SLiteChat - A Lite IM/Chat Client for Second Life

SLiteChat Icon SLiteChat Logo

SLiteChat (pronounced "slight-chat") is a completely open source text-only IM/chat client for use with Second Life. Use it to talk to your friends without having to load up all of those heavy graphic goodies. Useful for those at-work times!

Download now!

SLiteChat (pronounced "slight-chat") is a text-only view for Second Life which is focused on in-world IM support.

What it is:

SLiteChat is a lightweight client which allows you to connect to the Second Life system and perform local chat and instant messaging with avatars in-world.

What it is not:

SLiteChat is not intended to be a fully-functional in-world viewer for Second Life. If you are looking for that, check out instead the Second Life Third Party Viewer Directory or the Second Life wiki.

Motivation

Why another text-only client? Well, for one, this is something I've been wanting to do since I first got into Second Life. One of the issues was not having to invoke the fat client (viewer) with all the wiz-bang OpenGL stuff just to make a simple IM to my friends in-world. Secondly, I love open source software, and this is my way of giving back. Thirdly, I want to understand the SL codebase and this was a great way to accomplish that!

Architecture

I based the UI architecture around a new C++ library I created called LLChatLib. This library provides a façade class which wraps and hides LL libraries used to create the main open source viewer. The libraries I extracted are:

llcommon
llinventory
llmath
llmessage
llvfs
llxml

with a few class files taken from the main viewer code (newview). The idea is you have only one easy to use interface which allows you to connect to the in-world chat/IM facility. The UI itself is a light wrapper around LLChatLib. It contains a listview window of friends, a local chat window and tabs for any IM conversations you create. SLiteChat runs under Microsoft Windows XP+, GNU/Linux and Macintosh OS/X.

Release Schedule

Currently in beta, I am working to roll out a feature and a bug fix at a time. No real set schedule, but I want to get the most functionality in as soon as possible. I believe in the open source model--release early, release often. Please proceed to the Documentation Page for details on how to install and run SLiteChat!

Disclaimer

This software is not provided or supported by Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life. We do not store your user information including your login and password on our servers.

Feedback

As always, I would love feedback on this project. I really want to improve this and make it as useful as possible. Oh and I myself use this thing. If you are on Second Life and want to chat with me in-world, look up Dooglio Mode, or just drop me an email.

And remember: It runs on Linux!!!!

Smiley icon created by IconTexto (Bruno Maia)

http://www.icontexto.com/

Comments

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:26 — Anonymous

A thank you!

Been using SLite for several months now & find it very useful. Ideal for maintaining chat contact when unable to access a PC or laptop which can cope with the demands of SL. The latest upgrade (1.5.2) seems to load faster too, so a big ty from a very happy SLiter :))

Mon, 11/30/2009 - 03:15 — Anonymous

Seems to be broken

This isn't working anymore. It's getting this error:

[10:11] Cannot log in! Reason: Login failure: update, Required version: 1.2.4.3007.

Wed, 12/02/2009 - 10:19 — Doug Barbieri

Re: Seems to be broken

Are you still experiencing this problem? I have not been able to replicate this.

Wed, 12/02/2009 - 05:39 — Anonymous

1.5.2 doesn't list groups anymore...

...see subject.

and i'm still packaging on suse build service ;)

sadly 1.5.2 refuses to build for 64bit architectures because suse doesn't have a 64bit libsigc++ available...

Wed, 12/02/2009 - 10:17 — Doug Barbieri

No groups?

Wow I can't believe suse doesn't have a libsigc++ package for 64 bit. There is not much I can do about that. :-)

So please tell me more about your subject bug. What do you mean that it doesn't list groups anymore? Does the group window show up empty?

Sat, 12/26/2009 - 16:32 — Anonymous

SL is now fun again!

I've been "running" SL on an old Mac laptop (pre-Intel)... now when

SL decides to kick me off I can fire up my XP netbook and continue

chatting and IMing... the primary thing I do in SL.

I can't thank you enough for making SL fun again!

Daffyd Yardley, Farhaven.

Fri, 02/05/2010 - 12:25 — Anonymous

love it

I love this program. I can chat with my SL friends, which is all I really want to do. The whole walking-around-looking-at-stuff doesn't interest me.

Is there any way to make "My Last Location" the default for login, instead of "Home"?

Fri, 02/05/2010 - 13:12 — Doug Barbieri

Thank you!

I am always pleased to hear from people who enjoy using SLiteChat! Thanks for your kind words.

As for your feature request, no there is no way to have SLiteChat remember "Last location"...yet. I will address this feature in the next release.

