Firestorm Viewer is cropping profile pictures in new update.

[Count Burks]

I needed to update the Firestorm viewer today. One thing that bothers me is how the developers felt they needed to redesign the Profile window and in doing so they have cropped the profile images into this little square box.

I do not see why everybody their profile image now suddenly needs to halve in size after all these years when many people put in time and effort to create a correct size thumbnail for their profile.

Also the pictures are too tiny now. I don't like it, change it back.

(maybe this was done a while ago, I just noticed it today)

 

I am curious to know what everybody else thinks about this little tiny thumbnail stamp.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

my version is gonna be locked sept 14th, i guess ill let you know then 😬

[Count Burks]

I just checked some profiles and it seems it might be a developer coding error of some sort. These were both opened in the same new viewer. One shows in the correct aspect ratio, still reduced in size while the other one is cropped into a square like most other profiles. There is plenty of room to the right available.

[Rowan Amore]

LL changed their ration on profile pictures awhile back so AFAIK, Firestorm followed to that everyone sees the same thing...

I believe LL went with the 1: 1 aspect ration on the newest viewer so yes, square it is.

Textures that are 1:1 ratio like 512x512, 1024x1024 will show in profile as 1:1 ratio.
Textures with 2:1 ration like 1024x512 will show with 13:10 ratio (approximately).

[Solar Legion]

Take it up with Linden Lab. On that, you're several updates late to the party.

[PekeNL]

Other viewers had this for a while. Same with the PBR firestorm viewer coming out. Suddenly people wake up to things that have been in the pipeline for a while now...

[Count Burks]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

LL changed their ration on profile pictures awhile back so AFAIK, Firestorm followed to that everyone sees the same thing...

I believe LL went with the 1: 1 aspect ration on the newest viewer so yes, square it is.

Textures that are 1:1 ratio like 512x512, 1024x1024 will show in profile as 1:1 ratio.
Textures with 2:1 ration like 1024x512 will show with 13:10 ratio (approximately).

That would explain what I see. I still wonder if squashing together or cropping 70 million user account pictures is a great design choice. @Linden Lab

 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

6 hours ago, Count Burks said:

That would explain what I see. I still wonder if squashing together or cropping 70 million user account pictures is a great design choice. @Linden Lab

 

 

It won't be that many, as many of us have used SQUARE profile pictures for YEARS, more than seven and a half in my case.

[Anicha Heartsong]

You can still use a 4:3 ratio pic. Delete the profile pic which has been cropped and restore your original. It will still work. The profile box will change to accommodate it.

That said, I've made a square profile pic instead, because that might not work for people viewing your profile from the LL viewer. Plus, the tiny, tiny version of your profile pic used for chat etc will be square. So your 4:3 profile pic will always get a bit distorted. Something to consider.

[Theresa Tennyson]

12 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

Take it up with Linden Lab. On that, you're several updates late to the party.

No, no, no, no, no! You don't understand how important it is to have a profile picture that matches the screen shape of a monitor that's old enough to be in high school! After all, when you print out things, you have a choice between showing them in "landscape" orientation or in "portrait" orientation which is....

 

 

Wait a minute...

[Paul Hexem]

Wasn't this change made like, a decade ago?

[Perrie Juran]

So have you filed a JIRA with Firestorm and can you share the link here for anyone who wants to follow this issue?

https://jira.firestormviewer.org/secure/Dashboard.jspa

[Count Burks]

15 minutes ago, Perrie Juran said:

So have you filed a JIRA with Firestorm and can you share the link here for anyone who wants to follow this issue?

https://jira.firestormviewer.org/secure/Dashboard.jspa

This is not a system bug but a design choice. If Linden Lab feels it is fantastic to halve people's user profile images and crop them into stamps there is no point in bug reporting this.

 

When you think about it, it is rather weird. The entire globe figured out in the 90's that widescreen TV's and imagery provide a richer viewing experience and is more easy on the eyes. However the user interface designers at Linden Lab were thinking the opposite and decided to go old school style again and just crop everything into a nice square stamp.

 

[Perrie Juran]

3 hours ago, Count Burks said:

This is not a system bug but a design choice. If Linden Lab feels it is fantastic to halve people's user profile images and crop them into stamps there is no point in bug reporting this.

Then first of all why the accusatory subject title if it is a Linden Lab problem??

Have you checked using the Official Second Life Viewer? Is the problem occurring with Linden Lab's Viewer?  If it is then JIRA's need to be filed with LL. If it is not happening with the SLV then a JIRA needs to be filed with Firestorm so they can fix it in their viewer.

