Second Life: What is Project Valhalla?

We have a new Project Viewer: Valhalla version 4.0.0.305703. This is the viewer with Chromium Embedded Framework, the replacement for Webkit. This viewer debuted 11:52AM, 2 October 2015… last Friday… at least according to the history date on the Wiki.

The Release Notes tell us:

This long-awaited project replaces the aging LLQTWebKit system used in the Web media plugin with a shiny new one based on the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) that supports modern web technologies. In fact, we think this is such a big deal that we’re cranking the Viewer version number to 4.0.0.

This is the first iteration of a Project Viewer – which means that while a lot of the problems facing the old MOAP implementation should now become a distant artifact of the past, we are still cranking through the many new issues with our CEF-based solution. See a bug? If you don’t see it filed already – file a Jira! We look forward to your feedback. Thanks!

I think it interesting that this release will advance the viewer version number to 4. This is a significant change. So, the change is appropriate.

If you use a Mac, check the known bugs listed in the release notes. See if you can live with them.

My MOAP showing my web site works well. The YouTube videos play.

If you are expecting any great visual changes, you’ll be disappointed. Changes will be in things we build using CEF abilities we didn’t previously have. Some things we built may stop working and need changes. But, functionally, things will be better.

One thing that is certainly better is the in-viewer-web-browser. Drive it to YouTube. The web sites I visited all work. I would still suggest you avoid adult sites with the viewer-browser. I can’t tell how my AV is handling it. I have my SL cache excluded from AV scanning to improve performance.

 

It seems like it takes longer to open Preferences with each version of the viewer…

4 thoughts on “Second Life: What is Project Valhalla?

  1. Currently, the only TPV that I know of that has been actively integrating CEF is the Cool VL Viewer Experimental Branch. http://sldev.free.fr/

  2. The CEF3 plugin is hardly a \big deal\, viewer-side: the diff from a non-CEF3-enabled Cool VL Viewer (v1.16.14 branch) to a CEF3-enabled one (v1.26.15 branch) is only 79Kb large (and that’s counting an added feature of mine, which allows to switch back and forth between CEF3 and QtWebkit plugins on the fly).

    Also, while an improvements for many, it will be a problem for some others: CEF3 doesn’t support any more Flash and (worst, IMHO) Quicktime media. It is also much slower (up to 3 times slower, on Javascript-heavy pages) at rendering web contents.

    In any case, I’ll not be succumbing to the new fast-incrementing-version-numbering fashion (hype ?) that seems to spread nowadays (what’s the current version for Firefox already ?… 40 ? 50 ?… In 10 years, if that browser still exists, it’ll be something like version 381: quite cumbersome, lol !). The Cool VL Viewer version only sees it’s minor version number change in such a case. 😛

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