The Linden Roadmap

[PeterCanessa Oh]

Long time, no update.

What's the latest on Mesh, Script Limits, etc?  Anyone know, or is it all web-profiles and **bleep**-book

[Luc Starsider]

Don't know about most of the things you ask, but transcripts from mesh OH (or user group meetings) are here.

I wish LL would provid a roadmap, though.

- Luc -

[Shockwave Yareach]

Boiled down, Mesh could be done today if everyone was running a V2 viewer.  But since there is wide rejection of all the good of V2 because of some bad UI decisions, we are stuck in a hodgepodge universe where some people have viewers capable of meshes but most people are not.  The prim equivalency question also hasn't been resolves as far as I know, only a proposed direction. 

The only way this will be solved is by the Lab's announcing that in 3 months time, nothing prior to V2.5 will be able to access the grid anymore.  TPV makers will have that much time to move their codebases and modernize their products, or be left behind.  People are creatures of habit (which is one of the problems with V2 UI) and won't change something that works unless they have to.  While I normally detest such high handed methods from LL, they've been far more brutal over stupider issues than this in the past.  So why stop now?  It's been a year since mesh was prototyped.  Either get it into the world or abandon V2.  Pick a direction and move already.

I personally have only a few dislikes with the UI of V2.  But then, I'm used to working with complex "designed by blind octupuses" interfaces in industrial settings.  A few tweaks to the UI of V2 would fix many people's complaints.  But whether the UI is clumsy (it is), designed by sadists (it isn't) or written by demons in some middling level of hades for our torment, if we want toys like Mesh, Shadows, dynamic lighting, transparent skins (so we don't need invisiprims to hide limbs in order to have unusual avatars), improved particles or shared P2P folders, and who knows what else, we have to close the chapter on 1.23 and get this vehicle moving once again.  And hopefully some enterprising TPV will put a 1.23 UI onto the 2.5 code and make everyone happy.  But enough is enough.  It's time to **** or get off the pot already.

[Luc Starsider]

 

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

... if we want toys like Mesh, Shadows, dynamic lighting, transparent skins (

so we don't need invisiprims to hide limbs in order to have unusual avatars

)...

---

 

Uhmmmm..... Perhaps I misunderstand what you are actually saying, but you don't need invisiprims anymore. That's what alpha layers are for, and to my knowledge, all TPV's support them (at least the most popular ones). Alpha layers actually work very well.

- Luc -

[Deej Kasshiki]

 

 

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

Boiled down, Mesh could be done today if everyone was running a V2 viewer.  But since there is wide rejection of all the good of V2 because of some bad UI decisions, we are stuck in a hodgepodge universe where some people have viewers capable of meshes but most people are not.  The prim equivalency question also hasn't been resolves as far as I know, only a proposed direction. 

The only way this will be solved is by the Lab's announcing that in 3 months time, nothing prior to V2.5 will be able to access the grid anymore.  TPV makers will have that much time to move their codebases and modernize their products, or be left behind.  People are creatures of habit (which is one of the problems with V2 UI) and won't change something that works unless they have to.  While I normally detest such high handed methods from LL, they've been far more brutal over stupider issues than this in the past.  So why stop now?  It's been a year since mesh was prototyped.  Either get it into the world or abandon V2.  Pick a direction and move already.

I personally have only a few dislikes with the UI of V2.  But then, I'm used to working with complex "designed by blind octupuses" interfaces in industrial settings.  A few tweaks to the UI of V2 would fix many people's complaints.  But whether the UI is clumsy (it is), designed by sadists (it isn't) or written by demons in some middling level of hades for our torment, if we want toys like Mesh, Shadows, dynamic lighting, transparent skins (so we don't need invisiprims to hide limbs in order to have unusual avatars), improved particles or shared P2P folders, and who knows what else, we have to close the chapter on 1.23 and get this vehicle moving once again.  And hopefully some enterprising TPV will put a 1.23 UI onto the 2.5 code and make everyone happy.  But enough is enough.  It's time to **** or get off the pot already.

---

 

This is an old saw and no matter how many times it's repeated it doesn't make it true.

If the only thing that was holding up mesh, and the other shinies you mentioned was v2 acceptance I believe LL would have already pulled the trigger on the 1.x viewers. My understanding is that there are still multiple major bugs and numerous technical issues that still need to be worked out before mesh is ready for general use.This is aside from the fact that although you're now on the v2 bandwagon there are still MAJOR flaws in the viewer's usability. We won't even start on the hideous UI. LL knows there would be a major uprising if they summarily killed off the 1.x series now.

