I. Single Price Gift Vendor
LogSpark International – Single Prim Gift Vendor - Owner’s Manual
(This README is for the LogSpark Gift Vendor Single-Price Version. There is a separate README for the Multi-Price Version, which requires an Inventory Notecard.)
Overview
The Gift Vendor operates just like one of our regular vendors, but it has the additional feature of being able to send items to someone else as a gift. When set up and running, it has two operational Modes:
Whilst browsing the Gift Vendor, the names and prices of the items are conveyed to the customer in Instant Message. This comes out in the Local Chat History, but is only heard by the customer that touches the forward and back buttons. This means that the customer is given clear information about the product that they’re looking at but without disturbing any one else and without having floating text which is so often visible through the wall and inside the next store.
If the customer pays the vendor, the vendor will deliver the item that they were looking at to them, just like a normal vendor.
When the customer spots something that they would like to purchase for someone else, they click on the Gift Button. The Gift Vendor switches into Gift Mode and prompts them to say the name of the person to whom they wish send the gift. The Gift Vendor then looks up the intended recipient to make sure that it will be able to deliver the item to them and the customer is prompted to pay for the item. Once payment has been made the Gift Vendor thanks the customer and sends the item to the chosen recipient, along with a message to say what it sent and the name of the store that it came from.
Set Up
Preparation
For the purposes of this section, let us assume that the owner of the Gift Vendor is called Harriet Wragg and she is going to sell a series of Hats for Hackers. Harriet has three products in her range that she is going to sell from the Gift Vendor.
Black Hat
White Hat
Grey Hat
She will also need three images (textures) to display on the Gift Vendor so that her customers can see what they are planning to buy. The images MUST be named to match the items to be sold, as follows:
Black HatPIC
White HatPIC
Grey HatPIC
Note how the images are named. You can spell the names with or without a space between the name of the item and the three characters PIC. So either of the following are acceptable:
White HatPIC
or
White Hat PIC
But, PIC must be spelled with upper case characters.
Harriets Tip:
Do the naming/renaming of your items and images in your Inventory because this is a lot quicker than doing it after they have been transferred to the Gift Vendor.
Once all of the items and images have been named correctly, Harriet right-clicks on her Gift Vendor, chooses Open, and drags the items and images all across from her Inventory.
Configuration
Harriet now opens the Notecard called _vendor_config_ that is already inside her Gift Vendor. In the single price vendor there is one required setting that must be completed. The other values are all optional.
The required setting is the price. If this is not completed the price will default to zero and the vendor will refuse to start. Harriet’s Hats are $L100 each, so the price setting in her _vendor_config_ Notecard looks like this.
PRICE: 100
Harriet now also sets some of the optional values for the Gift Vendor’s configuration.
STORE NAME: Harriet’s Hats
This setting is used in the messages that are sent to purchasers and gift recipients.
EMAIL: harriet@example.com
When Harriet’s Gift Vendor makes a sale, the details are sent to her at this email address.
TEXT COLOUR: RED
Once it is set up and running, the Gift Vendor only shows floating text when it is in Gift Mode to indicate that it is being used by a particular person. Harriet’s Gift Vendor is in a store with very pale off-white coloured walls so the default white text does would not show up very well, so she sets the TEXT COLOUR value to RED.
There is one setting that Harriet ignores in her _vendor_config_ Notecard which is NOTIFY SALES. The default setting for this is Yes, so Harriet doesn’t need to change it. Of course, if her store becomes very busy and she starts to make hundreds of sales a day, she will probably want to set this to No.
There are a number of blank lines in the _vendor_config_ Notecard and a number of other lines that begin with a # symbol. These lines are notes and explanations about the configuration and all of these lines are ignored by the configuration script, but Harriet deletes them anyway, because it makes her Gift Vendor load a lot faster without them.
A full list of the possible configuration settings with explanations and examples is included at the end of this page.
Running the Vendor
Starting the Vendor
The Gift Vendor is now ready to be started. Harriet clicks on the Vendor and it runs a number of checks to make sure that it has the right configuration. The Vendor displays a blue drop down menu to confirm the settings with Harriet. If she sees something in the confirmation that she doesn’t like she chooses “Cancel” in the menu and makes her adjustments to the _vendor_config_ Notecard. Once everything is to her liking she chooses “Continue” from the menu and the vendor moves on to check the contents.
It checks that it has an image to match each item in the Vendor and alerts Harriet if it cannot find a match.
When all the items and images are matched it requests Debit Permissions from Harriet. The reason for this is that there is a feature in the Gift Vendor that allows a shopper to cancel a purchase after they have paid the Vendor. This was introduced because sometimes people will pay money into the Vendor without understanding how it works (or without having read the instructions) thinking that the vendor will then ask them who to deliver the item to after they pay. In the previous versions the vendor would immediately deliver the item to the payer, but in this version it asks them if the goods should be delivered directly to themselves. If they answer Yes then the item is delivered immediately but if they say No, then the vendor will refund the money and they can use the gift button to send the item.
