Second Life Viewer – Snowstorm Project Update

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If you follow this blog, you know every so often I update what is going on with the Snowstorm Project. This tells us what is happening with and coming to future versions of the viewers. I leave out the things I find boring. This update covers items from Nov. 8 to about now.

Mute – Block – User Interface Clean Up

Esbee Linden started a personal project to clean up the user interface and get things better organized and laid out. Lots of feedback was about the change from using ‘mute’ to ‘block’. It seems most IM services and other messaging systems use the term ‘block’ for stopping incoming chatter from an annoying source. It looks very much like Linden Lab will start using ‘block’.

STORM-31 is about implementing many of the interface changes. Add your feedback there. 

Chat/IM Log File Names

There are lots of problems related to enabling Display Names. Lots of things one would not think of, like the chat/IM log files. You probably know those files are kept on your computer and you can go back and read them. Many people keep them for role play or business reasons. One can find them in:

C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\[your_av_name]

The chat/IM log files within the folder use avatar names. If one can change their name weekly figuring out who is who could be really confusing. By using the user login name rather than the display name things are more consistent.

There is also an issue about whether these files will remain plain text or change to JSON or XML. I have yet to see a firm decision. But, I may have missed it.

It appears there will be the option to add a Time Stamp or Date Stamp. Time Stamp is about adding time info to each line/response in the file. The same is true of the Date Stamp but it also affects the file name. The name issues are related to STORM-102. You can see the latest implementations of these ideas in the current Development Viewer.

STORM-143 – History Search for chat logs – The changes to get this working are likely to break some people’s history. I assume they are using some type of history/chat log reader… Oh Well…

Compiling On Mac

Some Mac users have run into problems with the Make Files. Brad Linden is the author of the change sets. He is assuming Mac users are using Xcode. He’ll look at making changes if enough people are interested. Appearently there are problems with the Xcode compile process too.

Adjustable Chat Transparency

STORM-535 – This was being implemented 11/9. It is about being able to adjust the transparency of chat and toasts (toasts are those popups of chat that come up over in the lower right corner), I find toasts annoying.

Chasing Bugs

In various states of progress: STORM-26 – Working on keyboard shortcuts review.  STORM-52 – Hook up external script editor is in progress – completed. STORM-146/151 – KDU compile/auto-build problems in progress.  STORM-316 – solution for Inventory sort options. This is apparently a problem on the Mac side. STORM-320 – has to do with tabs in scripting. This one is proving tough to reproduce and resolve. This will likely be dropped to a lower priority as they move on to items that can be easily fixed. They’ll come back to it later. STORM-398 – about nearby chat appearing when Busy Mode set – can’t reproduce. STORM-546 – render pipeline problems in progress. STORM-550 – has to do with viewer not being able to find some wildcard file names. STORM-559 – has to do with some viewer constants that control panels. STORM-560 – Add Preference that allows users to select default behavior when pressing letter keys in progress. STORM-566, 571, and 572 – about Preferences layout and in progress.  STORM-574 – A crash problem that other fixes seem to have solved as it is no longer reproducible. STORM-577 – is about the 64 character limit on Classified Ad descriptions. STORM-578 – SLURL font color in the nearby chat toast doesn’t respect Chat preferences – fixed. STORM-579 – Resident SLURL font color doesn’t match Chat preferences for plain text Nearby Chat log – fixed. STORM-581 – IM toasts don’t respect font color preferences for Chat – WIP. STORM-584 –Fix color and opacity setting for Bubble Chat. STORM-588 – Add a Preference that allows users to run multiple Viewer instances.  STORM-589 – Add a Preference that allows users to display the grid selection drop-down on the login screen – Implemented. STORM-590 – Add Preferences to enable the display of the Advanced and Development menus – Implemented. STORM-593 – Make transparent text editor and line editor – WIP.

Startup/Log On Hang

In the Development Viewer a problem with the viewer going into a loop on startup has come up. I think this problem is to be found in any number of version and even TPV’s. This problem is likely misidentified by many so the Lindens have not being seeing many complaints.

I just removed ALL my SLV’s and manually deleted files and folders, including logs and chant/IM logs to fix my viewers going into super-slo-mo (where before logging in the viewer takes 30 to 90 seconds to respond to a mouse click or keystroke and one cannot login). Cache clearing and settings clearing helped but did not resolve the problem. If you run into this problem, note it in the JIRA. Be sure to grab your viewer logs immediately after your crash or hang. Move them to a safe place so the next viewer start won’t overwrite them.

This problem comes up for several reason and when the viewer cannot decode the avatar’s baked texture. So, this could be causing some of the nude avatar and avatar not rendering problems. With OpenJPEG and KDU sending images baked with differently decoded images it is not too surprising this is a problem.

The problem is in (214429) and worse than in (214370).

See JIRA VWR-23782 – It is not always possible to view this JIRA entry.

Prim Alignment

Esbee Linden is working on a design document for the addition of prom alignment. I am guessing this means the Lab will be writing an alignment tool. So, for some time we will only see this tool in Phoenix and other TPV’s.

Customizable User Interface

JIRA VWR-23787 proposes a modified plan for implementing a more easily customized user interface. Please only vote if you are up to date on the discussion. It appears we are going to get a modular viewer with more possibilities for modifications. Exactly how it will look or be done remains unclear.

OpenJPEG

SNOW-361 is about using OpenJPEG with the viewer. It is the software used in TPV’s in place of KDU. This software decompresses (decodes) the compressed image file the viewer receives from SL. Work is being done to get this working faster and being more compatible with KDU coding/compression.

Mac users are having a problem uploading sculpty maps if they use Phoenix. I saw some of this using Imprudence (Windows) on the OSGrid. My sculpties were not rendering correctly. That seems to have been cleaned up on the Windows side in later Imprudence versions.

KDU

Merov Linden has been working on getting KDU upgraded from v4.2.1 to v6.4.1. The details are in STORM-146 and STORM-151 with performance data in STORM-105. Preliminary Test Results While it is not ready for general use it is getting close.

External Script Editor

STORM-52 is completed (11/12). This implements two way text synchronization between the viewer’s embedded editor and a user specified editor. Phoenix has had this for some time. It is nice to have it in the SLV22. I’m unsure which viewer version the feature will appear in, probably 2.4.

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