"Headless" Mode

[thekryptonian]

Another thing that would be intensely useful is to allow it to function in "headless" mode, i.e., to start it from the command line and not have to have a GUI interface. This would allow it to be used from Linux servers for the purposes of creating AI info bots using the splendid AIML plugin.

One can do it as is, but it requires some extra monkey business to get around the problem of dealing with the GUI on startup.

[Latif Khalifa]

This comes down to what Radegast is meant to be. And Radegast is meant to be Chat/IM client for Second Life for people that can't/don't want to use the full 3D client.

So my intention is primarily to cater to this audience, and not for the people that would like to automate things. Radegast does support extensive plugin interface, and I would not be against including plugin that would automate some functions, but this is not the primary focus so it does not have a big priority.

[elkie]

I respect that this isn't a high priority for you, but it would be really cool to have. Currently I use Radegast for keeping in touch with friends while I'm away from home. However, I also have the need to make a scripted agent which I would like to run on a remote server. So maybe I'm thinking if a few more people say something here and if it isn't too much work, perhaps the priority will increase a wee bit. You mentioned implementing this via a plug-in. I would be willing to help develop one for this. Is there any documentation about writing plug-ins? If not, I would be willing to contribute to that task as well.

[karenpalen]

A much better solution to the need for "Bots" or NPCs is the one announced by OS developer Justin Clark Casey today:

Hi folks. Some of you may know that I've been working on OSSL NPC functions over the past couple of weeks (osNpcCreate(), etc). The main body of work has now been completed. The existing functions, many of which had been broken since OpenSim 0.6.9 (I think) should now be working again. Existing scripts should work, though this is not guaranteed. Autopilot should also be working from libomv.

General information about OSSL NPC, the current functions and an example script are at opensimulator.org/wiki/OSSLNPC. New additions include functions to get avatar rotation and position, movement options and the ability to save appearance and baked texture data permanently so that it can be used by NPCs when the original avatar it was copied from is no longer logged in.

I also composed a brief wiki page on the different options available for using NPCs in OpenSim at opensimulator.org/wiki/NPC. Please feel free to add to this.

Though my desired philosophy is to try and avoid adding osNpc* functions that can be achieved via existing scripting and techniques (e.g. by putting the controlling script in a prim that is attached to the NPC for detecting the presence of other avatars), I've no doubt that other good osNpc* candidates will emerge. I'm very probably going to move on to other things now, but it's worth bringing these up, either on this mailing list or in the comments section of the OSSL NPC wiki page, in case other people are interested in submitting patches for them too.

Very many thanks to David Burden from Daden (http://www.daden.co.uk) for sponsoring this work and bumping it way up my priority stack.

Best Regards,

--
Justin Clark-Casey (justincc)
justincc.org/blog
twitter.com/justincc