Once Debit Permissions have been given, the Gift Vendor goes into run mode and displays the first item in its inventory.
Owner Menu
Once the Gift Vendor is running, Harriet may click on the main body of the Gift Vendor and it will offer her a menu with the following items:
Status – Shows the drop down menu with all the Vendor’s settings.
Resize – Shows the sizing menu that allows Harriet to increase/descrease/reset the size of the vendor.
User Menu - Shows the Menu Buttons that the customers would see if they click on the body of the vendor.
Offline – Takes the Vendor back into standy by mode.
Help – Delivers the owner’s manual.
Cancel – Dismisses the Vendor Menu. Harriet uses this button in preference to the small Ignore button because it is more efficient to dismiss the menu this way.
User Menu
When the Gift Vendor is running and a shopper clicks on the main part of the vendor, they see the follwing menu options. Harriet can see these by clicking on the vendor and choosing User Menu from her options:
Send Gift - Puts the Vendor into Gift Mode where the shopper is guided through the process of telling the Gift Vendor who to send the gift to and when to pay.
Help - Gives the Notecard describing how to send a gift to the shopper. (Harriet can change this Notecard for one of her own, provided that she names it the same as the original.)
Cancel - Dismisses the menu.
Regular Mode
The Vendor operates as a regular vendor. The Left and Right Arrow buttons allow shoppers to browse the contents of the vendor and Paying the vendor delivers the currently displayed item to the purchaser.
Whilst browsing the Gift Vendor, the names and prices of the items are conveyed to the shopper in Instant Message. This comes out in the Local Chat History, but is only heard by the shopper than touches the forward and back buttons. This means that the shopper is given clear information about the product that they’re looking at but without disturbing any one else and without having floating text which is so often visible through the wall and inside the next store.
Gift Mode
Having chosen an item to be sent as a gift, the shopper clicks on the Gift Button. For a limited period of time, the Vendor operates only on their command. They are prompted for the name of the person that will receive the gift and, provided that the Gift Vendor can identify the recipient, the gift is delivered when the Gift Vendor is paid.
Payments
When payments are made to the Gift Vendor, it sends an Instant Message to Harriet to tell her what was purchased and by whom. (These are not quite the same as Instant Messages between SL Residents. When a Gift Vendor sends an Instant Message, it is displayed in the regular Chat on screen (or in chat history) but only the Gift Vendor’s owner can see it.
PLEASE NOTE
***************
The DEMO EDITIONS are the the same as the Regular Editions in all respects except that the script will pay a 5% commission (or L$2 whichever is greater) to Sandry Logan on every completed sale.
***************
F.A.Q.
Q. My Gift Vendor gives a message saying that it needs a Notecard. Why?
A. The Single-Price edition of the vendor requires a minimum configuration in the _vendor_config_ Notecard with the PRICE setting. Please add a Notecard named _vendor_config_ to the Vendor’s Inventory and make sure that it has at least the following information in it:
PRICE: 50
(Or whatever your price is). See the set up instructions for the other configuration options.
If you have Multi-Price Gift Vendor, the _vendor_config_ Notecard is optional but the _inventory_ Notecard is required. See the set up instructions for the format of the lines in the
_inventory_ Notecard.
Q. How do I add or remove items from my Vendor?
A. Just open it and add or delete the items that you require. As soon as the Vendor detects that something inside it has changed, it will reset itself and wait for you to finish work. When you are ready to start it up again, just click on the main body of the Vendor and it will start.
If you are using a Multi-Price Vendor, don’t forget to add your new items to the _inventory_ Notecard, (or to remove them from the _inventory_ Notecard, as the case may be). REMEMBER, the names of the items in the _inventory_ Notecard must match exactly with the names of the items in the Gift Vendor as described in the section on Setting Up.
Q. What are those Free Memory numbers in the Status Menu?
A. They are an indication of how much memory the vendor has remaining. The more free memory in the display script, the more items you can add to the vendor.
Q. How many items can I put into my Gift Vendor?
A. There is no exact answer to this question. It depends on how long the names of the items are. Imagine that the Vendor makes a list of the things inside it and stores them in a list. If the items in the Vendor have long names it uses more characters (letters) to store each item so it needs more memory space to store the list. Therefore if you have items with short names, you can put more in the vendor than if they have long names.
In testing we had over 100 items with 40 characters in each name in the vendor and it had over 50% of its memory capacity left. However it’s worth bearing in mind that it might be better to have a number of vendors with less items in so that more people can browse at once.
