[SL Flickr Pic of the Day]

oh MY EYES FEEL SO GOOD what VIBRANT COLOR omg

[R2D2 Creator to Judge Machinima Contest]

@TriJin, you hit it right on the nose: I get so excited seeing multiple SL features combined to make the proverbial "greater than the sum of its parts" shine. I enjoy using my 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator to snap stills, because dutch angles are underused in SL photography. How have your experiences been using realtime shadows and depth of field + antialiasing? I find it considerably slows performance and there are some weird rendering glitches around edges of things (noticeably on hair), so I've mainly been filming with antialiasing off. Dead End Thrills has been a cinematic inspiration to me, I hope you'll enjoy it too.

[Mesh goes gridwide: Create, sell, buy & enjoy all-new things in SL]

We Linden Lab Editors are looking for mesh awesomeness for our Destination Guide! We even have a special Mesh Showcase. We want to be sure to have you listed so other Residents can visit and rock out, so if you or someone you know is making mesh magic, submit your place to be included. And if you want to discuss more of your fave destinations — maybe even share some photos & videos 'cuz we're visual like that! — come visit our forum. I say thankee-sai.

[[GUIDE] Spring-Clean Your Inventory for a Happier Second Life!]

@Keli RL, what's that? Hehe, in RL I strive for minimal belongings, I've been converting what I can into digital forms. I always have a huge sigh of relief upon decluttering, or feel good giving unused stuff to thrift shops. Hopefully someone(s) will find a better use for that.

@Darcie55 Ah yes! All those hunt treasures add up — think about what you really use regularly, your favorites. Actually, that brings to mind: I also have FAVE folders for stuff like attachments (like certain HUDs) I use across many outfits. I wish there was a one-click way to "star" items (as you can on various web services, like Gmail... or even the 5-star rating system that iTunes has), then hide unstarred stuff. That would approach inventory management from the other end but be quite complementary.

That brings to mind an issue we come across a lot: I wish for it to be possible to browse inventory visually. Whether that's auto-generated previews like a floating 3D hologram (which seems very hard from the last time I asked), or even a way to link textures to folders so you could browse folders akin to iTunes album art, with picture previews of their contents. I know many creators already include a texture inside an outfit folder, showing a model wearing what's inside. The point is to obsolete the necessity to rez/wear things to find out what they are, which is disruptive if you've already got plans in motion. Thankfully, saving outfits helps you restore.

@Juliette Let me know how it goes for you! What you mention about sorting by sim is a great one if you have different "modes" where you need different item sets ready. It kind of parallels the real-world mindset of switching gears as you transition from work -> home life, or even between multiple jobs. Most of us wear a variety of hats.

I agree about filters, they haven't been changed in years but with the post-Viewer-2.x improvements for wearables, there should definitely be more fine-tuned options.

[[GUIDE] Get the Most Out of community.secondlife.com Search!]

@Cerise THANK YOU for that correction and clarification, I've updated the post and am going to forward that info to our community platform gurus.

[[VIDEO] Make Second Life Behave Better in the Background]

@Keli I can totally relate! Thank you re: my fashion, I was over at Zaara and couldn't resist.

@mally Thanx!

@Steve "-multiple" isn't necessarily "at the end" — and the BEST THING is there's an EASIER way. Do this:

1. Select Me menu > Preferences.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Check Allow Multiple Viewers.
4. Click OK in the PREFERENCES window.

You may need to restart the Viewer to start multiple Viewers, but aside from that, you're all set!

[[QUICKTIP] How to View Threaded Forum Posts]

@WolfBaginski Yeah, we've checking to see if we can actually modify or add explanatory text to the button name so it stands out more — seeing how many Residents asked for it on the last system. You're welcome!

[[VIDEO] Macros Save You Time with Frequently-Used Text and Images]

@Darrius Excellent points.

(1) I notice you asked earlier where the official help is for using this system. Look for Community Help in the top-right of many pages. For your specific curiosity, see the Images section: right now, you can only upload images to your personal gallery here. For security reasons, we don't allow linking to images already on the web (like Flickr).

(2) I've run into that and it definitely looks like a bug. I'll report it.

@Jack42 Cheers mate!

@Void I've been glad seeing this in early use. Thank you for sharing!

[Welcome to the New Second Life Community Platform]

@George Your encouragement is appreciated! Speaking of listening to customers, in response to hot Resident requests, I just did my first two posts on the new Tips and Tricks blog:

• [QUICKTIP] How to View Threaded Forum Posts
• [VIDEO] Macros Save You Time with Frequently-Used Text and Images

[Welcome to the New Second Life Community Platform]

@Kadah Thanks, I've escalated that problem to our Community Platform team. If anyone else is having the same image upload issue as Kadah, please say so.

