Online Status inSL
Allows you to show your Second Life® or OpenSimulator online status on any WordPress blog (multiple widgets and shortcodes are possible)
Consider an alternative
Online Status inSL shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 3 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 6.3 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Online Status inSL stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| online | >100 |
| opensimulator | #2 |
| profile | >100 |
| Second Life | #98 |
| status | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
About Online Status inSL
From the official readme · v1.6.3Description
This simple plugin with associated widget allows you to show your online status in Second Life® or any OpenSimulator grid.
It also includes a LSL script to place inside an in-world script, which is available from the Settings menu.
Warning: Versions 1.3.X and above are utterly incompatible with previous versions; you will need to add the new script to all your in-world scripted objects or your blog will not display the status at all!
Warning: Version 1.3.8 and above might make it impossible for you to delete old tracking objects. 1.4.0 adds a way to delete all of the tracking objects, but there have been plenty of changes that this simply might not work any longer.
Note: Versions before 1.6.0 are so old that I have deleted them from the WordPress repository.
CSS
To allow styling of the plugin, the following styles are emitted by the widget:
The whole content of the widget is included inside a <div class='osinsl'>
The text before the status is a span with class osinsl-before-status. The status itself is osinsl-status and the text afterwards is osinsl-after-status.
Status unknown (i.e. SL dataserver issues) is styled as osinsl-problems and the text for an unconfigured widget is styled osinsl-unconfigured.
The profile picture (if visible) will have the class osinsl-profile-picture. Users can set the horizontal alignment (using the standard alignleft, aligncenter, alignright classes) but nothing else. Size is limited to 80×80 (all this might be changed).
To style embedded shortcode, change the CSS class for osinsl-shortcode.
Shortcodes
1.2 and onwards support shortcodes, to embed online status and SL profile pictures inside posts and pages.
The overall syntax is:
[osinsl avatar="<avatar name>" picture="[none|center|right|left]" status="[on|off]" profilelink="[on|off]"]
or
[osinsl objectkey="<UUID>" picture="[none|center|right|left]" status="[on|off]" profilelink="[on|off]"]
avatar should have a valid Second Life/OpenSimulator avatar name which has an associated online status indicator in SL/OpenSimulator. This will expand to show the online status (e.g. usually online, offline, or an error message if no widget was configured or if the avatar is not being tracked). Note that if you have avatars with the same name on different grids, this will just get you one of them.
objectkey should be the Object Key of an in-world online status tracking object. This should be used alternatively to avatar and is useful if you have several objects tracking your avatar across different grids, all for the same avatar name. Note that object keys may change over time (when they get copied, duplicated, taken back to inventory and rezzed again, etc.) so this should be used only as a last alternative, when you really have several avatars in different grids, all with the same name.
picture is optional and defaults to none (i.e. profile picture is not shown); if the user has set the Second Life web profile to be visible, this will retrieve their profile picture, and resize it to 80×80. Options are left, right, and center which will provide minimal formatting (additional styling requires CSS; image size is fixed for now; see the CSS section for more information). However, for the time being, pictures for avatars in OpenSimulator grids will not be displayed.
If the picture is set, status can be set to off (just show the picture but not the actual status).
If the picture is set, profilelink can be set to on (default is off) to link the picture to SL’s web profile page.
Installation
- After installing the plugin, go to the Settings menu and look at the option for
Online Status inSL. You should be shown a pre-formatted LSL script. - Launch your favourite Second Life® viewer and connect to your Second Life or OpenSimulator grid account.
- Create an object in your land.
- Open the object, and go to the Contents tab.
- Create a new script inside (just click on the button).
- Delete everything in that script.
- Now go back to the WordPress admin page you’ve opened, and copy the script and paste it inside your LSL script in SL.
- Save the LSL script in SL; it should recompile.
- The LSL script will now try to contact your blog and register itself.
- You can go back to WordPress, go to Appearance > Widgets, and select the widget
Online Status inSLby dragging it to one sidebar. - Select the avatar name and (optionally) change the text that gets displayed.
- If you wish a SL profile picture, select “left”, “right”, or “center” for alignment. If you don’t wish it, just leave the setting to “none”.
- Refresh your blog; it should now show your online status!
