DoctorGibbs' Auto-Magical Outfit Changer

OK, disclaimer first: The tool is a Perl script, which makes it NOT easy to install if you don't already have Perl on your machine (and few Thereans do). But follow the directions carefully and you should be able to get it to work! Once it is working it is quite robust, and it doesn't interfere with anything else you have going. Beta testers (both of them!) have been very enthusiastic, especially the one with the largest collections of outfits!

Also note: no warranties, no guarantees, this is freeware, use at your own risk, GOOD LUCK!

Basically the program cycles you randomly through all, or a user-specified subset, of your outfits, dresses you in each, and waits a specified time before proceeding to the next. After one full cycle, it shuffles the order and starts another full cycle, and so on, indefinitely until you close its window (separate from the There window).

"Outfits" means only those things saved in My Things, ChangeMe, and then the tab with the picture of a full body with arms and legs. You are responsible for creating and saving the outfits that you want the program to find. Outfits are not the same as individual clothing items. You have to dress up in the individual items and then save the result as an outfit for it to be an outfit!

Installation

First, you need to install ActiveState ActivePerl, which is free. Go to the ActiveState download page and save the Windows MSI install file to your disk. I recommend you use the latest version (now 5.8.3), but 5.6.x probably works too.

Now double click the file you just downloaded and follow all the directions. Pick default choices for all questions. I recommend that you not check the box that sends your profile to ActiveState.

If all went well, you now have Perl on your machine. You can check this (I think) by clicking the Windows Start button, then the Run choice, then entering cmd.exe into the text box and hit enter. A "black window" comes up. Type c:\perl\bin\perl -version into it and hit enter. You should see a reassuring message about Perl. If you don't, then you are probably hosed, but you can keep going anyway if you want. Close the black window.

Next download and save to disk the self extracting program file. Locate it where it was saved and double click it. Click OK in answer to the message box.

If everything has gone really well, that is all you need to do to install. You should find a new "gekko" icon on your desktop named ChangeOutfits. Log on to There, have the There window visible on your screen (it can be behind other things) and double click the ChangeOutfits icon. A new "black window" should open up and stay open. If so, skip down to the "Instructions" section of this page, below. The files are installed into C:\Program Files\DoctorGibbs. Once you are sure things are working, you can delete the small files left in C:\temp or in your default TEMP directory.

If things have not gone so well, then you might either have no gekko icon, or else when you click it a black window flashes open and then closes again.

  • If no gekko icon, click open "My Computer", then "Local Disk C", then "temp", and see if the ChangeOutfits (or ChangeOutfits.lnk) icon is there. If it is, then drag it to your desktop. If there is no C:\temp folder, then you are truly hosed and can give up.

  • If the black window opens and then immediately closes again, first try this: Windows Start button, Programs, ActiveState Active Perl, Perl Package Manager (and click on it). You should get a black window with a ppm> prompt. Type install Win32-GuiTest and hit enter. If it tells you that it is already installed, that is fine. If it installs it, that is even better. This usually solves the window opening and immediately closing problem. Now try double clicking the gekko icon on your desktop again. If a black window opens and stays open, then go to Instructions, below.

  • If the window still opens and then immediately closes, then you are deep in debug territory. Try this (but without much hope): Windows Start button, Run, cmd.exe, hit enter. At the prompt type cd c:\temp and hit enter. Now type ThereOutfits.pl and hit return. You might now get an interpretable error message. If you want to email it to me, I might be able to help, or I might not.

    •

    Instructions

    The program asks you how many seconds you want to wear each outfit, and it asks you to enter your pattern. For the first trial, just hit enter in response to each question. (The default time is 30 seconds, which is about as fast as the There client can keep up with.)

    It should now list all your outfits, and then start cycling you through them. It will continue indefinitely. You can stop it by closing the black window it is running in (X in upper right corner). Once it is running, you can iconify the black window and ignore it.

    If, woe betide, the black window just closes on you, then follow the directions in the last paragraph of the Installation section to see if you get an interpretable error message.

    Now try running it entering a different time (say 120) but still no pattern. Finally read the section on patterns below.

    About Patterns

    If you enter a pattern when the program starts, then it will cycle among only those outfits whose name contains exactly that pattern somewhere in their names. You can use this, in conjuction with renaming your outfits, in various ways.

    If you have outfits that require caramel skin color, for example, then put the word "caramel" (without the quotes) somewhere in the outfit name. Then if you enter the pattern caramel in response to the program prompt, only those will be cycled through.

    Or you might rename some of your bedtime outfits by adding the string "_bed" at the end. Then, giving the program the pattern _bed would cause it to select only those.

    You can of course have more than one pattern keyword in the outfit names, but the program can only look for one pattern at a time. So if you have an outfit named "bikini_swim_purple" it would be in subsets selected by both the patterns _swim and _purple. Use the first of these patterns at the beach, and the second on a day when you want to cycle among only your purple outfits. Note it is a good idea to use a special character like underscore to demarcate pattern words, in case the same words occur elsewhere in the name unintentionally.

    If no outfits match your pattern, the program tells you -- but actually the black window closes on you so fast that you'll never know! Run the program with no pattern (hit enter) to verify that it is working, and then try a different pattern.

    I am looking forward to seeing rapidly changing fashions on some very attractive There avatars! Also, I hope that someone takes the program and ports it to the There client, or to a compileable language with an easier install and a slicker user interface!

    How to Uninstall

    The installation makes no changes to the registry, so all you need to do is delete c:\Program Files\DoctorGibbs, and possibly the files ThereOutfits.pl, TherePerlGlobals.pl, TherePerlSubs.pl, and ChangeOutfits.lnk in your temporary directory or in C:\temp. These are all tiny files so there is no harm in just ignoring them.

    You can uninstall ActivePerl in the usual way from the Control Panel, Add Or Remove Programs applet.