Resources: What’s New in the Latest Version of hippoVEND?

This document describes what’s new in each major update to hippoVEND. It currently describes:

• What’s new in hippoVEND v2.0? and how do I upgrade?
  
  
• What was new in hippoVEND v1.6.2?
  
  
• What was new in hippoVEND v1.5.3?

What’s new in hippoVEND v2.0?

Welcome to the latest version of hippoVEND. This document summarises what's new in version 2 and, in many cases, has links to individual documents describing each new function in more detail, helping you get the most from it.

• Pagination ... most hippoVEND webpages now split what they’re showing into “pages” for speed and ease of browsing. If you have more items than can fit on one “page”, you will see the page navigator. It looks like this ...
  
  The current page number is shown in bold white text. Click a page number to jump to that page or “...” to jump backward or forward five pages at a time. Clicking “First” takes you to page one, “Last” to the final page whilst “Prev” or ”Next” move you backwards or forwards one page at time. (If you wish to change how many items are shown on each page, you can do this via the preferences webpage).
  
  
• Gift Vouchers ... regular vendors are ready to accept hippoGIFT vouchers, our new gift voucher system designed for use with hippoVEND. To find out more about how to use gift vouchers, click here. You’ll need to purchase the hippoGIFT module and tell your vendors (in their configuration) that they can accept payment this way.
  
  
• hippoINVENTORY Compatible ... servers are engineered to work with hippoINVENTORY, our popular inventory management tool. This powerful additional tool makes it much easier to organise, delete and load long inventory lists to the hippoVEND website.
  
  
• Improved Vendor Status Reporting ... the vendor list on the hippoVEND website now lets you know if a vendor has lost contact after 24 hours ... it’ll be flagged with a icon for you. Remember you can easily find any out of contact vendors by hitting the button and picking the “Only Show Vendors Out of Contact” option before you search.
  
  
• New Start Product Number Option ... by using the START PRODUCT: <product number> option in a vendor’s configuration notecard, you can specify which product it should show when it first comes online after downloading its contents. The default is START PRODUCT: 1.
  
  
• Hide Vendor Arrows Unless Needed Option ... insert the new AUTO HIDE ARROW BUTTONS: Yes command into a vendor’s configuration notecard and it will automatically hide its arrows unless they’re needed; for example, a 6 panel vendor would only show them when it contains more than 6 products. To turn the feature off again, use AUTO HIDE ARROW BUTTONS: No to return to showing arrows all the time.
  
  
• Adjust Vendor Arrow Behaviour ... choose whether the arrow buttons on a vendor move a whole “set” of products at a time or one product at a time. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Improved Demo Product Handling ... if you’re using the demo giving feature of hippoVEND, you can now connect several products to one demo item, using the new generic demo feature. See the guide on product demos to find out more.
  
  
• Holovending Improvements ... improvements to the holovendor function in vendors now allow you to rez multiple models per product or to rez a model at a specific position and rotation. Models will now also disappear after 60 seconds of vendor inactivity.
  
  
• Easily Configure Vendor Offline and Blank Panel Textures ... you can now pick the texture used by a vendor when it’s offline, or when a panel in a multi-panel vendor is empty, on the website. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Vendor Texture Previews Online ... tick the new “Show Previews of Vendor Textures in Product Definitions” option on the preferences web page and when examining a product definition the website will attempt to fetch a preview of the texture assigned to it. Please note this texture is loaded from the Second Life search servers and so may be a little slow loading, or even unavailable at times.
  
  
• Many More Vendor Voice (or Notecard) Commands ... almost every configuration option for a vendor can now be set, inworld, using either a voice command or configuration notecard setting — amongst other uses, this means you can easily hard code a default set of settings into a vendor, so you can more easily just rez-and-go. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Disable Chat in Slideshow Mode ... want your vendor to chat the product name and details when a potential customer uses a vendor, but not annoy your neighbours when the vendor is cycling through products in slideshow mode? No problem, just use the new “Do not chat anything in slideshow mode” option when configuring a vendor:
  
  
• Vendors Can Report a Location Other Than Their Own ... if you’re fond of clicking on a vendor’s location in your online vendor list in order to teleport to it, you may sometimes find, if the vendor is rezzed against a wall, that you teleport into the middle of the wall itself. You can now use MAP LOCATION OFFSET: <vector> in a vendor’s configuration notecard to adjust the location it reports to the website: for example, MAP LOCATION OFFSET: <0, 0, 20> would report a location 20m higher than the actual location the vendor is located at.
  
