HTML on a Prim Use Cases

This page is for listing actual use cases for HTML on a Prim. Write up a section for what you would use HTML on a Prim for. Please only add a section for what an actual use you have, not something you could imagine using. A good metric is if you have a project that would be substantially improved, or that you could actually do now if you had the feature. Please don't add seconds for uses that you might imagine someone building. We want to know what you would do. If you have several different things, add several sections.

Note: There have been many interesting use cases discussed in Zero's office hours. If talked about one there, please extract your use case and summarize it here.

It is okay, even preferable, for you to add your use case, even if there is another similar one here. By see all the particular details of each use case, we can begin to extract the common needed features.

See also: HTML on a Prim Taxonomy

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Tree Kyomoon

I received this in world on a notecard from Tree. Hope he doesn't mind me posting it here. -- Zero

1. get content hosted externally into SL , just images so we dont have to pay L$10 for each mistake

2. get text into SL via http, not linked text just plain text

3. an interactive browser on a 3d surface is nerdy and cool, but unnecessary, as is flash for a while

Disagree with the unnecessary comment, if the web-page is shared it allows people to browse collaboratively and to discuss what they are looking at Buddy Sprocket 04:08, 22 August 2008 (PDT)

4. fix HTTPRequest so it is more transparent and compliant with web systems, I have 200,000 users I could bring into SL via our learning management system if I could properly authenticate them and grab the course XML. I can render it with objects, I just need to get the data in and out :)

I wish I'd seen this note previously. Sloodle [1] is a open-source project working on exactly this - integrating SL and an LMS. We've been working on this since late 2005, and are now on version 0.3 and has been used to support classes in the UK, USA and the Far and Middle East. Buddy Sprocket 04:08, 22 August 2008 (PDT)