Tue, 03/02/2010 - 12:53 — Anonymous

SLer's don't worry this is for OS'ers who use SLite

First off to say is I love this program and have run every kind of scenario. I love how it is so lite and it's ability to connect to any grid I want to use other than SL. I've even went so far as to test it on a dial-up connection and see if it would connect. Against the other alternatives this was the only that would do it and not complain about it either. Ok, back to the subject of why I am writing this post, I am an OSgrid fan who uses SLite from work to keep up with friends but here is the problem. If I initiate the conversation what shows up at the other end is the persons name as to whom I am talking to but it does on occasion show up that way if they begin to talk to me. I had seen this before in earlier versions of SLite. I am willing to help if you come over to OS and investigate, look me up Vivian Klees.

Oh a feature request would be to go ahead and add all the public grids in the drop down of the login screen much like what meerkat, hippo, and emerald has done in their viewers.

Sat, 03/06/2010 - 03:17 — Anonymous

Drop down list ready

Vivian,

I am happy to say that Dooglio and I just implemented the drop-down grids list.

Catherine Pfeffer

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 13:06 — Anonymous

Nice But

The chat client is nice but it isn't exactly what I'm looking for. It is nice to have a lightweight chat client so you can chat when you are not on SL but I want something I can have open at the same time as an SL viewer so that the chat window doesn't take up space in my viewer screen. I also want the ability to have each conversation in a seperate window. Thankyou for developing this piece of software.

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 10:07 — Doug Barbieri

You are welcome!

Thank you for developing this piece of software.

You are welcome! I am sorry that it did not fit exactly what you wanted, but what you are talking about is a completely different animal. The whole idea behind SLiteChat is to allow chatting without having to open the fat graphics viewer. We never intended it to interact with another running viewer.

Now, it is possible we might be able to have a patch that allows the conversation tabs to be "popped out" of the main window. That is something I can add to the potential "to do" list.

Thanks once again for your input and your interest in SLiteChat!

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:54 — Anonymous

Friends list won't load

Hello

Just downloaded this and although it says I'm logged in, my list of friends all show offine and the names all appear as "Loading..." After a while slitechat reports that it has lost connection and the program seems to hang. Any particular reason for this?

Tue, 06/22/2010 - 06:31 — Anonymous

Re: Friends list won't load

I'm having the same problem as described in the previous post. Could this be a router network port issue? If so, which port(s) should I verify are open?

Running Win XP SP 3 with 2.5Ghz Cel and 768Mb RAM

Tue, 06/22/2010 - 15:40 — Doug Barbieri

Firewall and ports...

Are you guys behind a corporate firewall? If so, then SLiteChat will need proxy-server support. This is a feature we are currently working on. What you are describing could make sense since the log-on process occurs over https (port 443).

SLiteChat uses the same protocol that the Second Life viewer uses. Check out this page to see if these ports are blocked for you:

wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Firewall_Configuration

Mon, 03/15/2010 - 23:00 — Anonymous

error

Cannot log in! Reason: Unhandled error

Mon, 03/15/2010 - 23:28 — Doug Barbieri

When you log in, make sure

When you log in, make sure the grid dropdown is set for "second life."

The first time you run 1.6.0, it defaults to "3rd rock." This is a known issue, and I am working to release a bug fix. Once you set your grid to "second life," however, it will not exhibit this behavior any more.

Sun, 03/21/2010 - 14:18 — Anonymous

wont let me log in

says that i need a numeric name or something. My sl name is Anariel Gourdou, how do I type it in?

Sat, 04/17/2010 - 02:53 — Anonymous

Solution found

Well it happened to me as well, and it figured out that there was a leading space before the firstname, that I didn't type in though.

Remove the leading space and it works...

Thu, 04/01/2010 - 17:35 — Anonymous

alphanumeric name

Yeah i get that problem too, it says i need an alphanumeric name, yet i use my usual SL naem to log in adn it works just fine. The parameters are set to SL. What is the problem?

Thu, 04/01/2010 - 17:44 — Anonymous

this is just a test to make

this is just a test to make sure i sent to teh right person. srry for any inconvience ^^;;

Wed, 05/05/2010 - 01:36 — Anonymous

error

i have the same problem..any help?

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 03:43 — Anonymous

Macintosh - Intel only?

Is this for Intel Macs only? It does not say on the home page, and only says i386 on the download page (after I signed up for the newsletter, sigh)

I have a dual G5

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 10:03 — Doug Barbieri

Intel only, I'm afraid

Yes for the time being we only support Intel Macs (no PPC). That is what i386 means, btw. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 06:25 — Anonymous

Great Lite Client with a Nice UI - Too bad it "Ruths" Avatars!

