VR Utility Belt

Hammerschaedel · 25. September 2017

das ist mal ne geile idee...mal schauen was dabei rüberkommt...demnächst auf steam

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/72dbtj/vr_utility_belt_the_natural_evolution_to/

I've been working on SteamVR-Webkit* for a while now, and it has seen a few uses here and there but still has a major barrier - the overlap between talented OpenVR/C# devs and talented front-end HTML devs is quite a small pool of people.

*I know, I know, technically it's SteamVR-Blink because Google forked Webkit a very long time ago into a new engine. I can't really go and change it now, everyone already knows SteamVR-Webkit, it's a household name! /s

So, I've been working on a new evolution for overlay development. SteamVR-BlinkWebkit will and always will be a standalone, open source, free to use library, no questions asked. But I'm introducing something way cooler into the mix now..

VR Utility Belt (VRUB for short)

VRUB is the next logical step to help y'all easily build overlays for SteamVR. We all want more overlays of course, overlays are great, they let us do cool things like control Spotify, read our Twitch chat and tweak our OpenVR settings. But right now, overlays are hard. You have to write a C# application, distribute it, keep it up to date. For simple overlays that's a lot of work to get to the end result.

Which is where this new project comes in. VRUB lets you write overlays in pure HTML, JS and CSS just like SteamVR-Webkit. But it removes the extra steps required to build, deploy and maintain it by instead letting you simply submit your overlay to the Steam Workshop. That's right, VRUB will be available exclusively through Steam at the low price of $99.99 for free! It will update through Steam, it will launch through Steam, and you'll be able to pick and choose all the overlays you want... through Steam!

Making an overlay couldn't be easier, you write your web page, style it, make it do things, then write a couple of JSON files out to tell VRUB what it is and what it should have access to (more on that later). Or if there's a service out there you want to hook into, you can simply write some JS and CSS, then inject them directly into the web page of an existing site - Spotify, Facebook, Twitch, Twitter. Whatever you want!

At release, I'm aiming for the following features to be available:

Sandboxed Overlays

Overlays will only have access to the file system directly below their "addon". An addon is a collection of overlays, and is what is actually uploaded to the workshop. This means one addon can have multiple overlays, and will in the future be able to include custom plugins when you need access to native C# methods without using the JS interop bridge already available in SteamVR-Webkit (backing off CefSharp). file:// access will be blocked, so instead a custom URL scheme will be exposed to overlays as addon:// which will expose the base folder of the addon. For example, you may open a CSS file with addon://overlays/overlay_key_here/example.css.

Fine-grained Permission System

Addons will need to request permission to gain access to certain functions in VRUB. For example, in order to be able to use the persistent storage APIs provided by VRUB (which is a key/value storage system for permanent and single-session storage of data) the addon would need to request access to that API, the user would approve the access and then the APIs would work as normal. This will have much more obvious security uses for stuff like Steam Session Tickets for auto-login to sites that use Steam accounts, though neither the addon or the site will receive a Steam session ticket directly, I'm working on a REST API for handling that... You wouldn't want an overlay being able to login to any site that uses the aforementioned auth system after all - it should have to be approved first, you never can be too careful!

And of course, the obvious - notifications will require a permission check too.

Anyone who uses iOS may find this permission system familiar - and that's because it's a blatant rip-off of how Apple implemented their own permission system for notifications, mic/camera access, etc!

Dashboard and Floating Overlays

You won't be limited to the main dashboard view for overlays, and I have plenty of plans in store for how to make managing all those overlays you'll end up having installed a much simpler task! "Belt" may not refer to the item of clothing...hop on over here and fill in the form, I'm keeping the pool small-ish right now so don't be offended if you don't get a reply. Those that do get a reply will receive a key (or more likely a link to request a key via distribute()) and an invitation to the currently private Discord Server for help, support, chit-chat, etc.
Klicke in dieses Feld, um es in vollständiger Größe anzuzeigen.

cogent · 18. Oktober 2017

Zitat von Hammerschaedel: ↑

das ist mal ne geile idee...mal schauen was dabei rüberkommt...demnächst auf steam

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/72dbtj/vr_utility_belt_the_natural_evolution_to/
Klicke in dieses Feld, um es in vollständiger Größe anzuzeigen.

Ja ist eine Tolle Sache.
Habe inzwischen etwas Zeit mit Verbracht und paar Dinge probiert, es hat echt Potenzial.
Entwickler ist auch sehr aktiv und gibt super Support.
Um mich da mal rein zu Arbeiten habe ich erst verschiedenes versucht und dann mal ein Overlay für meine HomeLoader App erstellt.
https://vrforum.de/posts/70340/

Bin gespannt was es da noch so alles geben wird.

cogent · 29. Oktober 2017

Hat hier jemand VR Utility Belt installiert, suche Tester für das neue Overlay.

Hammerschaedel · 29. Oktober 2017

hmmm, das ist doch momentan nur auf einladung erhältlich...also ich hab nix

cogent · 29. Oktober 2017

Ja so ähnlich, denke das ich dich vorher im Discord channel gesehen hab
Erhältst du dort wenn du auf '#announcements' gehst.
Hätte ja sein können das noch jemand hier einen key beantragt bzw. erhalten hat.

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