@George *blush*

[Welcome to the New Second Life Community Platform]

@Kadah Thanks for the screenshot, which browser is that in? Does anything happen if you try to click "Image Upload" or "Image Options"? I saw that briefly before but haven't been able to reproduce it. It worked for me on an alt account (Torley Olmstead) on Chrome on Mac OS X.

[Welcome to the New Second Life Community Platform]

Friendly greetings everyone! It's awesome to be back.

Some bits I hope will help:

@Maureen Right now we're not allowing that due to security issues, see Yoz's explanation in http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Everything-Else/When-trying-to-use-images-I-get-this/qaq-p/704209 As for the future, I don't know.

@Marx Let's just say we had some fun with alt names when testing.

@Yoshi YESSSS! Definitely worth highlighting and using extensively.

@Holocluck Not sure of that yet, I notice the default RSS feed for this post has comments. Hm, worth researching.

@Ghosty Some web browsers show a special icon or other indicator that enables subscriptions. Various newsreaders like Google Reader also have feed detection.

@Lexbot You can definitely upload avatar pictures, but they're not shown in this section — look in Answers or the Forums to see early examples. For how to upload avatar pictures,

or read the text instructions I linked above in Maureen's reply.

@Sling Oh, we have a Community Feedback section.

[[QUICKTIP] Are you dancing uncontrollably? Use "Stop Animating Me"!]

Thanks guys! I stand — or dance — correct, there are some parties you just don't wanna stop... even if you're all liek QGGSAGEHGSADSGDAHSDDSHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

@Homeless I have this tendency to blurt out encouraging things to my virtual self!

[Join the Valentine’s Day Smooch-fest Event!]

Hey guise I took some pics!

Sum moar here

[[TIPS] Get the most out of your input devices!]

@Jura and Crim Correct me if my memory here is incorrect, but I thought the Flycam indicator was removed because it didn't disappear when the rest of the UI was hidden and making machinima? Not unlike how typing Alt-Ctrl-Shift-H leaves the "Hippos!" text. Well then, sounds like a better solution then would be to have the little Flycam text visible when the UI is, but hide it when the UI is hidden. Can you please file a bug @ http://jira.secondlife.com ?

@Rufus Two SpaceNavigators? Oh gosh that sounds EXTREME. I actually have two of them but haven't tried that yet! And yes, please do add other yet-undocumented info you find to the wiki, it exists to receive your knowledge so others may know! Thank you.

[[TIPS] Get the most out of your input devices!]

@Winter I haven't found a cheaper 3D mouse; somewhat like Wacom tablets, more affordable alternatives would be healthy to make devices more easily accessible.

@Aeronya Thanks for sharing your PS2 experiences. Game on!

I actually linked to Lifehacker's "macro" tag which shows ALL articles they have about macros. (See the right sidebar; they recently updated their interface; the new layout has some bugs.) Some prefer Autohotkey over PhraseExpress, so thanks for mentioning that.

@Jura I didn't know that still worked! Thanks! Specifically, it applies to "3DX-700028" (aka "SpaceNavigator SE I referred to above) on https://www.3dconnexion.com/buy/shop/view/ListView.html

@Medhue The stomp pedals TOTALLY SAVED ME when doing lots of rapid filming just yesterday, I was jumping between two computers (setting up alts for animations) and having a bigger target to hit when I wanted to record/stop worked so well.

As for a pen, have you tried the Wacom Bamboo series, or higher up, Intuos4?

@Boroondas I was ignorant about that because I don't use Linux, I've edited the original post. Thanks!

@Elite Garry's Mod is wild, I laugh so hard at those YouTube videos showing all the ways you can build contraptions. It's been years since I've visited a Future Shop. Hope it works for you!

[Viewer 2.5 Beta Now Available]

Yeah, the smorgasbord of in-Viewer aspect ratios drives me bonkers too. BUT! Something I should highlight because you mentioned this:

If they want to go square, then any Snapshot used will be squished.  That really is not acceptable.  Someone needs - if they are going to keep the AR to 1:1, to allow some simple editing program to select the square from the rectangular Snapshot.  That would solve ALL squishing forever.  Done.

If you upload an image to your web profile, while it will appear to crop it as a 1:1 square, you can click it to zoom in and see it at the correct aspect ratio. Like this (click to embiggen):

[[VIDEO] Stop outfit conflicts, attach multiple objects to the same point!]

@Winter I continue to be glad you followup and call out longtime hopes that have actually happened. This is no longer on a Duke Nukem timeline and — good gosh, that neck point, yeah, it's weird a lot of neck-y things like necklaces get attached to Chest or Spine, since that doesn't quite match common positional expectations. I don't know if/when that will happen.

@Medhue Yup, that's a good trick to search where you're wearing something (one of my alltime faves). Thanks for bringing that up — it's just confusing that you have to switch tabs from My Appearance to My Inventory, but we're been discussing future ways to better structure outfit editing.

@wolffang Go to Me menu > Preferences, click Chat tab, UNCHECK Play typing animation when chatting. Another classic fave of mine, maybe I should do a reminder tip.

