Relationships

A relationship between two users in the AcceleratXR platform is referred to internally as a UserLink. Users can have any number of links to any number of other users. Each link describes the type relationship between two users in addition to an optional alias and arbitrary data map. This makes it possible to implement the following social network concepts.

  • Followers

  • Friends

  • Blocked Users

  • Recently Met Users

The alias allows users to provide a custom name for the other user that is specific to them within their list. This can be helpful in identifying the relationship among many other users with similar common names. Lastly, the data property is also provided in order to give you the ability to implement additional capabilities that may be app specific.

Encountering Users (ENCOUNTER)

When players encounter one another while interacting in the product it is possible to create an ENCOUNTER user link. This link is intended to track all players that a user may have recently met and desire to see again in the future.

Following Users (FOLLOW)

User links with the FOLLOW type describes relationships where a user is interested in being following the activity of another user. This relationship is one-way in that the source user (userUid) wants to follow the activity other user (otherUid). This makes it possible to create loosely coupled relationships between users which can be beneficial when needing to create and maintain a set of one-way relationships for users such as subscribing to a user’s feed.

Friending Users (FRIEND)

A user link with the FRIEND type is the two-way relationship whereby two users indepedently have chosen to follow the other. As this is a two-way relationship, requiring both users to participate, it is not possible to simply create a user link with the FRIEND type. Instead, any time two users create a FOLLOW link to each other the system will automatically upgrade their relationship to a FRIEND type. Should either side choose to delete their respective side of the relationship then the opposing link will be downgraded down to a FOLLOW link.

For applications implementing a friends list system it is recommended that each user creates a FOLLOW link to another and then sends a friend invite message to encourage the other user to create the needed opposite link to complete the FRIEND relationship. This can be accomplished via the following steps.

Given user A wants to add user B as a friend…

  1. User A creates a UserLink to user B with type FOLLOW.

  2. User A sends message to user B containing an invite attachment to add them as a friend.

{
    senderUid: <UserA_UUID>,
    receiverUid: <UserB_UUID>,
    subject: "UserA wants to be your friend!",
    body: "User A wants to be your friend.",
    attachments: {
        invite: "{ type: \"userlink\", userUid: <UserA_UUID> }"
    }
}

  1. User B receives message containing friend invite sent by User A.

  2. User B accepts friend invite. Creates a UserLink to user A with type FOLLOW

  3. System automatically upgrades both connections to FRIEND

Blocking Users (BLOCK)

Not everyone is going to want to be friends. In the event that a user wishes not to interact with another user they can create a UserLink with the BLOCK type. This relationship is always a one-way relationship however it is special in that the system will not allow a user to create an opposing FOLLOW link if an existing BLOCK exists. Similarly, if there exists a FOLLOW relationship between the two users then that link will be removed once a BLOCK link is created. This is true even in the event that a FRIEND relationship exists. In the event that a user attempts to follow a user that has blocked them an error is returned by the service. It is the responsibilty of the application to decide whether or not this error should be displayed to the user.