If I encountered the problem I would be filing JIRA's but since I haven't I can't. I must have too much time on my hands. I just randomly looked at thirty profiles from my friend list PLUS I am a fully certified Profile Perv and I have not encountered this issue since 6.6.14 was released.

The Devs both at Linden Lab and Firestorm can not fix a problem if they can not duplicate it on their computers. This is why the person having a problem needs to file the JIRA. Then they are able to ask the needed questions so they are then able to duplicate and fix the problem. This is simply the way things are.

 

[Chike Nightingale]

In my LL Viewer, if you click on the pic in the profile, it pops out and expands, so it can be seen better.

[Count Burks]

2 hours ago, Perrie Juran said:

Then first of all why the accusatory subject title if it is a Linden Lab problem??

Because I am a Firestorm Viewer user. The Firestorm viewer is the one who is doing the cropping for "me". 

Rowan Amore pointed out in this thread the cause of the difference in profile picture sizes so this is not a bug but a design choice.

Textures that are 1:1 ratio like 512x512, 1024x1024 will show in profile as 1:1 ratio.
Textures with 2:1 ratio like 1024x512 will show with 13:10 ratio (approximately).

The fact remains that the user interface designers (most likely at Linden Lab) have decided to just squash people their profile pictures into a square (as a design choice) if the image doesn't meet the 2:1 ratio. Because of this you have now a huge amount of profiles with distorted images in them and tiny images like a post stamp. 

Going to add Anthony McGregor his profile as a good example of what is taking place:

As a user Anthony McGregor takes a screen capture, uploads it as his profile picture but because of Linden Lab their UI designers the picture gets squashed together into a square stamp. The same with me and with millions of others.

The following is a web picture of profiles as they have always been in the past:

The system has always been using this format so that users can just take a screenshot in the viewer and upload this as their profile image. I really fail to see why some UI designers need to come up with square stamps now and distort user images.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Count Burks

[AzureWaves]

5 hours ago, Count Burks said:

Because I am a Firestorm Viewer user. The Firestorm viewer is the one who is doing the cropping for "me". 

Rowan Amore pointed out in this thread the cause of the difference in profile picture sizes so this is not a bug but a design choice.

Textures that are 1:1 ratio like 512x512, 1024x1024 will show in profile as 1:1 ratio.
Textures with 2:1 ratio like 1024x512 will show with 13:10 ratio (approximately).

The fact remains that the user interface designers (most likely at Linden Lab) have decided to just squash people their profile pictures into a square (as a design choice) if the image doesn't meet the 2:1 ratio. Because of this you have now a huge amount of profiles with distorted images in them and tiny images like a post stamp. 

Going to add Anthony McGregor his profile as a good example of what is taking place:

As a user Anthony McGregor takes a screen capture, uploads it as his profile picture but because of Linden Lab their UI designers the picture gets squashed together into a square stamp. The same with me and with millions of others.

The following is a web picture of profiles as they have always been in the past:

The system has always been using this format so that users can just take a screenshot in the viewer and upload this as their profile image. I really fail to see why some UI designers need to come up with square stamps now and distort user images.

Aren’t profile photos 512x512 if you want to snap a square photos you can in SL?

[PekeNL]

On 8/29/2023 at 7:25 PM, Count Burks said:

I needed to update the Firestorm viewer today. One thing that bothers me is how the developers felt they needed to redesign the Profile window and in doing so they have cropped the profile images into this little square box.

This has been announced AND released literally a year ago. It's just Firestorm being slow with adapting it. I really can't understand the giant fuss over it. It's a picture... Just crop it?

On 8/29/2023 at 7:25 PM, Count Burks said:

Also the pictures are too tiny now. I don't like it, change it back.

Click on them to make them bigger? You know you can still do that right?

-----

Threads like this reminds me why SL has been stagnant for years, because with every little change, there's always someone getting their panties in a bunch. I mean, c'mon.. What are we talking about here? It's a picture...

[Zalificent Corvinus]

14 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

Wasn't this change made like, a decade ago?

Didn't 2:1 aspect ratio profile pics die with that viewer 1 nonsense, 13 years ago?

I know my viewer was quite happy with square profile pics 7 1/2 years ago.

 

Somebody needs to spend less time ranting that a more than 13 year old profile pic isn't looking that good these days, and more time taking a new damn picture, like say,

30 seconds.

[Count Burks]

16 hours ago, PekeNL said:

This has been announced AND released literally a year ago. It's just Firestorm being slow with adapting it. I really can't understand the giant fuss over it. It's a picture... Just crop it?

Since Second Life is supposedly a rich visual 3D experience, or so it claims to be. A place where people spend hours working on their avatar look and appearance and spend 100 USD to look good there should be more clarity in these things. 

