Groups

Description

The Diva Groups addon supports the entire functionality of Second Life groups, including notices with attachments, all within the OpenSim framework and without requiring an external Apache server. Furthermore, it works across the Hypergrid, i.e. groups can have members with accounts in foreign worlds.

Limited Edition

D2 includes a free version of Diva groups, with the following limits:

• 2 groups per world maximum
• 4 roles per group maximum
• 50 members per group maximum

These limits are within the spirit of D2 as a personal/small virtual world server. An unlimited version of Groups for larger worlds, including grids, is available for a fee. (For free alternatives with different kinds of constraints and limitations, see http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Enabling_Groups)

Because this limited edition of Groups is meant for personal/small virtual worlds, by default, only users with special privileges can create the 2 groups. However, this can be changed -- see configuration below.

Configuration Variables

The configuration section for Diva Groups is [Groups], and it's included in the DivaPreferences.ini file. D2 has this addon enabled by default. Should you wish to change any configurable part, copy that section to MyWorld.ini and make your changes there. Here are the variables that can be changed, and an explanation of what they do:

[Groups]
  ;; Set it true for enabling Groups, false for disabling  
  Enabled = True  

  ;; Should the group messages be delivered to offline users or not? (True by default)  
  MessageOnlineUsersOnly = True  

  ;; Support for group notices? (True by default)  
  NoticesEnabled = True  

  ;; What users can create groups? The default is User Level 0 and above. (FYI Gods are Level 200)  
  ;; You can set the Level for any user in the Wifi web app.
  ;; (FYI I set it to 10, because I want to be the only one creating the 2 groups.)
  LevelGroupCreate = 0

D2 and Other Groups Addons

Diva Groups is incompatible and mutually exclusive with the other implementations of groups.

If you are using another Groups addon (e.g. Flotsam) with your D2 installation and wish to continue to use it, then you need to disable Diva Groups. Do this by copying all your Groups configuration variables (which are usually in OpenSim.ini) to MyWorld.ini. This will override Diva Groups and will allow you to continue to use the addon you were using.

There is currently no mechanism to copy the persistent data from other Groups implementations to Diva Groups. If you were using another addon and decide to stop using it, you will need to create and populate your groups again in Diva Groups.

Diva Groups uses its own database tables, so if you use this or other Groups addons by accident nothing will be inconsistent.

Groups and the Hypergrid

Diva Groups supports membership across the Hypergrid, although this functionality is still under development. For the time being, sending messages to a group with many foreign members may negatively impact the performance of your world, so it is recommended that you cap the number of foreign members to 10 or so until this is optimized. When a foreign user is added to a group, there is usually an additional confirmation step when that person returns home.

There are some limitations for what we can currently do with membership over the Hypergrid. Here is a list of what can be done:

• Groups can have foreign members
• Foreign members can receive notices and attachments in those notices when they are in their home worlds

Everything else is not guaranteed to work well in the current version. Improvements will come in future releases.

Database Tables

Diva Groups creates several additional database tables that start with the prefix "diva_groups_".