The List™

10/14/97 | 10/28/89

Subject: The List
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 17:43:11 -0700
From: Roland Vilett <roland@LanMinds.Com>
To: Eep˛ <eepeep@mci2000.com>

Urgent:

• Fix lockups

Important:

• Send phone number with registration
• Public Speaker changes to tourist, msgs still go out as broadcasts
• Test new upgrade code (minimum version check)
• create sign; activate sign "click", sign "click" <- click on that, boom!
• Handle case where they startup AW, then leave it at the tourist/login screen long enough for the universe server to timeout and close the socket
• "Apply" button does not enable when you adjust the sliders in the perf. dialog
• Add "join" to the telegram right-click pop-up menu
• Change Telegram tab to something else to indicate that you have telegrams
• Weird case problem in sone ("WALK004" vs "walk004")
• When you hit the back button, the web dialog does not update to contain the new URL?
• Handle case where your home world exists, but you are not allowed to enter it...it just sat there, and then I immigrated, and it crashed
• Add a "don't show them if I'm online" option

Help files:

• Fix the help file '#' problem
• None of the "Settings" dialogs made it to the HTML help files ("Settings Options" page under the old help system)
• Resume help file overhaul, beginning with the "Communicating" sectin

Other problems to investigate:

• Why is there no clap sequence on the gate
• Set up anon FTP for browser and other stuff
• hold arrow key, press ALT, then let go of both - you keep moving?
• Toolbar buttons? Revisit toolbar code
• Need to get an uninstall working from WISE
• Don't stack startup worlds if they don't exist!!!
• Why doesn't cgi-bin teleport script on www.activeworlds.com work?
• Fix that @#$% texture mask bug!
• Why can't you see yourself in 3rd person while standalone?
• Still no way to upgrade WinInet.DLL
• "create" never triggered when building standalone
• EepEep says that world options custom backdrop colors are not saved

New features/improvements to consider:

• Add a "laptop" mode for the world server; can run without connecting to the universe, but will then only accept connections from the same IP address.
• Add a zombie or sleep state to avatars
• Add MIDI/WAV volume controls; fix MIDI panning
• Fix the avatar server to handle changes back in the system clock?
• Add version number to world databases, so we can detect future changes in the format
• Move admin utilities into the browser
• Add owner info field to world license database
• Add option to disable infinite ground
• Allow user to set font for chat history
• Make the tab dialog completely hideable
• Move saved avatars/gestures to tabbed dialog
• Add more privacy options for telegrams and contact list
• Make it not download sounds if sounds are turned off
• Implement a better way of changing version numbers (so don't have to kill universed)
• Add a "texture" command
• Handle the case where we relogin on the fly and suddenly our version's out of date?
• Need a telegram sound! And sounds for everything else, too...
• Need to support hierarchical objects with signs and pictures; use RwForAllClumpsInHierarchy
• Detect URLs and/or teleports coords in chat and make them into links? Would be tres cool!
• Create new super-idle mode when iconized
• Add support for masks with pictures
• Add current-user-count attribute so IO can report upon entering?
• Get "Circle of Fire" in bigger font and/or bold, in About box
• Add an optional in-memory texture cache for people with more RAM
• Explicit support for multiple login accounts on a single installation
• need a must-login-everytime concept, for universities and public terminals
• Don't show object properties if you can't build
• Need a way to pinpoint your exact location for teleports an' stuff - how about a new "show EXACT position" option
• Check: Grover says entire cell is rebuilt when an object is built?
• Don't do teleport noise until after we've looked up the world
• Use Win95 registry instead of aworld.ini
• Prevent user from walking beyond the buildable range of a world
• Add proxy information query to installation script
• Add new random drop zone radius World attribute (default 0)
• Add "gravity on/off" command
• add new "producer" camera modes
• Add avatar-to-avatar collision
• Add "loop" argument to sound command, so you can loop n number times

Other stuff:

• FAQ item: crashes in wininet.dll can be fixed by deleting IE history and cache
• people can "lose" dialog boxes such as the object properties if they change screen resolutions and it is now completely off the screen
• Need a FAQ item: "I've got a great idea for a new feature for Active Worlds, what should I do?" post it to the newsgroup
• Why can't I get AW to send a URL to an external browser?
• Make sure the missing-mask bug isn't caused by exiting after the texture has downloaded but before the mask has been downloaded
• Why does avatar menu double unnecessarily in circle?
• Is it possible to detect if Netscape is not running and report an error when they try to trigger a URL?
• Try using PeekMessage instead of SetTimer () ?
• hide entire status bar if they turn everything off
• Make gesture bar turn-offable
• previous message is re-transmitted when you become a public speaker
• Convert unzip code to max-work-per-update-algorithm
• Add pick/walk/fly three-state button to toolbar
• Thread the model loading process?
• Add a recently-changed-files World attribute?
• shift + vertical object move not working properly??? could not reproduce!
• "name" argument for sign command
• reload button?