Has v2 made some progress since it was forced onto us half-baked? Yes. Is it ready for general use by the majority of residents? No. Not by a long shot and LL knows it. That's why even they won't try and force it on us just yet.

 

[Ishtara Rothschild]

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

Boiled down, Mesh could be done today if everyone was running a V2 viewer. But since ...

---

...since Linden Lab don't listen to their customers and refuse to make the long overdue changes to the viewer 2 UI that the SL community has been demanding over and over again, and instead renders viewer 2 more and more unusable (can you say web profiles?), SL residents have no choice but to use third party viewers that currently don't support mesh and wouldn't even exist if LL had not open sourced the viewer code, thus allowing the SL community to take the client development out of LL's corporate hands.

[Ann Otoole]

For Mesh you want the Mesh User Group:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/UserGroup

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/UserGroup/Archive

The basic summary for Mesh is they are still debugging stuff. Read through the meeting transcripts for details.

 

For Scripting you want the Scripting User Group:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Scripting_User_Group

There is some useful information about inventory in this transcript:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Simulator_User_Group/Transcripts/2011.03.08

 

Basically those interested in keeping up with current events need to try to pick as many User groups as they can handle and try to attend the meetings or at least read the transcripts.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:User_Groups

 

A suggestion I think needs to be formulated and put forth is that someone be appointed to try to create a weekly digest of all solid info from all user groups and have an easy to read summary of what all is going on that is public (not "sekret"). It is kind of hard to read all those transcripts without ADD kicking in.

[Ossian1488303077]

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

Boiled down, Mesh could be done today if everyone was running a V2 viewer.  But since there is wide rejection of all the good of V2 because of some bad UI decisions, we are stuck in a hodgepodge universe where some people have viewers capable of meshes but most people are not.  The prim equivalency question also hasn't been resolves as far as I know, only a proposed direction. 

The only way this will be solved is by the Lab's announcing that in 3 months time, nothing prior to V2.5 will be able to access the grid anymore.  TPV makers will have that much time to move their codebases and modernize their products, or be left behind.  People are creatures of habit (which is one of the problems with V2 UI) and won't change something that works unless they have to.  While I normally detest such high handed methods from LL, they've been far more brutal over stupider issues than this in the past.  So why stop now?  It's been a year since mesh was prototyped.  Either get it into the world or abandon V2.  Pick a direction and move already..

---

You're right: that is a brutal solution.

One of the problems with it is that builders and developers are the only ones who care about mesh.

Personally, I can wait. I don't need mesh today or even tomorrow.

And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[Shockwave Yareach]

Ossian: the odd thing is, I'm not even all that excited about Mesh myself.  I may start playing with google Sketchup after it goes live, but otherwise I'm not concerned.

I am concerned that all progress and improvements in the world have ground to a stop because people don't like the UI of V2.  Me, I use V2, because like all the rest of you I too am a creature of habit.  Once you use it awhile, it won't bother you.  So here we are with the following connundrum -- people can be happy with the dead end V1, or they can be temporarily unhappy with V2.  One has a future and the other doesn't.  I'm the first to admit that much of the UI in V2 isn't what I like.  But the great improvements under the hood are worth it imho.

[Ossian1488303077]

Your reply makes me feel a little better!

Maybe it will make you a little happier to know that Firestorm is in beta now... which is the Phoenix team's V2 viewer.

The Imprudence team is trying to get Kohua, their V2 viewer, out as well... they are trying to finish their last V1-based release.

[PeterCanessa Oh]

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Ann Otoole wrote:

A suggestion I think needs to be formulated and put forth is that someone be appointed to try to create a weekly digest of all solid info from all user groups and have an easy to read summary of what all is going on that is public (not "sekret"). It is kind of hard to read all those transcripts without ADD kicking in.

---

Indeed, which is why I don't read them all.  I was rather hinting that Linden Lab should appoint someone to do at least monthly updates on the roadmap.  In fact I think that's exactly what they said they were going to do ... about 6 months ago.

/me waves - Hello, LL, a bit of communication here!