@Sunder I don't know what % of Residents are on PPC, but on a parallel Mac thread, we made the decision to discontinue Panther (OS X 10.3) support awhile back just because so few people used it and we had to move forward for easier compatibility testing. http://bit.ly/es3exo Also from Apple's vantage, Snow Leopard doesn't support PPC, so in that sense, it's a matter of time and I do hope you find an upgrade path that works for you!

[[QUICKTIP] Annoyed with incoming chat popups? Disable 'em!]

@Ansariel Yes! I've shared many Resident suggestions in that vein. To this day, I still hear requests for a "minimalist UI" mode which would be well-suited for socializing, exploring, and examining content you've created without all the build and other windows in your face. For a more direct line about your suggestions, you can reach the "Snowstorm" Team through here.

@Yanik Freedom of choice. Some people LOVE notifications, others HATE 'em. I can be a voracious chatter at times, other times I need peace and quiet to research inworld activity.

[[QUICKTIP] Annoyed with incoming chat popups? Disable 'em!]

@Gideon I think that can be maddening, since aside from hyperlinks in local chat, what else really needs to be clicked?

On a somewhat related note, I miss how I used to be able to click UI elements when the UI was hidden (for machinima purposes), that behavior changed, too.

@Kelilinden Kewl!

@Alexandrea Fride I need to thank you!

@Gooden Thanks for weighing in and please do send your game to me!

Oh geez, you should've seen the internal email I just sent about how difficult it has been for me to search for stuff in Viewer 2.x.

Every time I've wrestled repeatedly with something in V2 — wondering if intuition from experience was right — I've reached out to Residents, and found I was far from alone. While I don't directly work on product design, I continually advocate for Resi voices who feel they're being ignored, and while it's been a long road making V2 reach "feature parity", as you allude to, it's healthy to have the choice of using 1.23.

I like Viewer 2.4 a lot better than 2.0, that's for sure, but there are numerous things I struggle with daily, and I always channel what Residents feel to other Lindens. (Discussions on such topics are best done with specific details, but that's beyond the scope of this quicktip.)

Since there's no substitute for actual hands-on use, I continue to encourage curiosity and exploration by highlighting useful aspects of all things Second Life. This helps Residents make informed decisions about available possibilities.

[[FIXED] Newer Residents *can* post to the forums and blogs!]

@ChuckBaggett Ah, I haven't used the "Social Identities" web profiles thing yet — it's been cool seeing various screenshots from Residents.

And re: logging in as "username Resident" to the wiki as a workaround, there's a downside worth knowing: when we properly fix the wiki logins as intended, your wiki.secondlife.com "username" login WILL BE A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT than the "username Resident" you earlier used, and having split accounts is confusing. If you can live with that, cool, but that's why we're not broadly recommending it.

[[FIXED] Newer Residents *can* post to the forums and blogs!]

@Argus There are some exciting changes underway... stay tuned...

@ChuckBaggett I've heard it discussed as a longer-term possibility, but I haven't got confirmation. I like that kind of consistency myself, though.

Re: associating accounts, more details on what you mean? I've seen that depend on the specific platform app.

@Suella INDEED! Also, in the it's-so-cliché-it's-true dept., we were all noobs once. And some people have made a lot more use of 1 month than others have with 1 year. "Oldbie" may be a marker of what events you were around to witness, but I want to know what you did as a result of it. Hence the term, "quality time".

[[GUIDE] HUD Essentials: control and fun for your Second Life!]

@Hippie Peace man!

@Gareth8 Hey, I'm always learning too — glad you found that useful!

@BlueSean Yes, that's definitely useful. While I didn't include it in the video, there are instructions on the guide: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/HUD#I_can.27t_see_my_HUD.21

[Giving Thanks for a Wonderful Winterfest!]

Hear, hear! My grateful appreciations to each and all who contributed to bring forth the 'fest! I enjoyed seeing the GOHA regions in their early stages, and having so much work culminate in parties like this is tremendous.

I'm so delighted I got to meet so many of you inworld having fun, and that includes eating snow. Between consumption of said frozen water, I took some pictures of the chaos at Thursday's Snowball Fight. Inevitably as time passes, it'll induce fond memories to look back (and before you know it, Winterfest 2011). Click through to see more.

Check out these related threads for many pics taken by your fellow Residents:

• Snowball Update
• Are we ready for SL holiday pics yet?

[[WIKI.SECONDLIFE.COM] Help pages upgraded for better performance]

@Jacob You can ALWAYS let me know about video tutorial requests. In fact, both of those ideas are great ones that came up earlier, but I've been on "standby" with the respective Lindens in those departments to do them, so it's still an open possibility.

@Irene More specifics please, is there an existing example on another site that gets close to what you want to see? Also, as you might already know, there's the "IN OTHER LANGUAGES" machine translation on every wiki page.