I've enjoyed using SLite Chat. It's got a great UI and does what it's supposed to.

Unfortunately, when using the client, your Avatar is "Ruthed." Having your avatar turn into a hermaphroditic version of yourself, especially when your appearance is part of your brand, can be quite disturbing!

Would it be possible for the client to simply rez a default avatar shape, like a SLiteChat robot or even a cloud, instead of Ruthing our existing avatars? How about having some type of in-world box/beacon that can be placed as a default rez point?

Keep up the good work! I look forward to a "Ruth-free" SLiteChat experience in the near future!

Thu, 04/08/2010 - 08:05 — Doug Barbieri

"Ruth"-ing...?

Wow, this is certainly new. The behavior I've seen is that your AV is a ghost when using SLiteChat. Is this something new? I did in fact try to make a default AV rez in the past but the code caused chaos on non-SL grids. :/ Suffice to say, making your AV rez in world in SLiteChat is decidedly non-trivial.

Thanks for pointing this out, and thank you for your kind words about SLiteChat!

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 20:32 — Doug Barbieri

Ruthing Avatars

Okay I finally got to see just what it is you are talking about. I've been using the Emerald viewer as my default client for a long time now, and just recently tried out Viewer 2. Using Emerald (or Snowglobe I'd expect), a SLiteChat user looks like a ghost. But if that same user is viewed using Viewer 2, the avatar appears but is indeed "Ruthed."

Okay I admit, that needs some work.

Fri, 04/23/2010 - 21:36 — Anonymous

Great product!

I wanted to start by saying I really enjoy SliteChat. You wrote this well. Even on a WinXP Guest User Account you can install this (No admin access needed) and it runs at only 26 MB used memory.

It seems some IMs do not cause the client to "flash" in the taskbar, I can't easily isolate this issue but it does happen on occasion.
Groups are not showing up. The group tab is visible on bottom left of screen, and my friends/local chat/everything else is coming up fine, just no Groups being populated. Probably an interfacing issue and not really that big of a deal anyways.
User log off/on event task flash. This does not cause the Local Chat tab to change it's icon to a "unread message" yellow indicator.
Suggestion: Right click, enable/disable task flash on new message option. This feature is primarily to make it where if I don't want to see when Local Chat has a new message, I can right click the tab and set a setting to not flash anymore, so I don't have to tab into the game on non-PM events.
Suggestion: Interaction with world. I know this is probably against the original idea, but I thought it would be great if one day, you considered creating a very low graphic "minimap" that you can use to plot out a coordinate to teleport or walk to. This is to stop things such as people telling you to get off them, just by clicking nearby even if you're partly blind of any interaction in the world.
Suggsetion: Accep/interact with teleports. This would tie in to the above suggestion.

That's about all for now, thanks for the great product and it is great tool to use when SL is unable to be used. :)

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 08:33 — Anonymous

happy user

Hello,

thank you for this awesome piece of software! I have been using Slite more than half a year now. First it is the only way to speak to my buddies while on my laptop. Second, i love this program, cause it runs under Linux !

Again thank you and keep up the good work!

Tue, 04/27/2010 - 09:27 — Doug Barbieri

To Happy User

Thank you for your kind words! I wrote SLiteChat to be useful, and I am always pleased to hear from happy users like yourself!

Oh yes running under Linux is a must for me--it's my operating system of choice. :-)

Sat, 05/01/2010 - 11:07 — Anonymous

Even runs on antiques!

My "good" notebook got ripped off. I dug out my 1998-spec Thinkpad 600E. I made XP work on the 224MB of ram. No way was it going to run SL, but SLite ran! It kept me in touch with my contacts over the course of my travels!

Sat, 05/01/2010 - 14:39 — Doug Barbieri

Fantastic!

Fantastic! I am always pleased to hear about success stories like that!

Thanks for using SLiteChat. I am very pleased it worked for you.

Wed, 04/28/2010 - 01:26 — Anonymous

SLite Chat for Windows Mobile?

Hi, I was wondering if SLite Chat would run on Windows Mobile 6.1 (I have an Xperia X1)? There is nothing out there for the Win Mob phones and I'd love to keep in touch whilst at work.

Sun, 05/16/2010 - 22:35 — Anonymous

Wondering the same

I'm also looking for a way to connect to sl from my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. Anybody have any suggestions? I can't seem to get slitechat working on windows mobile.

Wed, 04/28/2010 - 21:08 — Anonymous

Unhandled error

Been getting this for the last twenty minutes or so, when I log in it tells me it can't due to an "Unhandled error." I've tried uninstalling it and re-installing it and I still get the same thing. I'm positive i'm signing into the Second Life grid as well, and that still doesn't help.