[Void Singer]

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

Boiled down, Mesh could be done today if everyone was running a V2 viewer.  But since there is wide rejection of all the good of V2 because of some bad UI decisions, we are stuck in a hodgepodge universe where some people have viewers capable of meshes but most people are not.  [...]

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exactly who keeps feeding you this load of crap? mesh support hasn't got a thing to do with TPV's... period. stop. end of line.

as for v2... come on, seriously? you're really going to run with "it just a UI problem" ? have you been through jira recently? I'm not talking about new bugs, I'm talking about things that used to work just fine, that V2 broke.... lets talk about command line parameters that completely break the ability to edit any sort of text inworld, or cut the legs off of top line video cards because they haven't bothered to updated GPU tables (and why the hell are they relying on tables when they should be polling capabilities?) but broke the ability to manualy override it? how about profiles that won't stay saved because they can't get openID working right? and sure, why not, lets talk about a UI problem... like the fact that LL went with a 3rd rate company that insisted on non-modular codebase that every rapid development market began throwing away in the 90's FFS. and lets not forget all the media and search issues, which require back door access to cookies and javascript to even be able to use search or see profiles... and those are ones I just dealt with in the last 3 days... they all used to work, and now for multiple months, do not.

I'm all for the new goodies, don't get me wrong, but it's BS to say that TPV's are holding up mesh development (if desired, LL could shut them all out tomorrow), or that ugly oversized, hard to read and harder to fix UI is the only problem with V2...

and instead of repeating this rubbish, show up to some of the office hours user group meetings, and get the ACTUAL reasons direct from the source of the Lindens working on Mesh and everything else.

[Shockwave Yareach]

I don't know what issues you are talking about.  I'm running on a top end computer with a top end card myself and my picture is fantastic.  Bugs?  2.5 runs for hours and hours on end with no complaints and no faults, better than I ever could do with 1.23 (which always crashed after 2.4 hours). 

I never said 2.5 was flawless.  I've never seen any viewer from anybody that was.  But except for the UI issues (seriously, what's so hard about the two buttons bottom right for Play/Stop of parcel music and parcel video?) I get outstanding reliability, fps, and picture quality.  Other people's milage may vary but my results have been so stellar that I put up with the **ap interface to have them.

[Deej Kasshiki]

I don't think anyone's arguing that v2 is working for you Shockwave. The issue was your contention that it is the 1.x TPVs and "we hate change" userbase that's holding back SL's advancement. The major technical issues with this platform as well as a series of bizarre managerial and business decisions are holding SL back far more than user (un)acceptance of the horrid v2. Since when has LL cared about resident feedback or changed direction based on resident opinion? If all the new shiny was even halfway ready to go and could only be used with v2 you'd better believe that LL would pull the plug on 1.x viewers faster than a noob would stumble onto freebie "body attachments".

[Shockwave Yareach]

The gross incompetence of SL's management is a given.  But even if they went and said "turn all the new toys on today!", only those with the newest LL viewers would be able to see them.  This would create a haphazard world where some people start walking into walls they cannot see, ignore warning signs that are not visible, see avatars differently from other people on other viewers, etc.  If you think I'm a LL cheerleader (boy howdy!) please take a look at my writings for the past 3 years.  I've screamed at the top of my virtual lungs that LL is running their product into the ground and destroying it, and recent history bears me out on this. I've even been temp banned due to my acid pen, which I struggle to keep in its holster even now.

What I think needs doing is keeping the 2.5 code under the hood and fixing most of the UI.  I'd go even further and simply seperate the entire sidebar into a daughter window with all Messages as tabs on the top, so people with dual displays can have everything up at once and laptop folks can have the world window in front and below the comm window, and be able to see the flashing tabs that signal an IM.  But regardless of the state the viewer will be in, it IS all of you rejecting the V2.5 codebase that are holding up the improvements in the world.  Unless LL wants to see a world where what you see depends on what viewer you run, they have to wait until everyone is on board with viewers (any viewers) that can render the new stuff.  And by insisting on sticking with an old viewer, you cannot render the new stuff.  So the new stuff cannot come out.

It makes no sense that so many of you complain about problems with crashes and lack of reliability when you won't step out of the old jalopy wreck that's responsible for so many of the problems in the first place.  Much improvement has gone into the code underlying 2.5 yet you'll never experience it because the UI isn't what you are used to.  Fine and dandy.  What people want to run is their own business.  But don't try to convince the world that it's the lab's fault nothing is being changed or improved when it is all of you on 1.23 after all this time who are the ones refusing to change and standing still.  The lab has updated its code -- you guys running 1.23 have not.  So no matter how you butter the toast, the new visual toys are not out because so many of you won't run something (TPV or LL) that is capable of visualizing them. 

