Further to the recent launch of the Viewer-Managed Marketplace public beta test on the Main grid, Brooke Linden provided third-party viewer developers (who will need to integrate the viewer-side VMM changes into their viewers) with an update on the state-of-play with the project at the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting on Friday, April 24th.

Her comments came at the opening of the meeting, which can be seen on a video provided by Chakat Northspring, and are summarised in my overview of the meetings. However, as VMM is of interest to a broader community than viewer developers, this article is intended to provide a slightly more detailed summary of her comments. Timestamps to the relevant points in the video are further provided for ease-of-reference.

Follow-up Meeting

[00:08] The Lab is planning a follow-up meeting to the current Main grid beta activities. This has been provisionally scheduled for 11:00 SLT on Friday, May 1st, but is subject to final confirmation. Formal confirmation of the meeting will hopefully be given through the existing Merchants’ Forum post (or at least through a fresh post) nearer the time, and I’ll endeavour to post word on it when it is announced.

The aim of the meeting is to gain general feedback on the VMM from those who have been able to try it as a part of the beta and to hopefully update on the status of any issues so far reported and which are being addressed, and to answer questions.

Automated Migration

[00:53] A number of requests have been made through the forum thread for the automated migration process for Direct Delivery items (Magic Box items require manual migration) to be trialled among a selected group of merchants prior to being enforced for all merchants.

Brooke indicated that this would be the case, and will be seeking volunteers to help with this nearer the time.

Other Items

[01:27 and 02:58] The beta programme will be opened to broader access than the current sign-up process, allowing for broader testing as things progress towards a “full” release.

[01:54] The language-localised elements of the work are expected in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, those trying the beta are requested to keep filing bug reports on anything they find (and can preferably reproduce).

[02:06] Incoming bugs on the project JIRA are being watched and investigated, including a couple of edge-case crash situations. Further bug and issues reports are still welcomed on the JIRA.

[03:56] As an aside to the main points, the VMM code has been merged with the current viewer release code as a part of the Lab’s now viewer development process (although the code remains available only via the project viewer for the time being).

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