What are we supposed to do now these days since Linden Lab continues to adjust, do we follow 2:1 on the right or square stamps like on the left? Why the different aspect ratios inside the same viewer?

 

Also good luck getting all new users to start cropping their profile pictures into square stamps.  Like I mentioned above, users just take a snapshot and upload it as their profile picture, that is why the "older system" was a better option in my opinion. For a lot of people this might just be a detail but I do not like watching distorted images. So again poor user interface design without thinking it through.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Count Burks

[Rowan Amore]

33 minutes ago, Count Burks said:

Since Second Life is supposedly a rich visual 3D experience, or so it claims to be. A place where people spend hours working on their avatar look and appearance and spend 100 USD to look good there should be more clarity in these things. 

What do we need now these days since Linden Lab continues to adjust, do we follow 2:1 on the right or square stamps like on the left? Why the different aspect ratios inside the same viewer?

 

Also good luck getting all new users to start cropping their profile pictures into square stamps.  Like I mentioned above, users just take a snapshot and upload it as their profile picture, that is why the "older system" was a better option in my opinion. For a lot of people this might just be a detail but I do not like watching distorted images. So again poor user interface design without thinking it through.

Most new users will snap a picture in SL and save to inventory.  Those save as 512x512 as in the first picture...

I upload mine at 1024x1024 in this picture.  Not sure why you think this is postage stamp size...

[Marianne Little]

I installed the new Firestorm, and the picture is still 4:3 in profiles. Not square.

Why? I have version 6.6.14 (69596). It is the new one, right?

EDIT to add: Half of my accounts has square profile pictures. I looked at all of them now.

Strange. You should think it was all.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Marianne Little
removed images

[Liaa Nova]

I don't know about ratios but did notice the groups are now at the bottom, not middle section and the profile photo is squashed. I hate it! Please leave things alone that aren't broken Firestorm

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

Since Second Life is supposedly a rich visual 3D experience, or so it claims to be. A place where people spend hours working on their avatar look and appearance and spend 100 USD to look good there should be more clarity in these things. 

What do we need now these days since Linden Lab continues to adjust, do we follow 2:1 on the right or square stamps like on the left? Why the different aspect ratios inside the same viewer?

 

Also good luck getting all new users to start cropping their profile pictures into square stamps.  Like I mentioned above, users just take a snapshot and upload it as their profile picture, that is why the "older system" was a better option in my opinion. For a lot of people this might just be a detail but I do not like watching distorted images. So again poor user interface design without thinking it through.

Heads up,  LL made it clear that 2:1 aspect was dead and buried when they deprecated Viewer 1, some 13 years ago. Viewer 2 and onwards used 4:3, but would accept 1:1. Then MORE than a year ago, they changed to !:1.

 

New users won't HAVE to change from 2:1 aspect because THEY HAVVE NEVER EVER USED 2:1 aspect. I've used 1:1 aspect for OVER 7 years. New users will ALL use 1:1 aspect, just like many of the people who joined SL in the LAST 13 years.

 

You've spent several days now, ranting about something that's been part of SSL for more than half it's lifetime, profile pics NOT being 2:1 aspect.

Just take a new damn picture.

[Chaser Zaks]

FS developer / bug hunter here:

I really wish people would stop posting misinformation. If you have a question, we have support that can answer questions.

LL has been using 1:1 for the longest time. Since web profiles specifically. The official viewer used web profiles exclusively, until they brought back the native profile floater a few releases ago. The official viewer's native profile viewer uses 1:1 on all images.

FS implemented a check so that if the width is not equal to the height, use the legacy size. The official viewer doesn't do this.

1:1 is the correct assumption, and honestly should be the only one, but people want the old 4:3 ratio, so that was added for those who still want that.

FS inherited the 1:1 from LL to better fit the specification standard that LL has laid out.

Additionally, this isn't cropping. Cropping implies removing portions of a image. This is resizing. Not really resizing either, since 256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 are all 1:1 naturally. 4:3 is arguably worse because it alters the image by making pixels at a ratio of 4:3. Pixels are 1:1, not 4:3.

 

Speaking on my own opinion, viewers should follow the official specification as closely as possible. As someone who is particular about the SL experience, stuff that works on one viewer should work the same on another viewer. The 4:3 check(if height != width), while not official, I can understand and wish LL would implement. However 1:1 as the default should be the default as that is what LL implements.

Reason why I feel this way: New residents are not going to immediately download a TPV. Stuff should be tailored to work on the LL viewer first. If you do something that a TPV viewer only supports, it will not work for a new resident. Telling a new resident "Download a TPV for it to work right" is the worst thing to do, as it implies SL is broken out of the box.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Chaser Zaks
Can't use the A word, replaced with "particular" instead.