  
• Server Inventory Filtering ... easily find that illusive bit of inventory by using the new filtering tools on the Servers & Inventory web page. Simply click the button and you can filter the inventory list by type, name and the product it is connected to.
  
  
• Product Copying ... setting up lots of similar products on the website is now much easier; just hit the copy product button in your product list () to instantly copy a product’s definition.
  
  
• Turn Off Catalogue Vendor Hovertext Permanently ... use the new HIDE ALL HOVERTEXT: Yes setting in a catalogue vendor’s configuration notecard to ensure that the catalogue vendor runs with no floating hovertext (the ability to turn it on via the options menu is also hidden when using this configuration setting).
  
  
• Customize Catalogue Vendor Help Notecards ... you can now more easily customize the notecard given to your resellers if they click a catalogue vendor and choose the “Help” button. Catalogue vendors now give out the first notecard alphabetically they find in their inventory (obviously they won’t give their configuration notecard!) — so you can easily delete the default notecard we ship them to you with and replace it with a notecard specific to you and your business.
  
  
• Advanced Sorting ... vendors can now have a second level of sort specified in their configuration: so it’s possible, for example, to sort first by price, then by product name.
  
  
• Catalogue Vendor Voice Commands ... it’s now much easier for your resellers to configure multiple catalogue vendors at once (options like hovertext, slideshow mode etc.) using the new voice command functions. Single prim (single item) catalogue vendors can also be resized this way — enabling you to ship no-modify vendors to your resellers, yet still enable them to size them to suit their store. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Sort Vendors by Offline/Online ... yet another way to manage your vendor list — you can now sort your vendors by whether they’re online or offline, simply by using the new arrow buttons at the top of that column.
  
  
• Bodyparts and Landmarks ... servers can now upload landmarks and bodyparts!
  
  
• Landmarks Given by Offline Vendors ... if a customer touches an offline vendor, it will give out the first landmark it finds in its inventory. A useful way of helping your customers find your store again, even if your vendors are temporarily offline, perhaps because you’re busy updating your products. Simply add a landmark to a vendor’s inventory to start taking advantage of this feature.
  
  
• Catalogue Vendor Status Improvements ... the status report given when the owner of a catalogue vendor clicks it and chooses “Status” now includes the name of the profile the vendor is connected to. Helpful if you’ve a folder full of catalogue vendors and have forgotten which of your profiles you’ve connected each to!
  
  
• Sales Log Can Filter and Group by Product Range ... when a product is sold, any range it is part of is recorded. You can now filter your sales log by range (hit the button then pick the range to filter by) and you can also see your sales log with sales grouped by range (click “Group by range” in the right margin). If you rename a range, any sales made earlier will reflect the new name; if you delete a range, the name of the range before you deleted it will be hard saved to any sales entries effected.
  
  
• Customizable CSV Output ... people using the CSV export facility to export sales logs from hippoVEND for use in e.g. Excel will now find this slightly easier, as we’ve made it possible for you to choose the date format in your exports. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Filter Vendor List by Payment Sharing Group ... forgotten which vendors in your collection you’ve set to share sales income with a particular group of friends or colleagues? No problem, just hit the button on the vendors web page and use the new “Payments Are Shared With” filter to find vendors sharing their sales income with a particular group.
  
  
• API Improvements for Scripters ... servers now send a linked message when a product information notecard is requested by a potential customer, allowing you to write scripts that track this data or do clever and useful things with it. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Support for More Advanced Vendor Types ... we’re continually working to extend the flexibility of hippoVEND to help people making complex and clever custom vendor types. Version 2 vendors add the ability to show the previews for the next and previous products on the “arrow” face, making new vendor types possible. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Server Self-Test ... servers can now run a self-test function. Just select “Self Test” from a server’s “Tools” menu to have it report the status (and free memory) of each of its scripts.

What was new in hippoVEND v1.6.2?

Here’s a summary of the new features that were introduced in version 1.6.2 of hippoVEND. In most cases, there are links to individual documents describing each new function, sometimes in some considerable detail.

