees before the new marketplace opens for buyers very soon. What are your views on a new Kitely SL Marketplace?

Zen Viewer taken off Third Party Viewer Directory

On 25th January 2013 it seems Oz Linden removed the well known third party viewer Zen Viewer which is rather alarming I think. Zen Viewer was removed due to a request of the developer apparently from the Third Party Viewer Directory Viewer List. It’s unknown why the developer of the Zen Viewer wanted to remove the viewer from the Third Party Viewer Directory.

If you visit the Zen Viewer SL wiki page now it looks like this…

The Zen Viewer has been removed from the directory at the request of the developer.

The download link for the Zen Viewer seems to be dead which is bad news.

• Zena_Juran / Zen Viewer / Downloads — Bitbucket

 

I enjoy using Zen Viewer so I guess it’s presence will be missed from the Third Party Viewer Directory SL wiki page from now on. Hopefully more details will be announced about this major change.

Second Life on reddit

Check out Second Life on reddit because it’s a very good way to get the latest Second Life news from a whole range of SL sources including SL blogs and SL videos.  The page now has 966 SL readers and it’s still growing at a good rate. Join and be apart of the Second Life reddit community.

 

What do you think of this Second Life page on reddit? 

New Video by Torley Linden on customizing your appearance

On Thursday 24th January 2013 a new video was uploaded by Torley Linden on customizing your appearance on the Second Life official YouTube channel. This new quick tip video is aimed at new residents joining Second Life giving them the basics of avatar floaters and editing appearance.

I’m excited to see what new videos will be released in this new series of Quick Tips in 2013. Welcome back, Torley! 🙂

InWorldz reaches 70, 000 registered users

InWorldz has now officially reached the 70, 000 registered users mark at 1am PDT/SLT today according to the InWorldz Login Screen. This is another big leap forward in growth numbers for InWorldz. Congratulations to InWorldz and hopefully it won’t be long until it hits the big one of 100, 000 registered users (late 2014/2015).

My snapshot of the InWorldz Login Screen at  5.10am PDT/SLT)

Wooot – 70, 000 at 1am PDT/SLT.

(Snapshot taken by Snoots Dwagon via InWorldz Forums)

• “The first 1, 000 took almost a year.. the second 1, 000 just a bit over a month..”
• 1, 000 registered users– 16th February 2010
• 2, 000 registered users – 14th May 2010
• 5, 000 registered users – 20th June 2010
• 6, 000 registered users – 29th June 2010
• 7, 000 registered users – 4th July 2010
• 10, 000 registered users – 12th August 2010
• 20, 000 registered users – 21st October 2010
• 25, 000 registered users – 12th December 2010
• 30, 000 registered users – 1st February 2011
• 40, 000 registered users – 15th July 2011
• 50, 000 registered users – 15th January 2012
• 60, 000 registered users – 18th July 2012
• 70, 000 registered users – 25th January 2013

On Second Life it reached the 100, 000 registered accounts mark on 23rd December 2005. The big milestone of 1 million registered accounts was back on the 18th October 2006.

Trying out Metropolis Grid on OpenSim

Today I decided to sign up to the Metropolis Grid on OpenSim which is a growing grid and very popular with the opensim community. Metropolis Grid is a free opensim grid which was founded in April 2008. According to Hypergrid Business latest blog post Metropolis Grid has around 454 active users and the grid grew by 70 regions in the past month. Some are saying Metropolis Grid will have more regions than InWorldz next month so who knows.

• Metropolis – Live Your Dream!
• Metropolis – free, democratic and independent!
• Metropolis – open for all!

Metropolis Grid Statistics (22nd January 2013)

• 1.113 regions = (72,90 area in km 2)
• Total Population = 2, 584
• In the last 30 days online = 552
• Peak Online = 39
• Residents Online: 39

What is Metropolis ?

Metropolis is a free OpenSim based virtual worlds network. Avatars can move through virtual worlds to meet others. in 3D or to explore the objects and creations from other citizens The members of the Metropolis grid can create their own worlds, without any limits.The access to the Metropolis-Grid, the mangement of the regions and estates (ie the handling with objects, assets, etc.) is very close to the handling in Second Life . Metropolisis based on the simulator software OpenSim , an open source project. 

What does Metropolis offer ?

The significant difference of Metropolis Compared to Second Life is that there is no minimum regarding the construction of buildings (prims, sculpties, etc.) on the Metropolis-Grid. Because Metropolis is absolutely free of any charge! Consequently, there are no similar virtual Linden dollars or currencies. On the contrary: the grid operators, as well as the residents, give a lot of buildings, furnishing items, clothes etc as freebies to other citizens. Thus, a new resident can Rapidly build its own inventory. There are many shops freebie available on different regions, Which are accessible via teleporting.

Is Metropolis a free grid ?

Everyone can connect their own worlds (regions) to the Metropolis-Grid, free of charge.Please have a look at the tutorial here , how it works. On the other hand, there is so The Possibility to rent ready-to-run virtual worlds for a cheep charge. Have a look at the prizes on this page .

Take a look at some impressive snapshots from the Metropolis-Grid.

Signing up to Metropolis

The sign-up page is very straightforward from choosing a first avatar look to filling out basic information which takes a few minutes to complete. Click on the Registration button at the bottom of the page when completed then it says Please Wait then a page will appear saying Successfully registered as a new citizen of Metropolis with links to get started.

Downloading Metropolis

Viewer software requires either Hippo OpenSim Viewer – Metropolis Edition, Cool VL Viewer, Imprudence Viewer or the Radegast Metaverse Client to run Metropolis. Other viewers are available through the Downloads Page.

Logging into Metropolis

Under Grid Manager via Preferences Menu add http://metropolis.hypergrid.org:8002 in the Login URL box then Get Info then Apply. I pressed the Login button on the login screen to start my adventures on the Metropolis Grid. 

My First Arrival 

When I logged into Metropolis Grid I arrived firstly at Startregion which is a welcome area in the sky. There are welcome boards and many plants in the welcome building which is very welcoming.

Metropolis Grid Places to Visit 

In the welcome area there are teleporters to visit locations around the grid (top right of this snapshot). Just walk through them to teleport to that specific location. The three main teleporters at the welcome area: CenterWorld, Sandbox and Freebies. A very well-built region teleport system here.