As of this next release, we’ll be making some changes to how you can see estates, friends, and other residents in world. Read on to see exactly how these changes will affect you.

Changes to Existing Services

First off, as of Wednesday, all estates will be visible on the map to all users. This does not change access in any way. If you have your region set to an access list, it will work as it did before.

The reason for this change relates to scalability. Right now, any time you open the map, we must figure out exactly what you can and cannot see. As we grow (and grow and grow), this obviously becomes a much bigger task, much more than we can possibly deal with while still keeping service timely. In the future, we may look at some other privacy tasks (for example, allowing estate owners to say whether or not a map image of their estate is generated), but these tasks are still in the planning stages.

Also, due to the way the Friends Visibility update works, we will unfortuantely lose all “Grant Modify Rights” permissions you may have for other users. These will need to be reset on login.

Directory Visibility

Now then, onto the new features. We’ve added a new setting to the Preferences->Communication panel. This will allow you to say whether anyone that looks you up in search will be able to see your online status. If this is turned off, other residents will still be able to see your profile if they search for it, but you will never be shown as online to them.

Friends Visibility

Finally, the friends list is seeing some fairly major changes, both visually and functionally. Each friend now has a set of permission you can give them, which includes:

• Friend can see you online
• Friend can see you on the map
• Friend can modify my objects

The default permissions for making a new friend are that you will be able to see each other online, but map visibility rights are no longer given on friendship creation. You will need to explicitly grant map visibility permissions to the new friend.

The look of the friends list has changed so that you can quickly and easily see the status you’ve set for all your friends. In addition, you can now also see who has granted you modify rights.

From left to right, the icons signify permissions for online status, map visibility, modify rights, and whether you have been given modify rights by that friend.

By multi-selecting from the friends list (shift-click or control-click), you can change the rights of up to 10 buddies at a time. You can also start a conference IM with multiple friends* by using the multiselect and hitting the IM button.

That’s it for now!

* Quick Fact: Did you know that this feature already exists? If you create a folder of calling cards in your inventory and then right-click on it, you can start a conference IM with all the people who’s cards are in the folder!

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