To have multiple widgets for multiple avatars, just drag & drop a few more. In-world, each avatar needs to have their own scripted object. You can have two or more widgets for a single avatar (although this is pointless…). And, of course, you can have widgets for Second Life® and several OpenSimulator grids at the same time (so that your website visitors can see where exactly you are at the moment)!
Styling of each widget is possible via additional CSS (see FAQ).
From version 1.1.0 onwards, this plugin incorporates the Shortcode API. You can now place shortcodes inside posts and pages like this:
[osinsl avatar="Avatar Name"]
See the section on Shortcodes for more information.
1.2 includes the ability to delete tracked avatars from the admin page. This is mostly needed if you’re doing a lot of tests, lost an in-world object and need to create a new one for the same avatar, and so forth. Note that you can have several online status indicators on different sims for the same avatar.
1.2 also allows an optional SL profile picture to be shown on the widget (or via shortcodes on any page or post). For this to work, you need to have set your SL profile to visible on the Web.
From 1.3.0 onwards, the plugin has been rewritten from scratch and the previous in-world scripts will not work any longer. Now the widget won’t contact the in-world object any longer; instead, it works the other way round: every minute, the in-world object will see if the status has changed. If it has, it will send an update to the blog. If not, it won’t do anything and just patiently wait. The blog will just read stored information from the WP database but not initiate any new communication. This should get pages with this widget to display much faster.
Thanks to Celebrity Trollop for the suggestion for changing this, and to the ever-patient Puitia for the many tests!
1.4.0 changed the way the list of tracked objects are displayed, using an internal WP API. It also includes more communication with the in-world objects, allowing them to be resetted, deleted, or simply tested to see if they’re alive.
Frequently asked questions
Uh oh! I have tried out earlier versions before, I did an upgrade, and now nothing works!
Sorry about that. The code was completely rewritten and now uses HTTP-in instead of XML-RPC, retrieves a bit more data from in-world (to be used on future versions), and stores information on the blog itself instead of external files on the upload directory (and even has some caching). These were simply too many changes, and it was next-to-impossible to make the plugin backwards-compatible with 0.9.X. You will need to go back to your scripted object and drop the new script inside. Updating to 1.2 will probably get a profile picture by default; change your widget and save again. 1.0-1.2.1…
I get a “status unknown” error
This happens when the dataserver in Second Life is slow in responding; there is a limit to the number of successive queries that it replies to. Usually, after the next refresh (every minute or so), it should retrieve the correct status (online/offline) and start working again. Since the in-world object caches entries, this might mean waiting for about one minute for the error to disappear.
I upgraded and now the widget does not update the status
Go in-world and touch the in-world object. It should re-register and everything should work fine again. If not, create a new LSL script — using the provided pre-generated one — and replace the old one. The idea is that the API hasn’t changed much, to make sure that old scripts will still work (see the first question in this FAQ), but, alas, I’m merely human and prone to err.
The LSL script cannot contact the webserver!
This might happen if you have a very unusual WordPress installation. You’ll have to change the line in the LSL script saying http://_your-domain-name_/wp-content/plugins/online-status-insl/save-channel.php to whatever is appropriate for your blog.
I get errors on the LSL script
Make sure you really, really have copied it correctly… in some cases, quotes might be changed into typographical quotes; ampersands into \&\; or something like that. If all failed, contact me in-world, I’ll give you a copy of the script (you’ll have to change the appropriate URL for your blog though)
Nothing works!
Email me at gwyneth.llewelyn@gwynethllewelyn.net, I’ll try to do my best to help, but take into account that some of your configurations might be very tough to debug and I might not be able to help you.
I get a lot of errors, but it sort of works…
I need more people like you to help debug me this! I have a rather standard configuration at my own server and this works well with my blogs there. But I can imagine that stranger configurations will be harder to debug! Please try to figure out what version of WordPress you’re using, what version of PHP is installed on your host, and if you have writing permissions to the uploads directory under wp-content
I want to style my messages, but the widget doesn’t allow HTML tags
This is mostly for security reasons and to prevent users to make serious mistakes. You can use CSS to style your Online Status inSL widget instead; see the section on CSS.
When I deactivate the plugin and activate it again, the widget stops working/my avatar names disappear
If you deactivate the plugin and activate it again, all internal data with the online status is lost. You will need to go back in-world and touch the objects (or reset them) to send the information back to your blog. Note that the widgets will still be at the same places and keep the overall configuration except for the avatar name they’re bound to.