• Holovending ... all vendor types (regular and catalogue) can now function in holovendor mode; rezzing temporary models of the item for sale. Models can either be held in the vendor, or in any server in the same sim as the vendor. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Demos ... all vendor types (regular and catalogue) can offer a demo of a product to a customer if you wish. This can either be played inworld (e.g. for animations or sounds) or, for other object types, you can choose to give a demo version of the product along with any information notecard. As with holovendor models, demo items can either exist in the vendor, or in any server in the same sim. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Limited Edition (No-Copy) Product Selling ... servers can now sell limited edition products -- e.g. items that you have transfer but not copy permissions for. This means you could, for example, buy supplies of the "Electric Squirrel Toaster" from Hieronymous Bosch in bulk and sell them to people. The server will update the website with its supply level and will warn you when supplies fall below a certain level of your choosing. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Redelivery Terminals
  Sometimes a customer doesn’t get their product for some reason --- occasionally, SL is behaving so badly, even the backup systems in hippoVEND struggle. Or, more commonly, perhaps the inventory gets lost, the customer accidentally has busy mode on, or declines the inventory etc. With the new Redelivery Terminal (sold separately for a small charge — available from the main Hippo Store) you can now allow customers to trigger redeliveries of previous products they have bought from you. Easy to use, with complete control over which products do or do not qualify for redelivery, it’s a great addition to your customer services. [Read the instructions]
  
  
• MetaCard Compatibility
  Regular vendors (not catalogues) can now be configured to accept MetaCard payments. This requires an additional plugn to be added to your vendors, provided by First Meta. (Please note we don’t offer support for this plugin, so for any questions or queries, please speak to First Meta).
  
  
• Vendors can be linked to your website ... do you have a website for your Second Life business? If so, you can now easily set a vendor to offer to open that page in a customer’s web browser when they click one of your vendors. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Vendors can confirm each purchase ... have problems with careless customers accidentally buying the wrong product then complaining about it? You can now turn on purchase confirmation mode for any vendor and it will explain to a customer via a Second Life menu what they’re about to get, offering them a chance to decline it before the sale completes. This should mean that even the most accident-prone newbie is now safely catered for! [Find out more!]
  
  
• Multi-Panel Vendors can fill their panels more intelligently ... do the number of products in your collections not divide exactly into the number of panels on your vendors? Want to avoid blank panels showing at the end? No problem, use this new feature and products will "wrap" at the end of a collection, ensuring that there are never any blank panels on display. [Find out more!]
  
  
• The server can send an IM and/or an email to its owner whenever it tries to deliver a product ... useful if you’re ever having problems with a particular server and want to keep an eye on it. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Vendors can now apply textures to the specific prim faces you choose ... many people who have modded/created their own vendors have long requested this. Now you can be completely flexible! [Find out more!]
  
  
• API Improvements for Scripters ... the regular vendors now have a small addition to their API to output details of each sale and servers also give data out on each delivery. Many vendor-modders have requested this. It’s now much easier to write scripts to extend the functionality of your vendors. [Find out more!]
  
  
• Automated Notification System (ANS) ... servers can now send data about each sale to an email address and/or a website address, allowing you to construct applications that work with or respond to sales events. [Find out more!]

There are also some changes on the website which you may have missed ...

• You can now set a vendor to discount every product sold through it by a certain percentage.
  
  
• The sales log can be filtered by sim.
  
  
• You can save your preferences for how you want the sales log to be sorted and grouped when you first open it.
  
  
• You can easily purge all or selections of sales from your log if you wish.
  
  
• You can edit multiple products at once, with only those fields that you change being copied across the selection. [Watch the video guide!]
  
  
• You can temporarily collapse the vendor groups list if its long and gets in your way. Just use the [+] or [-] link at the top right of the groups list to expand or collapse it as you need it.

Please note that the upgrade discs remove all scripts in the server or vendor they're upgrading as part of the upgrade process. If you've added your own additional scripts for any reason, be sure you have a copy somewhere safe.

Those are the major new features (we’ve also done the usual round of script optimisation, typo-corrections, minor bug nailing etc. etc.) For full details on each of these features and how to use them, follow the various links above.