Talk:Inventory Archives

Status of IAR -> Library integration

Hi,

Perhaps a note could be added related to the integration of IARs with the Library. Diva's article is from 2009 and it doesn't allow comments. The Library module certainly works on recent builds of OpenSIm (0.7.6 Dev, as of my testing), and it correctly identifies the files on the bin/Library directory and seems to import them. However, since I'm on a grid (and not standalone), I don't see anything "happening" on the user's inventories; the only library folder on avatar's directories is the standard one, and this is the only one that works.

Converting from IAR to the libraries' own format is not trivial, and the example given here does not work for everything (just textures, notecards, scripts...). What clearly needs to be done is to advance some format standardisation. We have several XML formats (at least OpenSimulator recognises two different ones; libopenmetaverse just one; TPVs recognise them as well), IAR, OAR, and the Library format. It would make sense to at least try to combine IAR/XML/Library into a single unified format, using the OAR format for inspiration (since IAR is also clearly inspired on that). And, in the mean time, arrange a way to convert between formats.

It makes little sense to stick with the "old" 2007 Library format when IAR is so much better adapted and far easier to use — specially since it's now almost four years since Diva Canto included a way to load that format directly into the Library, even though it seems only to work for standalones. Library, however, works well for grids. Clearly there must be a way to span the differences between the two ways of importing data and unify them.

Cheers,

Gwyneth Llewelyn 19:12, 13 August 2013 (UTC)