FleepGrid

I spent most of the day working on some updates to FleepGrid that I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time.   A quick summary of today’s updates include:

• Added a favicon.ico to website directory for all FleepGrid sites
• Changed region names Fleep1 – Fleep6 to new sim names:  Alexander, Beanflip, Cleopolis, Samorama, and Lucyfur
• Changed region names for hypergate regions to FleepGrid HGat # (5000 and 13000).
• Updated website Map page and descriptions
• Removed HyperGrid Business RSS feed since it appears to be broken
• Added login and HG info to left widget for new users and travelers
• Installed parts of the XoopenSim module based on instructions at http://opensim-users.2152040.n2.nabble.com/money-td6066566i20.html#a6203334
• Modified Login Screen provided by XoopenSim to customize for FleepGrid

Most of it went very well until I got to the XoopenSim module install.  The original pages are in Japanese so all the instructions are translated by Google into English, which I’m sure doesn’t help anything.  Of the functionality provided by the XoopenSim module, I managed to get some things working, but not other things.

FleepGrid now sports a customized login screen with live stats.

LOGIN SCREEN: Login screen works! Yay!  Looks great but of course needs to be customized.  Shows online status, users, regions, and the welcome message designated in the XoopenSim preferences page.

OFFLINE MESSAGES:  Not yet working. Nothing reported on console.  In IM window reads:
[03:01 PM] Fleep Tuque: Testing offline IM….
[03:01 PM] System: User is not logged in. Message not saved

GROUPS:  Partially working. Able to create group, invite user, use group chat, send notice, but notice did not arrive for offline member of group (though it does appear in archive).  Group can be deeded to land, but parcel does not show up in group owned land interface.

PROFILE: Not yet working.
15:54:17 – [PROFILE]: Unable to connect to Profile Server http://fleepgrid.com/grid/modules/xoopensim/helper/profile.php. Method avatar_properties_request, params System.Collections.Hashtable. Exception System.Xml.XmlException: Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.

SEARCH:  Not implemented.

CURRENCY:  Not implemented.

I got quite a bit accomplished and decided to leave things where they stand for now.  The grid is back up and I don’t plan to do any more maintenance today.  For a complete run down of all the changes, steps taken to install XoopenSim and resulting errors, etc. visit the change log.

This weekend, FleepGrid will be down for maintenance while being upgraded from 0.7.0.2 to the latest release 0.7.1. This downtime will also affect the http://fleepgrid.com website and the FleepGrid Shop website. Downtime will likely be intermittent for the website and freebie shop, but I expect the grid itself will be down for several hours.

Stay tuned for updates as the upgrade progresses..

Update: The upgrade has been completed and all accounts should be accessible.  Please let me know in the comments if you notice anything amiss!

This morning I wanted to test some options for a web-based freebie site to share IAR and OAR files from FleepGrid.  I looked at a couple different opensource options, including ZenCart which looked a little too complex for my needs.  Eventually I installed OpenCart v1.4.9.4 to see if it could work.

This is a test-in-progress so not sure I’m ready to link it from the main menu just yet, but feel free to give it a whirl and see if you can download the IAR files and successfully import into your opensim.  Would love some comments/feedback to know if it works for you!

Click the image to visit the FleepGrid Shop – testing in progress.

As for modding OpenCart to remove some of the stuff you don’t need for a freebie site, here is some basic information about the steps I took to get rid of things I didn’t need/want like shipping info, addresses, payment info, etc.

This site is hosted on IIS not Apache, so ymmv etc.

1.  Download files and unzip in \inetpub\wwwroot\store directory.

2.  Create a database and dbase user in MySQL for the store, then follow installation instructions at http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=documentation/documentation&path=4

3.  Wanted to rip out most of the required information fields in the create new account form (required to complete checkout).  Modded files store\catalog\controller\account\account.php and create.php as well as store\catalog\view\theme\default\template\account\account.tpl and create.tpl to remove the fields I didn’t want.

4.  Wanted to rip out most of stuff required in the checkout section related to shipping, address, and payment method since everything would be freebie downloads.  Files located in store\catalog\view\theme\default\template\checkout\confirm.tpl and payment.tpl as well as store\catalog\controller\checkout\confirm.php and payment.php.

5.  Edited the check out success message text with a custom message to take folks right to the Download page to grab the files.  Edit file located at store\catalog\language\english\checkout\success.php

6.  Needed to increase the max file size upload allowed in php.ini to accommodate some of my larger IAR files.  Wasn’t sure which file was controlling so changed in three places: c:\program files\PHP,  \inetpub\wwwroot\store, and \inetpub\wwwroot\store\admin.

@lhavenst asked if the modded version of OpenCart could be made available but I’m still testing things at the moment, and wouldn’t want to inflict issues on anyone else until I figure out if things are really working.  However, if you’re relatively comfortable diving in and modding php and template files, you’ll  find most of the info you need on the OpenCart forums and in the file locations I listed above.  Just comment out the code you think you don’t want and refresh a few times until you find the right combination.   :)

This website has been down for some weeks due to a problem with WordPress on IIS that I couldn’t figure out.  FleepGrid itself has been up during this period, but it’s good to have the website back up too!  Apologies for any inconvenience and I hope to get back to adding new content to FleepGrid soon.  :)

For the last few days I’ve been having some issues getting certain web services working properly, so FleepGrid has been up and down and around the bend a few times.  Most of the major work under the hood is finished and I’ll be fleshing out the website over time.

For now, the super awesome Diva Distro Wifi tool to create accounts has been rebranded a bit for FleepGrid.  Hopefully didn’t introduce any bugs in any of the forms, so if you want to create an account, give it a whirl.

Note that for some reason the default Male Avatar seems to have problems rezzing for other viewers, though it appears the person wearing the avatar sees it just fine.  That’s on the agenda to be fixed soon.  In the meantime, the guys will look fine to themselves and look like clouds of smoke to everyone else – oops!