Viewer Tags

[JustinHeartShine]

I really think LL should bring back viewer Tags. The original viewer Tags weren't a security breach in my opinion as that was the official response for taking them down. They enabled us to help the true newcomers to SL as we knew what viewer they were on and it enabled is to help them learn how to do anything they wanted in thier viewer...it was that one viewer that seemed to ruin it. I forgot the name of it but when two people on that same veiwer saw each other it showed what windows you were using...that was the security breach. In my opinion that viewer should have just been told to limit that to just viewer like every other viewer. If this does not belong in this section please move to where it actually goes

[Nalates Urriah]

On 9/6/2019 at 6:46 AM, Alyona Su said:

Viewer tags were removed because many (most from my perspective) Emerald (Firestorm ancestor) users were belittling, berating, bullying others choosing not to use it and trying to convince every new user in SL to use it, creating support headaches for LL.

I fondly remember and believe Second Life was so much better before they open-sourced the viewer. The grid has gone to crappola ever since - not because of third-party viewers, but rather because of everything else like BOTs and other things.

As for any viewer (or anything else): Most popular doesn't mean best.

I agree the reason was Firestorm users abusing those not using Firestorm. I remember Jessica objecting to the reason, 'Naw, that can't be...' Then logging in with an alt and a non-Firestorm viewer. Oops! She was amazed at how bad it was.

I disagree on the open source point. In 2008 when I came in the viewer was open source. The Linden viewer was way buggy. A significant number of us used a viewer.... can't remember the name... or find it... started with an N... because the author was fixing bugs faster than the Lindens.

Then Emerald came along and starting adding features the Lindens thought we didn't need. Users loved it. At the time LL viewer devs were a bit on the arrogant side. The Emerald side was rebellious and sort of fighting with the Lindens.

Once the Emerald scandal was over the Phoenix Viewer team rose and did a great job (IMO) of adding new features. 

Eventually Oz Linden came on board and decided everyone needed to get on the same page. He set a loose but practical fence on what third-party devs could do with a viewer that connects to LL's SL grid. Oz is a big open source.

A number of third-party viewers are better than the LL SL Viewer. Black Dragon renders better, Catznip has inventory tools to make life WAY easier, Cool VL Viewer fixes bugs faster than most other viewer makers, Singularity is better for those with old or slow computers, Kokua... well... it used to be the best for prim builders, RLV is a script interactive viewer that provides features only found in Linden Experiences but that work everywhere and are free, and Firestorm which is the feature rich viewer most popular with users. And Firestorm had a primitive EEP years ago...

Without open source we would be stuck with a single viewer and very likely not have near the feature rich SL we have now. Open Source has been good to us.

[Alyona Su]

11 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

A number of third-party viewers are better than the LL SL Viewer. Black Dragon renders better, Catznip has inventory tools to make life WAY easier, Cool VL Viewer fixes bugs faster than most other viewer makers, Singularity is better for those with old or slow computers, Kokua... well... it used to be the best for prim builders, RLV is a script interactive viewer that provides features only found in Linden Experiences but that work everywhere and are free, and Firestorm which is the feature rich viewer most popular with users.

THIS. This has always been my position: ALL viewers are GREAT viewers (yes, even the LL Official) - because choice! I choose the Catznip for the exact reason you state. Others will choose for what they need, if they actually give the others a go. As for Firestorm being the most used (I say used, because "popular" may be a misnomer) is that most who use it were told as newbies that they "needed" to use it. I'm not saying this is fact, but rather the most common answer I get (90% of the time) when I ask. But there's nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I tell people they *need* to give Catznip special features a go, as well. LOL

[Alyona Su]

Viewer tags were removed because many (most from my perspective) Emerald (Firestorm ancestor) users were belittling, berating, bullying others choosing not to use it and trying to convince every new user in SL to use it, creating support headaches for LL.

I fondly remember and believe Second Life was so much better before they open-sourced the viewer. The grid has gone to crappola ever since - not because of third-party viewers, but rather because of everything else like BOTs and other things.

