Using Emerald Viewer to get to Arda Grid and Beyond

The Arda people put step-by-step instructions on their site. See: How do I Login to Arda Grid

If you need detailed step-by-step instructions use the link above. Below I’ve provided the quick summary. Also, this type of setup works with the SL viewer. Be warned that both the SL and Emerald viewers have some grid hopping gotcha’s, which I’ll get to.

Quick Instructions (Windows)

These instructions work for any of the SL-like grids. You just need the correct URL and port information for the destination grid.

You need to make a new icon for Emerald and use it for going to the target grid. I single right-click on the Emerald desktop icon and select copy. Next, I right-click on an empty spot on the desktop and select “paste”. That puts a new icon on the desktop. I right-click that and select “Properties”.

Once in properties click the “General” tab. You can change the icon name there. Of course, name it something related to the destination grid and meaningful to you.

Next click the “Shortcut” tab. Here the work happens that changes the destination. In the “Target” window we need to make changes.

The default value is something like this:

“C:\Program Files\GreenLife Emerald Viewer\Emerald.exe” –channel “Emerald Viewer” –settings settings_emerald.xml -set SystemLanguage en-us

For the Arda Grid that needs to be changed to:

“C:\Program Files\GreenLife Emerald Viewer\GreenLife.exe” -loginuri http://66.240.205.6:8002 -loginpage http://66.240.205.6/welcome

Click OK and that is all there is to it. Of course you need an account on the destination grid. For the Arda grid you can handle that here: Arda Sign Up

The Gotcha’s

For builders a significant consideration is the 10m size prim limit. The limit is imposed at the sim server. To avoid confusion and frustration the SL and Emerald viewers limit the prim size in the building dialog. Thus you can’t set a size greater than 10m.

On many grids, most, one can build using much larger prims. Arda says one can use any size. OSGrid limits one to 256m prims, however that limit is sim by sim.

To get Emerald to allow use of those larger prims one needs to change a setting. In the Debug Settings is a control named EmeraldMegaprims. When set to false you are limited to 10m prims. Setting its value to true removes that limit. It won’t let you make a prim larger than 10m in SL, but it will in OsGrid and Arda.

Use Ctrl-Alt-D to get to the Advanced menu item. Within it find Debug Settings… When the Debug Settings dialog opens paste or type in EmeraldMegaprims and set the value to TRUE and close the settings.

Also several other viewers have better grid handlers. I think HIPPO has the best. It allows you to easily add grids, accounts and passwords and keeps track of them for you. You can select a grid and easy logon with a remembered user name (they can be different) and respective password. I understand that the code will be added to Imprudence, which has less handy grid handler. There is a faction that is clamoring for Emerald to add the feature.

If nothing else, HIPPO is a good source of connection information for a number of grids.

Happy grid hopping!

3 thoughts on “Using Emerald Viewer to get to Arda Grid and Beyond

  1. While I enjoy many of the features of Emerald, for visiting other grids my viewer of choice is Imprudence.

    The Imprudence grid manager is the most convenient tool for storing and handling the various info needed for other grids I have seen so far. Especially its capability to derive the various adresses just from the login-URI is great.

    This is definitely a feature Emerald could use.

    • I’ve been using Imprudence more lately. A friend or two uses it too. I still think HIPPO’s grid controls are the best. Emerald needs something like either HIPPO or Imprudence.

  2. The Arda Grid configuration program worked very smoothly for me — download it from the top of the Arda Grid ‘How do I login…’ page. I already had the Hippo Viewer on my Win7 PC; running the configurator found it and added the details to the Grid Manager.

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