Tools and Technology

Viewer 2.4 Released!

As of today, SL Viewer 2.4 is the default Second Life Viewer download for new Residents! As was mentioned in the Viewer 2.4 Beta blog post, this is largely a maintenance release focused on improving user experience, stability, and performance. This release does, however, have a few important changes and additions, including the following:

A Cleaner User Experience and More Customization Options in Preferences

Throughout 2010, we’ve added many new Preferences to the Viewer and it was time to not only reorganize and clean up the layout, but also add popular customization options, such as:

Color and transparency options that allow you to change the look of Viewer windows
Options to easily enable the Advanced and Developer menus
A new preference that you can use to turn group and IM chat pop-ups on or off whenever you like

Support for External Text Editors when Working with LSL

Here’s a good one for content creators and developers. Now, you can use your favorite script editor to edit LSL scripts outside of the Viewer. In Viewer 2.4, enabling the new ‘ExternalEditor’ debug setting will allow you to specify the path to your own text editor (for example: /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/MacOS/TextMate). When the setting is enabled, just open the Script Editor in the Viewer and click the “Edit” button, and the text editor you specified in debug settings will then open with the script you have open in the Viewer. Any changes you make and save in the text editor will automatically appear in the Script window in the Viewer.

Graphics Improvements

We continue to make numerous improvements to Viewer graphics as we move closer to integrating Mesh Import into Viewer 2. You can see more detail in the Release Notes, but we’ve improved antialiasing, anisotropic filtering, snapshots, and we’ll see even more in upcoming releases.

Performance Improvements

Viewer 2 performance is improving, as shown by steadily decreasing crash rates that are now close to those for Viewer 1.23, but we know there’s still more to do. So if you do crash, please be sure to send us a crash report, as they are essential to helping us understand where issues occur, which allows us to better prioritize our work.

An Auto-Updater Tool

We now have an auto-updater for Viewer 2! This means that whenever a new Viewer is released, the next one being Viewer 2.5, it automatically downloads the newest software in the background and offers you the ability to upgrade when it’s ready. You can still decide whether you want to install the new version or not, but the auto-updater will help ensure that you’re always using the most up-to-date version of the SL Viewer. Keep in mind, the auto-updater will only work with optional updates. Mandatory updates will continue to work as they have in the past.

Finally, to those of you who gave us feedback on previous versions of Viewer 2, we offer a heartfelt thank you for all your bug reports, forum and blog comments, and Tweets using the #slviewer2 hashtag. Your input is invaluable as we continue to prioritize our 2011 Viewer 2 roadmap.

So download Viewer 2.4 -- and keep that feedback coming!

Helpful Links

Download Viewer 2.4:
- Windows | Mac | Linux
Viewer 2.4 Release Notes
SL Forum on Viewer 2
SL Answers on Viewer 2.4

Comments

Are we going to be required to move to 2.4 if we are on the 2x viewers? I had such problems with the 2.4beta that I swore it off and went back to 2.3 viewer. I don't see anything in here about the crashing problems or the sound getting messed up which are problems that vexed me with the beta. Is the 2.4 upgrade mandatory or optional?

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@Esbee Linden: First of all a reply on what Esbee Linden is posting here in overview.

A Cleaner User Experience and More Customization Options in Preferences

A cleaner user experiance will be for a lot of people to see that sidebar go away compleetly, it is and stays unbelievable what a joke that "feature" is really.

Support for External Text Editors when Working with LSL

Seems to be ok in this post ill come back to this point when i tryed it myself, Promice i give it a fair chance.

Graphics Improvements

The only graphic improvement i see and notice is a 10MB cach instead of 1MB, For the rest there isnt much "improved" at all, This one can go to the land of fairytails.

Performance Improvements

Esbee you are posting we are close to the stablity if viewer 1.23.5, I wonder seems you and all the Second Life residents can see that viewer 1.23.5 beats all viewers avaidable to download on stability (Yes people that is right viewer 1.23.5 is more stable then your phoenix for example!), Then why destroy a good viewer in the first place. Please consider to update it and redevelop Snowglobe.

An Auto-Updater Tool

Simply sucks what is Second Life now becoming Java? Your update is right here download and instal ready "Instal me! Instal me! Instal me! Do you wish to update your viewer?" Auto Update Checks caus more slowness of your viewer and that is why its a very bad idea.

So download Viewer 2.4 -- and keep that feedback coming!

Yea right, I did that but am gladly to say that i whent back to viewer 1.23.5.

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A quick reply then to viewer2 in general and to the ones that say: "Please stop all the negative comments about this viewer" Well pleople dont do negative comments they just dont like the look of viewer2 the interface the workway the building tools and displaynames. So befor judge me on my point of view we have to keep Linden Lab sharp and make note of our ideas and likes and dislikes where to do that better then theire own forum bloggs?

Yes, i dont like viewer2 its buggy unstable and cant deal with the sidebar it looks black hurts my eyes cant find thing, The Lindens have to think about the older Residents aswell not only the newbie noobs!

hoping your replying this one Esbee, And also hope you and the team redevelop Snowglobe.

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Very well said Bigger Halfpint and your compleetly right here is where you can find what Bigger is talking about: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

It shows viewer 1.23 as the most stable viewer, Unbelievable that LL is destroying a wonderfull workable viewer for builders, Estate owners and for the older residents that play SL for over years and years. I also stand for redevelopment of Snowglobe!

FOCUS LINDEN LAB! FOCUS ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS!