As for any viewer (or anything else): Most popular doesn't mean best.

[LittleMe Jewell]

6 hours ago, JustinHeartShine said:

 If this does not belong in this section please move to where it actually goes

Technically, you are giving a statement about your opinion, rather than asking a question.  This particular section is for asking questions, so yeah, it isn't really in the right place. 

For future reference, general discussions of things would typically go in here:  https://community.secondlife.com/forums/forum/321-general-discussion-forum/

Or possibly, since this is a discussion specific to viewers, here: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/forum/307-general-second-life-tech-discussion/

 

6 hours ago, JustinHeartShine said:

I really think LL should bring back viewer Tags. .............. They enabled us to help the true newcomers to SL as we knew what viewer they were on and it enabled is to help them learn how to do anything they wanted in thier viewer.

Simple solution:  Just ask them what viewer they are using.  It only take a few seconds to ask and get the answer.

Given the 'drama' that Tags can cause, I don't think this one tiny benefit of them is worth it.

[Claireschen Hesten]

I might be remembering wrong but i'm sure viewer tags were removed because creators of copybot/malicious viewers were spoofing their tags to make their viewers appear as one of the the legitimate viewers. while you might've been using Emerald, Imprudence etc. perfectly legitimately some people were using copybot viewers e.g "Johnsmith Xue's copybot viewer" or what ever they wanted to call it but making that viewer report as being Emerald, Imprudence etc. because no one wants to shout it from the rooftops they're a copybot viewer user

[Lindal Kidd]

I sort of agree with Justin.  As a helper person, it's useful to know at a glance what viewer a person is using.  Finding out by asking can take a surprisingly long time...

"What viewer are you using?"

"What?"

"The software that you are using to run Second Life.  There are several versions.  What one do you have?"

"I dunno"

"Go to the Help menu at the top of your screen.  Click it.  At the bottom of its list it will say "About XXXX"  What does it say for "XXXX"?

"It just says About Second Life."

On the other hand, I remember some of those viewer class wars, too.  We are much better off without those!

Those who are "true newcomers" almost always have the LL viewer.  They haven't had time to find out about third party viewers yet.

[Alyona Su]

11 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I sort of agree with Justin.  As a helper person, it's useful to know at a glance what viewer a person is using.  Finding out by asking can take a surprisingly long time...

"What viewer are you using?"

"What?"

"The software that you are using to run Second Life.  There are several versions.  What one do you have?"

"I dunno"

"Go to the Help menu at the top of your screen.  Click it.  At the bottom of its list it will say "About XXXX"  What does it say for "XXXX"?

"It just says About Second Life."

On the other hand, I remember some of those viewer class wars, too.  We are much better off without those!

Those who are "true newcomers" almost always have the LL viewer.  They haven't had time to find out about third party viewers yet.

OR... You could just start with:

• /me "I want to help you, so go into the HELP menu and tell me what what the ABOUT menu item says."
• /they: "About Second Life" (or "About Firestorm" or "About Catznip", etc.)

Edited September 7, 2019 by Alyona Su

[Mollymews]

16 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

A significant number of us used a viewer.... can't remember the name... or find it... started with an N... because the author was fixing bugs faster than the Lindens.

Nicholas Beresford

pretty much every viewer has code in it that Nicholas wrote. Nicholas released his viewer build early-ish 2007 which was the first available open sourced 3rd-party viewer.  Emerald was pretty much Nicholas Viewer with shinies. Same with a whole bunch of others at the time including all the different mafia viewers

[Wulfie Reanimator]

On 9/7/2019 at 4:44 AM, Claireschen Hesten said:

I might be remembering wrong but i'm sure viewer tags were removed because creators of copybot/malicious viewers were spoofing their tags to make their viewers appear as one of the the legitimate viewers. while you might've been using Emerald, Imprudence etc. perfectly legitimately some people were using copybot viewers e.g "Johnsmith Xue's copybot viewer" or what ever they wanted to call it but making that viewer report as being Emerald, Imprudence etc. because no one wants to shout it from the rooftops they're a copybot viewer user

Viewers still identify themselves, just not to other viewers. Similarly, any viewer can identify itself as any viewer.

