Hitomi Tiponi

Yancy - you should be able to still use any of the TPVs or Viewer 1.23.5, and you can download earlier versions of Viewer 2 from the SL wiki as well if that helps.

Thanks for declaring your true allegiance, and the advert, Darkfyre. I was disappointed not to hear about how your crash-rate and script engine were superior to LL's...oh wait a minute, I know why. SL and Opensim both have their merits, but the arrogance with which you treat ordinary residents, and misinformation you ply, does no credit to the Opensim community at all.

I also note that it is not possible to block people on your Friend's List from seeing you when you are online. I've tested this and it seems to work fine - just untick the box in 'Notes and Privacy' of the avatar you want to be unable to see you when online - it may take a little while to take effect of course.

Anyone else have the issue of after a while of being loggin in names become question marks? This is a well-known problem that was caused as an unexpected consequence of some changes - it happens at times and not others. The Lindens are fixing it for future releases.

P.S. You better listen to me! Sant Claus! I didnt mentioned fact that sculpts load slower that previous viewer and i have no idea why you set that lod factor to 1 instead 5!!!!!!!! `Be glad it's '1' - it was '0' in an earlier release until we pressured them to change it. Lower LOD values do impove performance.

Unfortunately, with this release, you broke all <a href=url target="_blank"> links before, when you clicked on something with target="_blank" an external browser window would open. Are you saying that you were exploiting a bug in the old version - or is this really what you would expect a system to do? If it is the latter please raise a JIRA bug report for it.

I'm not finding any difference in loading textures between 2.3 and 2.4. Sometimes a cache corruption can cause problems.

Will they fix the website bug so new residents can actually log in to their accounts, the JIRA and the forums, it's only been a month or so with no word from LL other than they "have a problem". You can follow the progress of this at WEB-3308 - It has been assigned, but the area that will be dealing with it are not the best at communicating progress, if there is any.

Kristen - you may be pleased to hear that the Snowstorm team have got this task - STORM-761 (As a SL developer, I want to help unblock development of Windlight Estate Settings code so that we can move forward with this feature development) in their current Sprint. This will just be a first step, and I expect it will take a while but it is clear that they are looking at this. If you like the idea you might like to vote for STORM-761.

Most of the development work in Viewer 2 is constantly being reviewed by the many of us that download their Snowstorm daily (or more often) releases. This means that issues get logged and noted earlier - so it should mean that the Beta and full releases have less bugs. That doesn't mean they are all spotted and occassionally some bugs get re-introduced by apparently unrelated changes (e.g. the '???' bug on names). Esbee tells it as it is - she knows that Viewer 2 isn't perfect, but it is getting better - I'd rather we had more Lindens like that rather than the stuff the PR focussed Lindens give us on stuff like Display Names - they don't realise that we'd rather they were honest about failings and limitations. Totally agree with you on releasing new versions at the end of a week - it is foolish to roll it out just before a weekend.

For 'Opaque Water' go to 'Preferences->Graphics', select 'Advanced' and then ensure that 'Transparent Water' is unticked.

One big improvement for those on lower-powered machines is 'opaque water' - it not only speeds up performance but actually makes the water look better if you are not using shaders.

In my case, it's not irrational, it's based on a single issue. The im notifications/windows are simply too difficult to see. In my business (live music venue owner/promoter) being able to track and respond to multiple ims (often half a dozen simultaneously) while keeping eye on my surroundings and open chat is simply too important. In V.2, it's just way too difficult to see when you have an im incoming and keep track of multiple simultaneous conversations. When I want to see someone's profile, Phoenix lets me do so by just clicking on the name in the chat or im box. I can't function with a profile taking up half my screen (often the profile of someone I know well, like one of my hosts). Have you tried using tabbed IMs - it is very similar to tabbed IMs in 1.x - but without the linked in local chat (but if you balance the tabbed IM window above it works pretty well)? With the profile problem try detaching the profile from the sidebar and then resizing it smaller as much as possible. It won't go as small as Viewer 1 but is not as bad as it used to be (though the room that the name takes is ridiculous); minimise it when finished with and then when you select another profile it will open at the same smaller, detached size. One issue for club owners I have also heard is one of opening multiple profiles - but I believe this may be addressed when the team which is re-doing profiles reports back. Hope that helps.

As Terveys has noticed, when adding Viewer 2.4 Beta 2 yesterday LL appear to have broken the download link for Windows. No doubt they will fix this soon, but until this then I suggest you use the link in the release notes mentioned in Jack's message. Beta 2 improves handling of opacity in the windows and of avatars names. Also the animation now works when a snapshot is saved, like it always did prior to Beta 1.

Samm - some of the ProductEngines (the contractors LL has working for them) decided that this would be a good idea for the chat toasts. I have asked them to rethink it - unfortunately it is hard-coded, so I cannot change it in the StarLight skin, a new version of which has just been released as well.

One really unpublicised good feature for lower spec machines in 2.4 Beta is the work of the Opaque Water Project - With no shaders on and 'Transparent Water' unticked water doesn't just look better it also gains you around 5 FPS - a great improvement.

Please make the background download optional. To brute force a background download is a particularly bad idea for folks on slow, metered or mobile connections. The option can be unset in the "Preferences" - but I would also like to see it being 'opt-in' rather than 'opt-out'.

Is this a Chinese Govt run Blog ? Seems like a whole bunch of comments got deleted. Maybe they felt it wasn't the Hara and Rene blog either!

Looks like they are working on it as they have assigned a generic address to working on it. November 25th - Yoz Linden changed the Assignee to 'WorkingOnIt Linden' on WEB-3308 (I can't use the blogs with my newly created account created with the new "Username" one name system)

The '???' issue is a known and reported bug that LL will be fixing.

Viewer 2.1 will no longer work. If you can't get 2.3 to work I suggest you wait for Viewer 2.4 Beta (which should be out in the next couple of days). From my own tests 2.4 Beta is the fastest Viewer 2 yet on low-powered machines, but it may also be the buggiest thanks to a lack of proper QA at LL nowadays.

There are now two forms of recording IMs/chat - the standard text files and a more detailed .llsd file (currently without an easy viewer but it opens ok in WordPad). If anyone wants to comment on or suggest viewer ideas I suggest the Snowstorm Product Backlog & Idea Discussion Meeting (Wednesdays from 8:00am to 9:00am PST) held by Snowstorm Product/Business Lead, Esbee Linden - 'If you have ideas for Viewer improvements, usability enhancements, new features, or just have questions about our backlog, this is the meeting for you!'. Esbee has been a resident for 4 years and does get in-world!

You should be ok with that super spec Kristen - if you contact me when I am in-world will discuss some ideas that might be able to fix your problems (fingers crossed).

Kristen - it should work ok on all but the most basic machines - is working ok on my old 1.8GHz Celeron laptop. Maybe there are certain not so obvious settings that need tuning - or you might like to try 2.4 Beta when it is out in the next day or so, that has a couple of things that seem to boost performance.

Group Titles and all the various name options can be selected/deselected from with the Preferences->General panel. You can set a display name by clicking on the 'Wrench' icon by your name on the 'Me' side-panel.