VDN WebCafé, the first complete SL-API tool in the world... Make your virtual worlds experience more complete !
Welcome in VDN WebCafé !
Fully "voice-operable" via the chat/IM channel or using the build-in graphic remote, VDN WebCafé allows you to :
- display web pages on screen
- scroll, zoom and navigate inside pages
- enter full or short URLs
- save bookmarks
- browse in prev & next viewed pages (history)
- open any link to browse entire site contents
- fill complex forms (as login ou contact forms)
- display vids as QT-compatible format viewer or mp4 as Youtube viewer
- show pictures, animations, slideshows, Smil files...
- listen to music/tunes (i.e. mp3)
- send mails from within SL
- send and receive SMS
- chat with online friends (inWorld or on mobiles)
- send pages to printer
- ...
Pre-coded commands
A lot of pre-built codes allows you to drive the VDN WebCafé browser with "easy-to-memorize" commands. Some of these actions can be activated from the graphic remote control tool under the screen.
| Code | Feature | Example of use | Explanations |
|---|---|---|---|
| site: | Open a site or a webpage | site:www.my-site.com | Open requested page |
| http: | Open a site or a webpage | http://www.my-site.com | Easiest for copy-paste use... |
| prev: | History | prev:3 | "Jump" over nav history : prev:3 goes 3 pages back |
| next: | History | next:2 | Id: next:2 jumps 2 pages forward. All values are stored so they're still remain active even a week later |
| home: | Back homepage | home: | Back to any site homepage in the consultation |
| prin: | Print page | prin: | Drive your printer |
| quit: | Close browser | quit: or stop: | Usefull to avoid uninvited visitors |
| link: | Click on links | link:read this page | To "click" a link, just "say" one or more words included in the complete link. For example, the link Open this article : "link:open", "link:this" or "link:article" will produce exactly the same results. But if link #1 is Open this article and link #2 Read this article, "link:article" will open the link #1 and "link:read" the link #2. Understand why ? First word founded in first position always win. Little prob with accents (to be soon resolved) : because encoding, saying "link:actualités" ("news" in french) doesn't yet work. Please type "link:actualit". |
| form: | Online forms | form:Wolden&Avro&abc123 | A complete tool to connect to Web services as login forms or contact forms. Your request is analyzed and compared to possible requests on the page, then the script fill the right form at the right place with the right value ;-) In this example I could identify myself using the id form on SecondLife website, giving my name and password. The tool is clever enough to understand and recognize the right form to fill on the same page (eg. it will ignore the search form). A code like form:any keyword makes the script ignore the login form and ask for "any keyword" on search form. Last but not least, icing on the cake, hidden fields required are sended by the way |
| requ: | Online forms | requ:your keyword | Less efficient but faster than the previous one (from:). For webpages contening only one box to fill (like Google, Google Maps or most of the search engines of the web) |
| save: | Bookmark a page | save:my-page | Save the current page in bookmarks as "my-page"... |
| page: | Bookmarked page | page:my-page | Call the bookmarked page (i.e http://www.my-fav-page.com/) |
| book: | Bookmarked pages | book: | Open your personal bookmark favorites pages. Usefull for old and since-forgetted bookmarks codes :-) |
| zoom: | Zoom content | zoom:150 | Increase content with a 150% magnification. The command zoom:200 double the size of webpages, vids or pictures |
| cont: | Control scroll | cont:b | Scroll content. The 4 contrls are cont:t (top), cont:b (bottom), cont:r (right) or cont:l (left) |
| size: | Cancel changes | size: | Resize page to its original size cancelling zooms and scrolls |
| font: | Font size control | font:150 | Enlarge texts on the screen |
| info: | About WebCafé | info: | Open this information page |
| chat: | Dial online | chat:My message to friends | Open dialog interface and communicate with your online correspondants, in SL, on the web or on their mobiles |
| vids: | Videos | vids:+vid web address | Displays QuickTime or 3GP (mobiles) videos |
| yout: | Videos | yout:www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZERTYUIOP | Displays Mp4 (Youtube) vids |
| imgs: | Slideshows | imgs:+slide web address | Allows "PowerPoint-like" presentations |
| tune: | Music | tune:+mp3 web address | Listen to Mp3 or webradios live. |
| mess: | SMS | mess:0607080910&my SMS message | Send message to mobile phone or website |
| rsms: | SMS | rsms: | Displays on screen received SMS, sended from the web or phones |
| mail: | mail:vdn@agat.net&My e-mail text | Send an e-mail to your correspondant | |
| help: | User guidebook | help: | Open the tutorial pages to help you to use the WebCafé |
WebCafé News
All about project developpment in real time on News WebCafé [FR + EN]
Discover WebCafé InWorld on SL
All these codes/commands are available inWorld on SL on tutorial panels to guide your first steps on WebCafé. Discover them on WebCafé/VDN/Innovatia Park/77/52/28
Note 4th Jan 09 : All functionnalities are not yet accessible. Opening them gradually to public will depend of the time we can spend on the WebCafé project and the economic frame builded around it. Please come back here in the coming weeks for further informations.
Important... Limitations of Liability
For the greatest part of them all the possible failures in the utilisation of the WebCafé are mostly due directly to errors in languages in websites codes conception : recent studies (Opera Software, 2008) point that less than 5% of the www sites are written in respect of W3C/WAI/Wcag international recommandations. All modern browsers (IE, FF, Safari, ...) are conceived and developed to correct these errors without your knowledge. The result is that, as users, it works and it's done. But it is not our job to assume and overcome these errors!
Even the 'greatest' are no exception: a form code written in accord with recommandations should normally contain the 'type="text' attribute to allow the server to understand the request is textual. But Google, as world n#1, 'omit' this 'type="text' attribute in its code... Because WebCafé is written to use the normalized web languages, we had to develop a special extra function to correct this Google mistake ;-)
What we had to do for Google (else you may thought that an 'unable-to-use-Google' WebCafe is a very poor webtool and the error is on our side...) cant be done and doesnt apply for the remaining 95% of the worldwide websites. So if a function doesn't work (and it surely will happen...) our liability wont be engaged until an audit confirms that the sourcecode of the concerned site is conform and compliant with international normalized languages, as recommanded by W3C.
A certain number of errors or failures will for example occur with Flash-technology contents (unreadable by SL viewers), or when different links have the same names (like 'open this page' or 'read the complete article'...), or when some events are controlled by Javascript actions (as menus self-opening on mouse over or pop-up windows). As said by WAI-Wcag (Web Accessibility Initiative - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) web contents usability should not depend of technological languages activation or no, and each link should have its own description. So browsing the web through WebCafé is quite like having a kind of disability : only W3C-WAI recommandations compliant websites can ensure accessibility, interoperability and usability of their contents.
For a website, to display and to remain usable in SL as on a mobile phone (as on any other web device...) should be the ABC of 'Web Quality' which, as a costumer, you are entitled. If not for your own website please contact us.