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Im not Bigger Halfpint damn those displaynames Hellespont Bigger although is my friend your comfussed about our in-world resident anti-viewer2 meeting

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One big improvement for those on lower-powered machines is 'opaque water' - it not only speeds up performance but actually makes the water look better if you are not using shaders.

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The crash logger hardly ever detected a crash the many times I crashed in the beta. Just sayin.

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Have tryed and tryed this V2 but it just makes me want to log off and get back to real life its a real shame that search is totally screwed first thing i do when i log in is spend hours on search 1.23 is PERFECT.... V2 is actually like working on a dos program years ago when amstrads ataris amiga500 ect first came out. Now if we could switch search in prefrences to 1.23 mode well bobs your uncle or even switch viewers in prefrences only thing 1.23 is missing is web on a prim and a few bells.

1.23 is the daddy of SL

V2 Actually needs its own seprate grid to evolve on.

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I noticed this in the beta, but figured it was just an accident and would be gone in the release.

Why are names in chat now the same colour as the chat text? It's kind of disorientating. They used to be a different colour for easy readability.

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its great!

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btw where are the double click auto pilot/teleport?

i cant find them.

edit: found them

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Is the outfit feature fixed? I downloaded the Beta but then I could not change outfits so I went back to 2.3. I am only going to download 2.4 if someone can promise me that this feature is fixed. As far as I am concerned the other stuff can be worked around but the Outfit Feature is a must have!

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Awesome! Another version in the growing line of completely useless versions to ignore.

So um, on a more interesting note, any chance Linden Lab will take another crack at Snowglobe 1.x? Pretty please?

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External LSL editor feature is pretty sweet!

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That's an awesome way to improve the crash numbers,

I wonder when they'll think of that...

*eye roll*

I wouldn't trust any numbers that come out of the lab,

not since they chose to remove the public metrics feeds.

I'll stick to Tyche Shepard's numbers TYVM.

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I always assumed that cleaner (for UI's) also meant maximizing the visual space, not creating a sidebar monster that eats 1/4 of it every time it's open. Don't care that things can be docked and undocked. It opens every time I need to do something.

Plus, the beta was as unstable as it got. The crash detection didn't detect evena good 1/3 of the crashes I had with it. Plus with all the same features as Phoenix and even 2.3 turned on, it lagged down and badly.

Anyways, nice try, though. I'll stick with Phoenix, which doesn't have the sidebar.

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Where is the notification about land/group owners being required to assign new permissions to their hosts allowing the host to post notices in Events and that this new group permission being available ONLY in Viewer 2.4 and not in the third party viewers?

So, I got a frantic email from one of my hosts today. She was trying to list tonight's event, but could not select the venue from the drop down because she didn't have permission to list events on the group owned parcel. She has permission to do everything else short of selling the parcel, but suddenly she couldn't list an event at the parcel. Fortunately, I'm off real life work today so I was able to download Viewer 2.4, find the group that owns the venue, find the role my hosts are assigned to, find the host events permission and click it.

Thanks for the warning.

edited to add, btw, the next thing I'm going to do is uninstall Viewer 2.4

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Ummmm.... It's a beta. It crashes, that's why release cycles have betas, to find the crashes.

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And still no 64 bit version.. worse yet, no multimedia works in 64bit Linux.

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If you ask me, this viewer is 1 of the closest to functioning like v1.23. It has been awhile since I've used the old viewer, except in other worlds. Plus, V2.4 just has so much more than any v1.23. Yeah, I still hate the sidebar, but with a little more work on it, I really think I can live with it.

Hey, I hated the original v2, but since all the changes, I'm really starting to like it. Alot of things have much more functionality than v1.23 ever will, no matter what work is done to it. I regularly break off the uploading menu when I need to upload multiple animations or textures. I really think all those v2 haters need to give it another really good try.

The ability to customize the transparency of windows, really rocks! Not all the windows are affected tho. The minimap and camera controls need to be included. I set my active windows to .93 and my inactive windows to .35. What are your settings?

The only bad part is that I've been without voice for most of the last few versions. Of course, I've had sound issues ever since I got my new pc, and have yet to investigate it any further. There have been versions that voice and sound worked fine tho.

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For me 2.4 is more stable than 2.3, but I still have an issue where teleports time out and I get logged off (no crash). One of the third party viewers works (teleports) most of the time so I'm using it. But I like the features of 2.4 - if I could go anywhere with it.

I'll check jira for this issue and add it if it hasn't been added yet.

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I have been having trouble with the viewer crashing and now i can't even get back on, when did it wouldn't have anything on my inventory and then it would crash again ... tried others and same things going on then on the land to where out house is the music and things are messed up anyone else having troubles with SL?

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The appearance editor is still displaying incorrect height for avatar shapes. This has been the cause of a lot of confusion, with many animations being marked for incorrect avatar sizes and customers making misinformed decisions with animation and shape purchases based on false information provided by the viewer.

It also contributes, along with SL's poor camera placement, to SL's widespread scale problems. I'm hoping this can be fixed soon.

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2.4 has been great for me. I've had few crashes with it. I had a few crashs at first but the most recent version is very stable. The opaque water option has been great for when I'm fighting sailing ships. It's given a huge performance boost.

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Just installed 2.4 viewer. My friends names are all listed as "unkown" and my groups are not appearing in the group list at all. I crash when I try to teleport. I've tried relogging but problems still persists.

ADDED: ok... after a few relogs and clearing SL cache things seem to be back to "normal".

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where is the "opaque water option?

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