Subject: Re: The List™
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:12:11 -0800
From: Roland Vilett <roland@lmi.net>
To: Eep˛ <

Okay here's "the list". Lately this list has started to devolve somewhat into a general collecting place for every little random problem and idea that has come up when I haven't had time to look into it. The list seems to just get longer and longer...and most of the big stuff for the future isn't even on it, like custom avatars, 3D hardware support, etc...

• infinite IMPOSTER loops can be caused when the re-login to the universe fails (e.g. if the universe thinks they are already logged in) - so the browser should not try to re-enter the world if the login fails.
• Add a security log feature to the universe server
• Russell says the brwoser locks up if the avatars.dat file has two avatars with the same Name= line
• Make world and universe servers into NT services
• Need an integrated backup mechanism for the servers
• Support multiple universes somehow
• Add a "show all times in VRT or localtime" browser setting
• Add a world-server-shutdown request to the API (just like Unix, with a time-to-shutdown and a shutdown message)
• Add a no-address-verify option to world server for people who are running world servers from being proxy servers
• Allow multiple-object copy for people with eminent domain rights
• Don't allow acquisition of privileges of accounts that have expired
• Long names in for "[start] world=" gives a reason 423 (world name too long) error on startup
• Add proximity trigger to action commands
• If more than one tourist is using the same name, eject will eject one of them at random!!!
• Make support email address ("support@activeworlds.com"), billing email addres ("billing@activeworlds.com") and registration fee ("19.95") separate messages
• Does it make sense for building within the restricted radius to be tied to the "special objects" right?
• Proxy server support! Project for Hamfon?
• Uniserver license max. worlds + max. users cannot exceed 256 under Windows!
• Why does the DNS lookup fail on the Linux server on some Linux systems?
• Serious bug: when a world database has been rebuilt, I think the browser might be deleting the cell database **after** it has loaded the first couple of cells in the new world, so you wind up missing several cell's worth of data!
• Implement peer-to-peer file transer
• how about a way to insert your current citizen # into a URL by using a special tag of some sort?
• Do the special avatars get loaded from the local path? Ron was having trouble getting them to....
• gramdump/load doesn't support special characters
• bring back propadd
• avatars with scale directive on them appear smaller in their very first instantiation after download than they do on all subsequent instantiations - what the heck is going on?
• create an AW-only phony telegram URL? Something like "telegram:|"?
• logo doesn't spin while a prop query is in progress
• Have the eject message include the name of the person who ejected you?
• Contents of contact list should change to "not connected" when the universe connection is down?
• Add a warning when they try to set the cell data limit to huge?
• Add help button to dialog boxes
• Move HTTP error codes out of http.h and into rc.h
• Get rid of cancel button on upgrade dialog
• Why are the "new" avatars floating sometimes?
• Ron says that when you change one object into another that is not downloaded yet, it doesn't properly update
• Netropolis says that if you delete an object, any visible off objects around remain visible
• Ship browser with show menu options on by default?
• Test IP_REDIRECT under 2.0
• Make sure super-long URLs don't cause any filename problems anywhere else
• If you move a piece of tourist property, it says "You are not allowed to give your property away" - fix this by overriding the citizen number to zero when moving tourist property
• Find way to prevent chat log from scrolling to bottom on chat messages when user has scrolled back
• Contact list should have a "show online only" option
• Case needs to be made consistant throughout menus
• Refresh all relevant windows after changing the message set
• Add a "credits" screen
• Try to keep the lists from resetting their positions on refresh
• Increase walk speed slightly? Maybe by 30%
• Implement new telegram mechanism
• Figure out how to get fog to work with RenderWare
• Weird problem with facers and "visible on/off"
• Make the entire status bar hideable from the Show menu
• Increase maximum length of telegrams...to 1024 maybe.
• Add a simple password protection mechanism to the world rating setting
• Visibility range adjustment is maybe too extreme in some cases; example, go to beta world and look straight up, frame rate goes so high the visibility can increase to 40 meters to 120 in one shot...this needs to be controlled (possibly cap the range increase amount)
• Activate URLs should bring up the integrated web browser automatically
• high visibility performance problem only occurs when there is a ground object!?!
• Steve Co's optimization suggestion - avoid unnecessary calls to AWD_moveto and AWD_update, they are expensive
• in driver.c 16-bit mode is not forced with MMX support if DirectDraw is also on - MMX should override DirectDraw
• A universe-wide announcement mechanism would be cool - maybe could even just be a way for root to send a telegram to everyone in the system.
• Support class C ejections?
• Raise 64 vertex limit?
• Add intellimouse support to any scrollable window, have middle mouse click toggle mouse mode, have wheel raise/lower view level