Sometimes more than one status indicator gets deleted, but I just clicked on one
This should have been fixed now. Just go back in-world and touch your objects to re-activate them on WordPress.
I can’t delete one of the status indicators on WordPress, even if I have removed the in-world object manually
From 1.4.0 onwards, you have more options to delete the status indicators (either just on WordPress, just in-world, or both). Keeping them in sync across plugin versions is a formidable task! Be patient
The list of tracked objects is completely out of sync with what WordPress displays and I cannot delete some of the old objects
This will definitely happen if you have been using this plugin for a long, long time, and have several different versions. To make matters worse, the way the list of tracked objects is stored in WordPress has changed for 1.4.0, so many of your objects might become undeletable. In this case, all you can do is de-install and re-install the plugin, go in-world, and reset all your objects by touching on them.
I’m a relatively recent user and my profile picture didn’t work
My apologies. New users have a “fake” last name, “Resident”, which is however never used on profile pictures. 1.3.5 should fix this.
Can I get translations in different languages?
Starting with 1.3.5, you can. A default English (US) .pot file is supplied, so you can tweak it to your own language using POEdit. I’ve added Portuguese and British English as examples. More translations are most welcome! Note: WordPress multilingual support is currently being done differently (no need to directly tweak .po files), but it requires the WordPress ‘translation team’ to approve them (this is not under my control). See also the developer notes for tags 1.5.0 and 1.6.1.
Will this work for OpenSimulator-based grids?
Essentially, yes. Basically, you can certainly track if an avatar is online/offline on any grid (the tracking code is grid-independent). However, each OpenSimulator grid operator stores avatar profiles differently. This means that you won’t get any fancy pictures, links to profiles, or to location — these are hard-coded to work with the Second Life grid. If you just wish to have a text message saying “my avatar is online on grid X”, then this plugin will certainly work. In future versions, the options to extract profile data from OpenSimulator grids might have some extra settings, but it…
Can I also track NPCs/bots?
NPCs (Non-Player Characters) or ‘bots (automated avatars, controlled by software) are perfectly ‘normal’ avatars from the perspective of the Second Life Grid; they have no more and no less features than human-controlled avatars and are created exactly in the same way. The sole difference is that, instead of a human behind a Second Life Viewer (released by Linden Lab or by a third party, such as the Firestorm Viewer), there is just software ‘speaking’ the network protocol developed by Linden Lab for the communication between the Grid and the Viewers; from the perspective of the Grid…
This plugin is awesome! I have lots of suggestions on how to improve it! Can I send them to you?
I’m glad you find it useful. Sure, to make collaboration easier, the code for this plugin is also on GitHub
Changelog
Major code refactoring, trying to keep it cleanly styled according to the WordPress Coding Standard (as checked by the PHP CodeSniffer). Also tested under PHP 8.1 and WP 5.8+.
1.6.3
- Apparently, a vulnerability was detected on the Gutenberg Block subsystem (which is not yet working anyway), and Automattic closed access to this plugin. Hopefully, I managed to fix it, and their automatic validation system will accept the changes. If not, I’ll drop blocks support for the time being.
- On the GitHub repository, added a few extra configuration files for detecting code violations
The remaining (historical) changelog is kept on the file changelog.txt, as per the WP recommendations.
Screenshots
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FAQ
Online Status inSL: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 15, 2026
Is Online Status inSL free?
Yes. Online Status inSL is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Online Status inSL safe to use in 2026?
Online Status inSL shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 3 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Online Status inSL?
Online Status inSL is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 5,953 times since it launched in February 2011. It was downloaded 43 times in the last 30 days.
Does Online Status inSL work with WordPress 7.1?
Online Status inSL is officially tested up to WordPress 6.3.13, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
What PHP version does Online Status inSL need?
Online Status inSL requires PHP 7.3 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Online Status inSL last updated?
The latest version, 1.6.3, was released on August 31, 2023 (3 years ago).
Who makes Online Status inSL?
Online Status inSL is developed and maintained by Gwyneth Llewelyn.
What are the best alternatives to Online Status inSL?
The most popular alternatives to Online Status inSL are WP-UserOnline (10K+ installs), PayHere Payment Gateway (2K+ installs) and WC Booster (700+ installs).
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