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Esbee Linden

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Blog Entries posted by Esbee Linden

  1. Esbee Linden

    Viewer 2.4 Released!

    By Esbee Linden,

    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
  2. Esbee Linden
    Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0) has been released today as the main Second Life Viewer! This is an important release for us because it marks the first big release using the Snowstorm process. A few months ago, we formed the Snowstorm Team as a dedicated Viewer team who works with the open source community and entirely in the open to make user experience improvements to the Viewer. We've been holding almost all our meetings in public, working with open source developers to integrate their work, sharing our backlog with the community, and releasing daily development Viewers which are available for anyone to download.
    Over the last few months, we've improved the velocity of our teams and shortened the release cycle. The Version 2.2.0 release today comes after a three-week beta cycle during which we released Betas weekly and focused on stabilization and crash fixes on the Beta Viewer. Your feedback, crash, and bug reports during our beta cycles are crucial - so thank you to all who participated in that process.
    Version 2.2.0 introduces some new features, usability enhancements, and crash fixes. Here are a few highlights:
    Sidebar Panels can now be undocked and turned into regular floating windows: Simply click on a Sidebar Tab and drag it away from the Sidebar to undock it. You can also click the undock icon in the top right of a panel. To redock a sidebar panel, click the redock icon in the top right of the panel. Once sidebar panels are undocked, they behave like any other floating window in the Viewer.

    Buttons on the Bottom Bar can now be reordered: In the last Viewer release, we added a few optional buttons to the Bottom Bar. In the 2.2.0 release, you can now reorder buttons on the Bottom Bar, so they’re arranged just the way you like them.

    Right-click on your avatar and select “Sit Down” to sit anywhere: A great feature that came to the Viewer, by way of Snowglobe, allows you to right-click on yourself and select “Sit Down” from the context menu to make your avatar sit anywhere. To stand back up, just click the “Stand Up” button or right-click on yourself again and select “Stand Up” from the context menu.

    Parcel Property Icons are now on by default: Parcel property icons indicate what users can, or can’t, do on a particular parcel. The icons can be found in the Location Bar and are now on by default. If you’d like to turn them off, you can do so by right-clicking the Location Bar and unchecking “Show Parcel Properties” from the context menu.

    Selection Beams are working again: In Viewer 2, there was a bug that hid selection beams. This made it hard for people to see when you were building or the object you were currently editing. This has been corrected!

    Language translations in local chat (via Google Translate API): Another great feature that came to the Viewer via Snowglobe is local chat translation. Simply click the “Translate chat” check box in the upper left hand corner of the local chat window. Language preferences can be set at the bottom of the Chat tab in the Preference window.

    Group permissions now work in Snapshots: This corrected a bug in Snapshots which prevented you from sharing a Snapshot texture with a Group.

    Turn off scripted particles and lights: This feature allows photographers and machinemists to turn off scripted lights by accessing the Debug Setting, “EffectScriptChatParticles” and setting it to FALSE. To turn scripted particles and lights back on, simply go to the Debug Setting window again and set “EffectScriptChatParticles” to TRUE.

    Builders can more easily align textures across linked prims using planar mapping: This feature allows builders to align textures across faces so that several prims can look like a single prim. Simply select the faces of a set of linked prims, then open the Textures tab of the Build tool, make sure your Mapping setting is set to “Planar”, then click the checkbox labeled “Align planar faces.”

    View profile inspectors via the Mini Map: When you hover over the little dots (people indicators) on the Mini-Map, you’ll see the familiar “i” icon pop open with a user’s name. Clicking the inspector allows you to view that user’s Mini Profile.

    Pan the Mini-Map with shift-drag: If you hold down the <SHIFT> key and then click and drag on the Mini-map, you can now pan the map to view other areas. As I mentioned in the blog post announcing the Version 2.2 beta, many of the features included in this release come directly from Resident contributions - via the Snowstorm process, as well as through past contributions to the Snowglobe project. Thank you to all of you who have contributed code, testing, and commentary. Please keep it up!
    The Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0) release is not a mandatory upgrade at this time, but will be the default download for the Second Life Viewer on the downloads page.
    You can view the full release notes for Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0) here.
    Download Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0)
    Win | Mac | Linux
  3. Esbee Linden
    Today, we’re releasing Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0 Beta) on our Beta release channel. This is an exciting release for us for two reasons. First, this release marks the first Viewer download since we announced the Snowstorm Team at SLCC in August. The Snowstorm Team has been working in the open to share our design and development process and directly engage with open source developers. Second, this beta release also marks the beginning of a new approach to our release process. Since we kicked off Project Snowstorm, we’ve made the latest Development Viewer available to Residents nightly so they can see our day to day progress and try out new things as soon as they’re in a build.
    In our Beta and Release channels, we will make Viewers available to you more frequently. Our plan is to update Betas weekly with new official releases happening every 3-4 weeks. This lets us get new ideas and features into your hands faster and it gives us the ability to react to your feedback more quickly.
    This latest beta release of Viewer 2 (Version 2.2.0 Beta), is mostly focused on bug fixes, but also includes some great user interface customization options. Here’s a quick run-down of what you’ll find in this release:
    Sidebar Tabs can now be undocked and turned into regular floating windows. The buttons on the Bottom Bar can be reordered. Right-click on your avatar and select “Sit Down” to sit anywhere. Parcel property icons (found in the Location Bar) are now on by default. Selection beams are working again. Language translations in local chat (via Google Translate API). Group permissions now work via the Snapshot tool. Turn off scripted particles and lights. Builders can more easily align textures across linked prims using planar mapping. View profile inspectors via the Mini-map. Pan the mini-map with shift-drag. Many of these features came to the official Viewer through resident contributions, both directly by way of the Snowstorm team, as well as indirectly through past contributions to the Snowglobe project. Thank you to all of you who have contributed code, testing, and commentary. Please keep it up!
    To view a full list of changes, see the Release Notes.
    Download the Beta Viewer : Windows | Mac | Linux
    Please note that, as always on the beta channel, we only support one beta viewer at a time. If you’re using an older Beta Viewer, then you will be asked to upgrade on your next login.
    Thank you!
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