• Make sure collision detection with scaled VRML objects works (possible problem using GetClumpLTM to determine size of collision bounding box)
• Optimize cell_update_end() to not write sector timstamps out every time
• Buffer outgoing chat messages if server is down?
• Make register.c set min_exp_month and min_exp_year automatically?
• web browser doesn't seem to ever update it's status entry at the bottom like it used to
• New world options: "allow tourists", "enable gravity", "enable ground tiling"
• Investigate object arrow key algorithm, it doesn't always do the right thing
• upgrade-on-the-fly should return you to where you were before the upgrade?
• Maybe add an "area percentage full" indicator to the object properties dialog?
• Add "Delete all" option to telegram menu pop-up menu
• Web browser stop button disables too early
• Treat empty "object refresh" field as don't ever refresh.
• SHIFT and +/- don't work if NumLock is on
• Print some kind of message in telegram and contacts dialog box if tourist
• Re-visit universe IP_REDIRECT message handling
• Change telegram mechanism slightly so that browser must confirm receipt of telegram before server considers it delivered
• Show entire download queue in a new "download" tab
• Make the default window size at startup be larger than 640x480 if the display can support it
• Motion in progress when an object is selected is continued later when unselected
• Support a larger visible range? 200 meters? But with a cap on the total number of objects? Cap should be somewhere around 2500 objects...
• Sending telegrams takes too long, because of the need to do a name lookup first
• Send the current world's name for the source document field of HTTP requests?
• Output chat log in RTF?
• Resetting picture update frequency to lower value doesn't take effect until previous higher value expires
• Replace upgrade-on-the-fly dialog box with a toolbar button that activates when an upgrade is available
• Support looping MIDIs?
• Make the send telegram dialog modal?
• Add flying implicit state?
• Add a "synchronize web browsers" feature?
• Implement web browser bookmarks
• Implement selection laser-beams
• Telegrams should save id# and do reply based on id# in case people have changed their names
• See if you can handle the select-object-coplanar-with-ground problem
• Convert VRML tags to RenderWare tags!!!
• Changing screen dimensions on the fly hangs Active Worlds when using Direct3D
• Need to reject some stupid passwords, in particular ones that are substrings of the login name
• Handle case where they startup AW, then leave it at the tourist/login screen long enough for the universe server to timeout and close the socket
• "Apply" button does not enable when you adjust the sliders in the perf. dialog
• Add "join" to the telegram right-click pop-up menu
• Change Telegram tab to something else to indicate that you have telegrams
• Weird case problem in sone ("WALK004" vs "walk004")
• When you hit the back button, the web dialog does not update to contain the new URL?
• Add a "don't show them if I'm online" option?
• Weird case where their account is expired, and there is a non-forced upgrade
• hold arrow key, press ALT, then let go of both - you keep moving?
• Toolbar buttons? Revisit toolbar code
• Faircom is filling up "c:\windows\temp" with temp files?
• Why can't you see yourself in 3rd person while standalone?
• Still no way to upgrade WinInet.DLL
• Eep says that world options custom backdrop colors are not saved
• Add a "laptop" mode for the world server; can run without connecting to the universe, but will then only accept connections from the same IP address. or else create a special universed that lets 1 world and 1 browser run standalone
• Add a zombie or sleep state to avatars
• Add option to disable infinite ground
• Allow user to set font for chat history
• Move avatars/gestures to tabbed dialog
• Add more privacy options for telegrams and contact list
• Make it not download sounds if sounds are turned off
• Add a "texture" command
• Need a telegram sound! And sounds for everything else, too...
• Support hierarchical objects with signs and pictures; use RwForAllClumpsInHierarchy?
• Detect URLs and/or teleports coords in chat and make them into links? Would be tres cool!
• Create new super-idle mode when iconized
• Add support for masks with pictures
• Add an optional in-memory texture cache for people with more RAM?
• Explicit support for multiple login accounts on a single installation
• Need a way to pinpoint your exact location for teleports an' stuff - how about a new "show EXACT position" option
• Don't do teleport noise until after we've looked up the world
• Use Windows registry instead of aworld.ini?
• Prevent user from walking beyond the buildable range of a world
• Add proxy information query to installation script
• Add new random drop zone radius World attribute (default 0)
• add new "producer" camera modes
• Add avatar-to-avatar collision
• Add "loop" argument to sound command, so you can loop n number times
• people can "lose" dialog boxes such as the object properties if they change screen resolutions and it is now completely off the screen
• Make sure the missing-mask bug isn't caused by exiting after the texture has downloaded but before the mask has been downloaded
• Is it possible to detect if Netscape is not running and report an error when they try to trigger a URL?
• make status bar hideable?
• shift + vertical object move not working properly??? could not reproduce!
• reload button?