Fri, 05/07/2010 - 11:41 — kabuto koba

unable to connect

Hello all, i have trouble trying to connect, i use a valid name and password and the app say's me this:

Cannot log in! Reason: Login failure: key, Sorry! We couldn't log you in.

Please check to make sure you entered the right

* Account name

* Password

Also, please make sure your Caps Lock key is off.

Thanks to develope that software.

Fri, 05/07/2010 - 12:55 — Anonymous

Very Cool Tool!

Stumbled upon your program last night, wanted to reply to a message in my email without bringing up a full viewer, SLiteChat is great for when I dont want to kill my laptop's battery wunning the full viewer.

Another cool idea would be the ability to manipulate inventory as in organize it while "off line".

Sat, 07/10/2010 - 10:01 — Anonymous

Digsby?

Make that Digsby for me, a former longtime Pidgin user.

Sat, 07/10/2010 - 13:54 — Doug Barbieri

Woah that looks interesting!

I wonder if anyone has tried to create an SL plugin for it...hrm...

Tue, 05/18/2010 - 20:21 — Anonymous

Why re-invent the wheel?

Have you thought of using a proper IM client like Pidgin as a front-end rather than re-inventing the wheel by creating your own from scratch? All you need to do is create a plugin for Pidgin which wraps LLChatLib. It'd save you a lot of work and would allow users (eg. me) to use it through a more familiar user interface.

Other benefits:

One less program to run (for existing users of Pidgin, that is)

Pidgin can be configured to stay in the system tray (on windows, don't know about linux), this means a less cluttered task bar.

Thanks

Wed, 05/26/2010 - 09:45 — Anonymous

Extend / Apply SLitechat to other IM services

Hi, I have been using SLitechat for a while now and it is really useful for being available to my SL colleagues but not running the graphical client.

I just wanted to offer the suggestion that perhaps you could apply what you've learned about accessing the SL chat infrastructure and then apply that to a plugin for something like Skype or Trillian. I use trillian to monitor multiple identities from one program and I would sure be thrilled if my SL identity could join the crew! Trillian has a plug-in architecture that might be possible to support this, as does Skype. Skype probably has a larger user base than Trillian, but wow, Trillian is just one amazinging useful piece of software for the over-connected!

Thanks again - this is a fantastic product!

jameschrislloyd, SL: Lloud Laffer

Sun, 05/30/2010 - 05:23 — Anonymous

Doesn't save password?

Hi, thanks for making such a light and easy to use chat client! The only issue i have found is that although i have save password checked and the password field is filled with asterixes when i try to log in again, the ok button is greyed out and i have to re-enter the password each time to make the ok button appear so i can log in.

Thanks for any help!

Richard

Sun, 05/30/2010 - 09:16 — Doug Barbieri

Re: Doesn't save password?

Hi Richard,

Actually, SLiteChat does save the password, but due to a bug, the OK button stayed greyed out. If you happen to have credentials for an alt, you can pull down to the alt, then back to your original AV and it will ungray--that is a work around presently. I am working on a bug fix for this issue.

-Dooglio Mode

Sun, 06/06/2010 - 12:47 — Anonymous

Can't log in D:

[15:36] Cannot log in! Reason: Login failure: data, First name parameter must be alphanumeric.

If you feel this is an error, please contact
support@secondlife.com.

my sl name is not alphanumeric :(

Sun, 06/06/2010 - 14:45 — Doug Barbieri

I have personally never seen

I have personally never seen this error. What grid do you have selected when you try this? It should be set to "second life".

Sun, 06/06/2010 - 22:17 — Anonymous

Login error...not alphanumeric

I had the same error. The problem was that I had a <space> typed just before my login name. I deleted the space, and logged in just fine.

Sun, 06/06/2010 - 23:14 — Doug Barbieri

Re: Login error...not alphanumeric

Thanks for this catch! I will add this to the FAQ.

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 11:08 — Anonymous

Wrong gender?!?

I love SLiteChat *EXCEPT* for one huge problem: When I log in via SLC, it logs me in as a female version of my current avatar. All the clothing is correct, it just shows me as a female instead of a male. I've changed shapes, avatars etc but I still get shown as a female when using SLC. Any insight? Anyone...

Mon, 06/21/2010 - 00:12 — Alexis Wilke

Quick note...

At this point we're not too sure what causes this problem. We're looking into it. Although if someone has an idea, we'll appreciate a note here. Thank you.

Mon, 06/21/2010 - 08:21 — Doug Barbieri