Use Cases for HTML on a prim

1. Presently, to make a presentation within SL I have to create the 'slides' or 'flipcharts' as a matrix on a single image which I can then put on a prim (usually 4x4) and upload. The cost is negligible, clearly, but the ease of use is lacking. I can't easily take different paths through the slides, nor jump to a different presentation easily if required. Direct use of HTML would greatly ease this. I did try using Flash but found through testing that it was not possible to co-ordinate which state was displayed to each user so that they all say the same 'side' together. --Alison Wheels
2. To bring in live news updates from outside in an easier manner than a headline and an off-SL browser link. Being able to display the latest SL Blog entry on a prim in the Infohub I operate would also be nicer than sending someone off to an external browser as it would keep the resident within SL rather than probably hiding the SL window (where they might miss someone talking to them, etc) --Alison Wheels
3. Additionally, many items are scripted to do texture changes - which causes an element of sim lag - whereas moving that script+image off-SL to an externally hosted image (animated gif, whatever) will help all residents. --Alison Wheels 06:36, 21 March 2007 (PDT)
4. Display current score for an interactive game where the game is controlled entirely by LSL scripts --Kelly Linden
5. Display a list of high scores - user names plus scores for a game written entirely in LSL --Kelly Linden
6. Display a list of high scores for a game whose score tracking is performed outside of SL/LSL --Kelly Linden
7. Display information about the world in a HUD, or about a game written in LSL (nearby avatars, augmented reality, game stats) --Kelly Linden
8. Display information about a game run on servers outside SL/LSL in a HUD, with multiple HUD components --Kelly Linden
9. Implement advanced user addons in the HUD - a HUD that is your AIM/YAHOO/MSN contact list and IM interface --Kelly Linden
10. An in world console to display information about a game and allow interaction with the game --Kelly Linden
11. Interactive Movies/Stories. Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
12. Puzzle Games Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
13. In world "cameras". By using a scripted client, we could have "camera screens" into other parts of the world. Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
14. Morphed Text Displays/Captcha Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
15. 2D Action Games. If the client caches the textures, flipping between them might happen a lot more quickly. Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
16. Ads. Some people might serve web based ads. Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
17. Web cams without relying on quicktime. Gigs Taggart 13:26, 27 March 2007 (PDT)
18. http textures: get product images into Second Life, such as books, CDs etc. and make them exchangable automatically. Dynamic search results from Amazon with images are another usecase --Tao Takashi
19. text on a prim: for any device like RSS readers, search results again and so on. --Tao Takashi
20. creating better HUD userinterfaces with HTML-on-a-prim. UI scripting could happen server side and buttons are more easily exchangable etc. --Tao Takashi
21. For basic whiteboarding, use HTML-on-a-prim as the backdrop (in our case we were doing a design review of concept sketches) then meeting participants can move small prims around on the surface of the presentation prim to highlight areas of interest (while discussing in voice chat). Maybe we could add a "web projector screen" object to the library? Benjamin Linden 10:31, 30 March 2007 (PDT)
22. Collaborative text document editing Ryan Linden
23. Collaborative spreadsheet editing Ryan Linden
24. Gallery2 to SL photo sharing; for example, for an in-world picture gallery of RL photos, complete with RL ordering and delivery Dr Scofield
25. displaying and entering data into ANY kind of form without having a browser window over the "worldview" Pham Neutra
26. having a usable way to input TEXT into an application (doing this by chat is a joke) Pham Neutra
27. a usable collaborative whiteboard for inworld meetings (in discussion with one of our clients) Pham Neutra
28. creating interactive UIs for many RL/SL applications Pham Neutra
    1. coupling web based shops and inworld shops more effectively and with better usability
    2. selling land and managing land (in discussion with one of our clients)
    3. creating a reputation system with an inworld interface (in discussion with one of our clients)
    4. creating a better/alternative inworld search engine or many different specialized ones
    5. creating a better/alternative inworld classifieds system or (in discussion with one of our clients)
    6. creating an information/management system for inworld groups (in discussion with one of our clients)
    7. creating a custom soundtrack / long streams of sound effects for an area by enabling numerous media streams from objects across a parcel Dizzy Banjo
    8. Web-based tools such as http://www.nandnerd.info/particlesystem.php or http://www.nandnerd.info/sculpty.php which could be integrated with Second Life more fully should we have this feature (and will be when the time comes). nand 13:08, 22 November 2007 (PST)
    9. for many of these applications a set of APIs, which can interface the server based app or a javascript app with inworld information, would be extremely useful (getting information about the avatar interacting, the inworld location of the prim etc. etc.)
29. Currently for the Historical Museum I'm using notecards to give information out to people, while this is great for spreading information it's a disaster to update each card to provide new information when the same article is updated on the History Wiki. So I'd love to use HTML on a prim to replace the current notecard based system with just HTML prims that show the wiki page. I could also maybe create a HUD that makes use of the wiki, providing more information with less inventory filling content. Oz Spade 17:55, 22 June 2007 (PDT)
30. Our group 'Studio Wikitecture' uses SL as a platform for co-designing of both architecture and urban planning. We are currently using a forum type setting to facilitate asynchronous communication between the various disciplines and expertise. Discussion varies from board stoke design direction for the entire building to very targeted discussion about specific details located throughout the building. HTML-on-a-prim would allow us to project the web-based forum discussions or information associated with specific parts of the design, onto their corresponding in-world representation; i.e. The forum discussion revolving around a column detail, for example, could be viewed on the corresponding column in-world. This would be a great way to get context specific information out of the model. Especially information that is always changing, as is the case with forum discussions. Although we are designing and modeling architecture, i would imagine this functionality would benefit any team that is collaboratively designing anything 3-dimensional, such as industrial design and engineering, to name a few. Theory Shaw
31. I created and maintain a Missing Children poster, which updates itself from an outworld database with a new group of children each week. Currently, maintaining it is a very tedious process of uploading the pictures, then copying their UUIDs and pasting them into the database. HTML on a Prim would vastly reduce maintenance time. Siann Beck
32. Aside from the obove obvious uses such as image hosting etc i beleive that html on prim will be a very full and complete way to present information in sl, rather than use XYTEXT or uploaded images one can simply refer to a html (or php woudl be much preferred) on a prim. I have several websites that could deliver rich content into SL including but not limited to Radio stream information and Real World copies of SL Clothing and artwork.
33. If we could use media and texture not hosted in SL on a prim without 1-per-parcel limits, we could do animated sculptie movies AND have the color of the sculptie be another movie. AND have several different of those at once out, control which frame is shown by script, and generally removing most limits to dynamic complex detailed artforms save for prim count and client-side lag. Currently it's limited to EITHER the sculptie or a single texture and there is not much that can be done with that...
34. The one thing that is killer to me in Project Wonderland is the ability for a group of avatars to edit documents on a prim. When I do a presentation or work with a group in SL I have to use external web browsers for document sharing or interactive web page viewing (say just to scroll a web page). Things like group document work and taking people on web tours are basics in the virtual meetings we have between statewide educational agencies. It would really be great to be able to do these things completely inworld rather than having people juggle multiple windows. Having said that, there are some things (like web based surveys) that probably won't work on a prim since each person would need to have their own page rendered to enter information separately. So I may not ever really be able to do everything for a meeting inworld. On a related topic; could the SL internal browser be beefed up to run all the current web standards? Maybe having the SL internal browser being able to run something like the recently announced Google Chrome plug-in might be helpful. I'm just thinking off the top of my head here so some of these ideas may not be reasonable. But I do a lot of virtual work meetings with people in environments like Elluminate and Acrobat Connect and would love to be able to do these meetings in SL. The tools just aren't available in SL yet. I've done presentations at conferences on SL and people get interested. But when they tell me what they want to do I often have to steer them to a virtual meeting space like Connect. It would be way cooler to have these virtual meetings on my island. DavidDavis Lyle

TrustNet

I run an in-world reputation system. The current capabilities of SL limit what can be done. Here's what I'd add:

• Screens (near doors for example), that display information on why exactly somebody wasn't allowed in. Moderated areas could contain a small area with a screen that could be used to display the reason why somebody isn't welcome.
• Use it as a part of an avatar scanner HUD, to represent information like graphs and tables that are difficult to represent well in LSL.
• System status display, with information about system load, service availability, etc.
• Make it possible to access the website directly from SL, which has functionality that is currently very impractical to implement in-world, such as tables with hundreds of rows.
• It would make it possible to create an in-world demonstration of how the system works. Currently assembling such a thing from prims seems to be fairly complicated.

Dale Glass 11:02, 25 March 2007 (PDT)