Second Life News 2013-16 #3

CHUIBUG-191 – This JIRA item is about problems entering Japanese characters in the new CHUI input field. That is being worked on. Oz Linden thinks the team may need some help with testing the fixes. If you use Japanese and would like to help, file a bug report in the CHUIBUG part of the JIRA.

Materials Project Viewer

We are getting more releases of the Project’s viewer. There are more releases than what one sees on the Wiki page. Oz tells us that the other releases found via the latest.html page may not be a good choice for users. These may be copies of a viewer that has not yet made it through the QA process. Once the viewer passes QA Oz posts a link to it on Alternate Viewers. This should be the viewer you use for testing. I have links to both channels in the left column here. The untested version may be a problem for you, the user.

You do have to click the link for download to see the version number on the Alternate Viewers page. That is kind of a drag. But, not a show stopper.

Oz thinks the auto-update is the best way to stay current on this viewer. In Preferences, Setup, turn Software updates: to Install automatically.

There is no warning on this page to remind you that the Materials Project Viewer can break existing content and should be used with care. Oz says there are still lots of bugs, but things are progressing.

Expect a new release on Friday, but don’t count on it. Things can go wrong.

Viewer Auto-Update

My understanding is that when using Auto-update the updates are downloaded in background while your viewer runs. The next login it is updated. I am playing with that now.

If the Auto-update is turned off you can use your current version until a mandatory update comes along. Then one has to upload it before they can login. If you are in a hurry to get some place, that can be a problem.

BETA Viewer

The current Beta viewer will likely see two more iterations before it moves to the main release.  But, that could happen over 3 to 5 days.

Next Viewer Change

For some time we have had various problems with streaming music. The part of the viewer that handles that is FMOD EX (Wikipedia). This is a set of audio content creation tools made by Firelight Technologies that play music files of diverse formats on many different operating system platforms, used in games and software applications to provide audio functionality.

The updates to this part of the system are expected to be in the next Beta Viewer… about 3 releases down the road. And you should know that can change.

5 thoughts on “Second Life News 2013-16 #3

  1. Huh… I’ve mentioned FMOD quite few times in those meeting, mostly joking about it. Didn’t think they would actually do it.

    • SEE!!! Be careful what you ask for…

      Actually its been in the works for some time. Just lots of stuff ahead of it.

      • I wonder if this means it he viewer will support surround sound I some way, or if there are other sound related features in the pipe line….

        • It will add the possibility for third parties to develop more sound features. But, I don’t remember the Lab talking about any.

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