Firestorm and the like just always use their "real" name to stay in compliance with the Third Party Viewer Policy that LL has, but I don't think LL can actually figure out if someone's homebrew viewer is using someone else's name. It's the nature of having an open-source viewer. Anybody can make their own viewer and call it anything.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Nalates Urriah]

On 9/10/2019 at 6:20 AM, Alyona Su said:

...  As for Firestorm being the most used (I say used, because "popular" may be a misnomer) is that most who use it were told as newbies that they "needed" to use it. I'm not saying this is fact, but rather the most common answer I get (90% of the time) when I ask. 

We know more people use Firestorm than any other viewer because the Lindens, who track that information, say around 75% of users login with Firestorm.

Why they use it or tried it isn't tracked. I doubt anyone actually knows. My opinion is most try it, for whatever reason, and find a feature they like and stay with it. It is what I did.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

We know more people use Firestorm than any other viewer because the Lindens, who track that information, say around 75% of users login with Firestorm.

Why they use it or tried it isn't tracked. I doubt anyone actually knows. My opinion is most try it, for whatever reason, and find a feature they like and stay with it. It is what I did.

And -- since SL seems to mostly consist of long-term users -- people are used to / prefer the old UI styles.

And the ripple effect of new users being told by old users to just download Firestorm.

[Alyona Su]

11 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

We know more people use Firestorm than any other viewer because the Lindens, who track that information, say around 75% of users login with Firestorm.

Why they use it or tried it isn't tracked. I doubt anyone actually knows. My opinion is most try it, for whatever reason, and find a feature they like and stay with it. It is what I did.

I always ask why they use it. Most that I ask say someone said they should (about 80% or so of those say it was suggested, the others say they were told LL viewer bad, must use FS ~shrugs~)  - Though, more importunely, or rather, more surprising to me is that maybe 30-50% of those I ask say there's nothing special about the features, they rarely mess with preferences at all. Hahaha! Most of the FS features are also in Catznip, though I do appreciate how they are all combined into the Settings widget on FS, where with Catznip: they are scattered through the system, but I also appreciate how Catznip is a near zero learning curve when coming from the Official LL viewer. Though, to be fair: My sampling doesn't even make a ripple in the pool of users using it LOL!

I thinks it's all really moot, other than when people try to offer help and always provide FS-specific methods without stating it is an FS-specific method; they should specifically state it is FS method.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 9/12/2019 at 5:57 AM, Alyona Su said:

I thinks it's all really moot, other than when people try to offer help and always provide FS-specific methods without stating it is an FS-specific method; they should specifically state it is FS method.

I've noticed new users have no idea how to provide information to get quick help. But, those answering often make assumptions that lead to confusion and wasted time. So, being clear would help.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

On 9/6/2019 at 7:46 AM, Alyona Su said:

Viewer tags were removed because many (most from my perspective) Emerald (Firestorm ancestor) users were belittling, berating, bullying others choosing not to use it and trying to convince every new user in SL to use it, creating support headaches for LL.

I fondly remember and believe Second Life was so much better before they open-sourced the viewer. The grid has gone to crappola ever since - not because of third-party viewers, but rather because of everything else like BOTs and other things.

As for any viewer (or anything else): Most popular doesn't mean best.

I need my bots for modeling, I do not have time to stand around and model them.    I work to much and that would be a nightmare.

[Alyona Su]

And before now, kids would actually go outside and get exercise, growing up with more brain power and weighing less. But they need the Internet for mental vegetating. Bots are still a scourge on the SL grid in my mind. Modeling bots are for your entertainment, not the shopper, unless your bots can take on the shopper's shape and mesh body? Handing out a demo is both wiser and more efficient. But hey, it's your electric bill, so keep on keeping on.