The new Hubs, version 0.656, are up on marketplace and in the Vendors as well. The update comes in both styles of Hub - the pseudo-Cray standard version and the low-prim version. I have taken the opportunity to adjust the size of the standard version, so most avatars should now reasonably be able to sit on the circular bench, without partially disappearing inside the Hub.
As mentioned in previous posts, the key new feature of this update is Web Access. If you choose to enable Web Access, then you can allow any of the registered users to connect to the Hub from a web browser, and take part in Mesmerizer Chat from the web. You can also grant individual users the ability to issue Mesmerizer commands from the web. These commands will be subject to normal access control at the receiving Mesmerizer - in other words, only someone listed as an Owner in the Mesmerizer's Access notecard can use channel 99 commands, whether locally or through a Hub, regardless of whether the command was issued from a Communicator or from the web.
Note that some Mesmerizer commands return information to the command issuer. If the command issuer is not in the same sim as the target, the Mesmerizer will use IM to send its response. So if you expect to make use of the Web Access feature to issue Mesmerizer commands, you should set your SL account to forward IMs to email, so that you will be able to receive these responses when not logged in.
Setting up Web Access first requires that you enable it for the Hub as a whole. This is done in the Hub's "Web" menu page. When you enable Web Access, you will see the Hub's hovertext expand to include an extra address line, showing its web URL.
Once Web Access is turned on for the Hub, individual user accounts can be flagged as web enabled for chat only, or for both chat and commands. Do this in the "User DB" menu page - choose "Mod User", pick the user record you want to modify, and Choose "+ Web-Access" or "+ Web-Comm" to grant chat or chat/command rights, or "- Web-Access" or "- Web-Comm" to remove rights from the account.
Once a user account has Web Access enabled, the user can touch the hub and choose "Get Web Key". This will give them both the current URL of the Hub, and a "Web Authentication Key", which is specific to their account on that Hub, and is akin to a password.
Once they connect to the URL from a browser, they will be prompted to enter their authentication key, and once entered, they should see a page where they can take part in Mesmerizer chat. New chat can be entered in the text bar at the bottom of the page.
If the user account was enabled for command access, the web-page will contain a list-box allowing it to be switched between "chat" and "command" modes. In command mode, the text bar at the bottom is used to enter a Mesmerizer command line. After the command line is transmitted, the page will revert to chat mode.
The other visible feature of this update is that the user database can now be loaded from a notecard, making the system somewhat more robust. The running Hub still uses an in-memory copy of the database, but there is a menu choice on the "User DB" page to "Reload" the database from the notecard. If the in-memory database has been changed, you will be warned and given the opportunity to save the current DB. This can also be done manually, via the "Backup" menu choice. This works by writing the current DB to local chat in the same format as is used in the Users notecard, so you can cut it from chat and paste it directly into the notecard.
The other significant new feature is latent support for the upcoming Enforcer product, about which I will post more soon.
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