More on Mesmerizer 1.2

Virtual Disgrace makes a very nice blindfold, along with a reasonably standard gag.  Both products are very low in resource utilization, in part because they are designed to off-load everything to do with authorization and owner-lists etc. to OpenCollar, using a remote authorization API that's implemented by OpenCollar 6, OpenCollar 7 and Peanut.  As of version 1.2, the Mesmerizer also implements this API, meaning that third-party products (like the Virtual Disgrace blindfold and gag) that rely on this API (and therefore previously required the presence of one of the above flavors of OpenCollar) can now work with just a Mesmerizer.

By default, this OpenCollar authorization emulation is disabled, but it can be turned on via the new ocauth command, and off again via the noocauth command.  This is a persistent command - once turned on it remains on across relogs.  When the Mesmerizer is the authorization provider for these third-party products, only Mesmerizer owners are granted access;  the Mesmerizer doesn't have the equivalent of OpenCollar's "open" mode that would give non-owners access.

Another feature that I'm still working on for version 1.2 is support of Peanut-style outfits.  In version 1.1, the Mesmerizer added support for OpenCollar outfits, with some extensions to avoid some of the issues with the OpenCollar outfit framework.  These extensions were backwards-compatible with OpenCollar - in other words, if you set your inventory up to play well with OpenCollar, then the Mesmerizer would offer similar functionality to OpenCollar;  however if you added structure to your inventory that took advantage of the Mesmerizer extensions, then OpenCollar might not understand them.  Peanut addressed the deficiencies in the OpenCollar outfits in a different way - by removing the problematic functionality in the original OpenCollar outfits and mandating a much simpler (albeit less flexible) folder structure.  Fortunately, Peanut and OpenCollar outfits use different top-level inventory folders for the root of their respective outfits - Peanut uses "Outfits", while OpenCollar uses ".outfits" (with a leading period in the name) - so the Mesmerizer can provide a unified view of outfits, whether they're defined using the Peanut or OpenCollar structures (or even both).

The 1.1 outfit commands (listoutfits and wearoutfit) have been extended to support outfits defined under either style.  If your inventory contains both types of outfit definition (in other words, you have both #RLV/outfits and #RLV/.outfits folders) there will be a conflict if you have duplicate outfit names in the two structures; if you do, then the Mesmerizer will use the Peanut-style outfit and the OpenCollar outfit definition will not be accessible.  This conflict is unlikely to occur in practice, since OpenCollar outfits tend to use a hierarchy (e.g. outfits called something like /formal/ball-gown), whereas Peanut outfits are all top-level ones (e.g. /ball-gown), and a conflict will only occur if the full paths match (e.g. in the above example a Peanut outfit called /formal would conflict with the top-level OpenCollar folder /formal). Since Peanut outfits don't support subfolders, having to specify a folder argument to the listoutfits command is rather superfluous, so Mesmerizer 1.2 will add a new outfits command which is a synonym for 'listoutfits "/"'. 

The upshot of this is that the Mesmerizer should be able to use either OpenCollar or Peanut outfits, in the same way that each of those collars do (with the additional flexibility offered by the Mesmerizer's extensions to OpenCollar outfits, should you choose to take advantage of those extensions).  Being much simpler, changing into a Peanut-style outfit is somewhat faster than a typical OpenCollar outfit, so if you don't need the flexibility of OpenCollar outfits, and you don't have a huge number of outfits that you want to make available to an owner, then you should probably use Peanut-style outfits.

Note that there appears to be nothing in the design of Peanut-style outfits that would prohibit using a  hierarchy for organizing folders - the non-support of subfolders seems simply to be an implementation decision of Peanut, perhaps in order to simplify menu-based navigation. A future release of the Mesmerizer might lift this restriction and permit hierarchical Peanut folders, in which case the only difference between Peanut and OpenCollar outfits would be that they have different root folders under #RLV, and that the core or basics are handled differently.

The whole topic of outfits and how to set them up under #RLV probably warrants a post of its own.