Unless there's a magic trick which embues mystical capablity upon the 1.23 code, giving it psychic ability to be able to run code not written when it was completed to render items not thought of when it was completed to generate rasters unheard of back then and with protocols undreamed of and compressions of 1000:1 using algorithms unimagined when 1.23 was finished.  I would love to know how 1.23 codebase is able to incorporate all the new features coming out.  Many have been my efforts to add a magic scrying mirror to my code, and I always get a "ERRor -- futuresight.lib not found" problem when compiling.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

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Shockwave Yareach wrote:

What I think needs doing is keeping the 2.5 code under the hood and fixing most of the UI.

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This is exactly my understanding of the process the TPV's are undergoing now. They are shredding through the v2.x codebase, bringing it over into their work environments, then grafting on the UI that they've proven to work so well.

From what I can tell, new users are the predominant users of v2.x .. and those attempting to help them learn SL. Both of those groups spend very little time building, creating and socializing. Those that make the transition to "Resident", meaning they actually spend productive or social time in SL move to a TPV for their primary experience.

If LL did as you suggest, turn on all the new shinies today, no one would really capitalize on them until the TPV's had finished their versions .. and then you would see a logarithmic increase in adoption of the toys. But before then? Sure the newbies and mentor types could see that stuff, but they wouldn't be using them or building with them.

Not strictly of course. There will be early adopters and those willing to suffer the intrinsic problems with the v2.x UI to get a head start. But the real bulk of users that actually work with the new toys .. wouldn't start until the v2.x codebase is available in a package that the experienced and everyday user knows and can use.

[Deej Kasshiki]

I wish I knew what all this instability and terrible performance is that you claim for 1.23 Shockwave. If it was all that terrible then why are so many people using viewers based on that code? I use Snowglobe, the Lab's first crack at getting their issues fixed for free via the open source community and it works very well for me.

I am well aware of your posting history and know you're the farthest thing from a member of the LL Cheerleading Squad & Glee Club. I especially appreciated your passionate and well reasoned arguments on the teen grid merge. That's what surprises me about your stance regarding v2. It's a flawed piece of software and a look through these pages, the old forums or the JIRA confirms that people had and are still having major issues with the software, aside from the UI. The 1.x viewers aren't on trial here. They have issues of course. But they're not the problem, v2 is the problem. If it worked and met the needs of the vast majority of users they'd flock to it.

I won't use the damned thing not out of a desire to hold anything back; its low contrast strains my eyes, its counterintuitive organization kills my workflow, it makes it very hard for me to communicate via the bizarre choices LL made with the UI, its performance on a top of the line 8 month old MacBook Pro is atrocious. Those are my reasons for staying away from v2 and they're valid in my case. It has nothing to do with philosophy. If the piece of crap would give me better than 12 fps and they just made the old style console chat an option I'd try it out again.

The bottom line is that people won't jump to v2 until it meets their needs, regardless of any benefit of the newer code. LL understands that v2 still does not meet people's needs and will not kill off the 1.x viewers until a) the TPV devs have released stable viewers based on v2 and b) mesh is ready for prime time, IMO

So don't be so fast to condemn people who stick to the 1.x viewers and assume that we're dinosaurs. I'm an IT pro the same as you and if I feared change I'd have been out on the street 20 years ago looking for another line of work. People do have valid reasons for not jumping to v2. Blame LL for that, not us.

[Ardin Darkfold]

There are a lot of non-techie residents desperately clinging to viewer 1.23.  They are in that position because, like me, they downloaded the early release versions of viewer 2 and were traumatized by the experience.  The program was full of bugs, crashed constantly, slowed SL to a crawl when it would load at all, and that is not even going into the resident-unfriendly interface choices.  This seems to be a pattern with Linden, rushing out "improvements" without any consideration of the fact that the vast majority of residents are not IT professionals and just want everything to load and work so they can chat, shop, and play.  I have used viewer 2 exclusively since 2.3 came out and have seen it improve steadily.  Still, viewer 2 will never gain any traction unless Linden understands that the public relations problem is just as important and serious as the technological wizardry.