Q. What if I just want to switch it off?
A. Interesting question. We don’t’ get asked this very often because most people want their Gift Vendors to be running all the time so that they can sell things. ;c) However, if you do need to switch off a Gift Vendor, just click the main body and choose Offline from the menu that drops down. The Gift Vendor will then go Offline.
Q. My customers say that the Gift Vendor says that it cannot find <such_and_such avatar>. Why is this?
A. The LogSpark Gift Vendor uses a database external to SL. It can take quite some time for new names to be added to the database. Sadly, this is beyond our control.
Q. Can I change the Help Notecard that the user’s can get from the Gift Vendor? I’d like to have it in a different language.
A. Yes, you can replace it with your own Notecard, but make sure that it is named EXACTLY the same as the original, otherwise the Gift Vendor’s Scripts will not be able to find it.
Q. I see that my Gift Vendor uses Fast Pay so that it always asks for the right amount of money. Why then does it ask me for permissions to take money from me?
A. Two reasons:
1. We were made aware of some problems with people not understanding how the Gift Vendors work, people would pay money into the vendor without using the Gift Button to nominate a gift recipient, the goods would then be delivered directly to the payer. In the current version, when someone pays money into the Vendor, the Vendor confirms that the item is indeed intended for this user before it is delivered. If the user answers No to this question, their payment is returned.
2. There is a very small window where someone can pay money into the vendor whilst it is waiting for a payment from someone who is sending a gift. In this instance the payment would be returned and the vendor would wait for the payment from the correct shopper. If someone pays money in at the wrong time, the Gift Vendor tells them what is happening and suggests that they try again in a moment when the other person has finished.
Q. Since I installed my Gift Vendor, I get blue drop down messages (and entries in my transactions on the SL web site) saying that someone paid me some Linden Dollars and then I paid that amount to them? Is this something to do with the Gift Vendor?
A. This is related to the question about debit permissions.
Q. Can I modify the vendor?
A. Yes, the prims in our Vendors are modifiable so that you can set them up to be whatever size and shape you require. But, please bear in mind that if you are linking and unlinking parts that the root prim must be the one with the main Vendor Script inside it and if you want the Holo Gift Vendors to display floating text, you will need to make sure that you do not remove the prim called “Back Board”.
Q. There are quite a few scripts in your vendor. Doesn’t that make it really laggy?
A. No, the scripts are carefully written to operate quickly, minimise the amount of resources that they use and maximise the number the number of items that you can put in the vendor. Communication between the scripts is internal and when listeners are used to communicate with the users, the listeners are removed after a short period to minimise resource usage.
Thanks for your interest in LogSpark International’s Products and Services, please feel free to contact either of us with any enquiries.
Sandry Logan
Blu Sparkle
########################################
#
# SAMPLE CONFIG
#
# Use this as a guide to how to configure your vendor.
# Copy and paste the values as required.
#
# empty lines and lines beginning with # are ignored. but, the more of those you have, the slower your system will be to load. ideally you would remove all empty lines and those beginning with a #
# Please DO NOT CHANGE ANY OF THE WORDS IN CAPITALS, their spelling is VITAL to the
# configuration. But, if you do not need one of the config settings, you may delete the line
# or “comment out” (put the # at the beginning of) that line. You may also leave it empty.
# PRICE - every item in the vendor has the same price. For example: PRICE: 125
# You MUST set a value for PRICE otherwise your vendor will not work.
# (PRICE must NOT be set to zero.)
PRICE: 200
# ALL of the other config settings are optional
# STORE NAME - your store name. for example: STORE NAME: LogSpark International
# This value is used in messages to the purchasers and gift recipients
STORE NAME:
# NOTIFY SALES - tells the vendor if you want to receive a notification when it makes a sale.
# For example: NOTIFY SALES: No
# The default setting is Yes and the vendor will send you an IM for each sale that it makes.
# Please remember that IMs from scripts go to the Chat History not the IM window and are subject
# to capping after 25 messages.
# If you have a busy store and make HEAPS of sales you may not wish to receive notices at all,
# in that case set the value to No.
NOTIFY SALES:
# EMAIL - the email address to send sale notices to. For example: EMAIL: sandry@logspark.com
# If you leave this value empty or delete the line, sales messages will be sent to you by IM instead as
# described above unless NOTIFY SALES is set to No.
EMAIL:
# TEXT COLOR - the colour for the floating text when the vendor is in gift mode.
# You may also write this with the British spelling: TEXT COLOUR
# The vendor knows ten common colour names:
# red green blue yellow orange purple pink white black brown
# If you prefer, you can also express your text colour as RGB vector values.
# All of the following examples are valid
TEXT COLOUR: RED
TEXT COLOUR: <255, 0, 0>
TEXT COLOUR: <1.0, 0.0, 0.0>
TEXT COLOR: BLuE
TEXT COLOR: white
########################################