Last night I wrote my update for servers and viewers for week #23 and scheduled it for 6AM this morning. This morning at 7 AM I find new viewers on the RC and Project Viewers page.
New Project Viewers
Second Life Project VLC Media Plugin Viewer version 4.0.6.316087 – This viewer completely removes the need for QuickTime… well, maybe more accurately… removes the code that tried to run an Apple abandoned and broken QuickTime.
You may remember computer security people warning Windows users to remove QuickTime from their computers. If you haven’t done so, now would be a good time.
The release notes describe this version as:
Apple recently announced that they are no longer supporting QuickTime for Windows and most importantly, will not be providing security updates going forwards. We use QuickTime in the viewer to play back media type likes MP3 MPEG-4 and of course MOV.
This viewer replaces the QuickTime media plugin for the Windows version of the viewer with one based on LibVLC (https://wiki.videolan.org/LibVLC/). The OS X viewer is unchanged since Apple will continue to support QuickTime there.
Eventually, as part of the update to 64 bit versions of the viewers, the OS X viewer will also be updated to use LibVLC (QuickTime APIs are Carbon and not available as 64bit).
A remaining bug in this viewer version is: BUG-10447 – Unable to see group members belonging to any group role in the Roles tab until you switch to the Members tab and back to Roles tab.
There are three bug fixed in this version:
- [Win LibVLC] mp3 playback failure in windows viewer
- [Win LibVLC] Built-in browser plays video vertically flipped
- [Win LibVLC] MOAP content looks correct but page links are flipped vertically
This version uses a combination of CEF and VLC to provide MOAP and video players in the viewer. Once this viewer is promoted to the main viewer, we will see in-world TV’s and theaters moving from their broken players to working models that use this new tech.
Second Life Project VOB Viewer version 4.0.6.316123 – This is going to be great!! This is called the Visual Outfits Browser. Each outfit you create and save can have a thumbnail showing the outfit. WAY NEAT!
The Lindens describe it as:
Ever think how nice it would be to see the different outfits you have collected in your inventory? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a simple thumbnail that you can easily see and select and change into? Well, now you can with our latest Viewer offering!
Introducing operation Visual Outfit Browser! You can now do all of the above with the ease of a customized snapshot tool found in your appearance floater. Simply download the latest Visual Outfit Browser Project Viewer, launch the Viewer, and in your Appearance floater, under the Outfit Gallery tab, you’ll find default thumbnails (currently coat hanger icons). You want to change into those outfits, pose, and then right click on the thumbnail and choose “Take a Snapshot.” It’s that easy! It does cost the usual L$10 per upload which is standard for all textures uploaded. But hey, can you really put a price on awesome?
For more information check out the Knowledge Base article.
Originally the Lindens left out the link to the KB article. A little searching and I found it: Saving your avatar’s appearance with outfits. I updated the viewer page in the wiki.
How we save an outfit is changing. The KB describes the steps as:
You can easily save your current outfit by using the Appearance window:
- Customize your avatar’s appearance to your liking. For tips and helpful information about customizing your avatar, see Controlling your avatar’s appearance.
- Once you’ve settled on a look, open the Appearance window by choosing Me > Appearance…from the top menu bar of the Second Life Viewer.
- Press the Save Asbutton to save what you are currently wearing as a new outfit.
- Choose an appropriate name for your outfit and press the Ok
…hmmmm. Not much of a change….
Oh, continue reading in the KB and you will get to The Outfit Gallery section. Here is a whole new set of steps and the ‘How To’ for capturing images of your outfits. It is intuitive, so you can just jump in the viewer and start right-clicking.
Warning. The images are not free uploads. You will incur the L$10 upload free for each image. BUT… if you already have an image uploaded, you can use that image in your Outfit gallery. So, this is going to cost me a small fortune. I can hear a bunch of residents taking a deep breath to start screaming about cost. You can probably label them the entitlement babies and very probably Bernie supporters.
The upload cost pushes people to limit their uploaded images and keeps the Lab from having to store petabytes of useless images. I’ve already been cleaning up my collection of Outfits. This will push me to do more clean up.
A gotcha that had me going what the… is how it sorts the Gallery Outfits. This I consider typical Linden geekiness. Nice. But, unexpected. Outfits with images sort ahead of outfits without images. Within the image and no-image groups they sort by outfit name. No change to order in My Outfits tab.
I am disappointed there are no folders in the Outfit Galley or My Outfits. I had hoped. I have 285± outfits now. I should do a poll to see how many outfits others have…
Installing
This viewer is classed as an Experimental Project Viewer, all project viewers are experimental. This denotes it as likely being a bit buggier than an RC version and way more likely to change. You shouldn’t count on it as a production viewer.
The download size on Windows is about 50mb. Download is quick.
It installs in its on program folder. So, it will not interfere with other viewer installs. If you haven’t set Windows to use a specific viewer for SLURL’s, it will become your default handler. It’s that basic last viewer installed gets to be the default thing. Somewhere in the blog I have instructions for setting or changing the default SLURL handler…
Remember. It is version Second Life 4.0.6.316123 (Second Life Project VOB). This means it does not have the Project Bento changes. It does have the Quick Graphics settings feature and the Avatar Complexity feature.
It does find the settings and cache used by the install of the main Linden Viewer and use those. I use a cache on a drive other than C: to improve performance. It found the cache I use. But, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Because the viewer installs in its own folder, if you use NIVIDA and have settings for running SL then you’ll have to create a set of settings for this version.
There are still some problems with this viewer:
- BUG-10447Unable to see group members belonging to any group role in the Roles tab until you switch to the Members tab and back to Roles tab.
- VOB – No easy way to remove an image from a VOB Folder
- VOB – Side scroll bar cut off
- VOB – Outfit Gallery folder text is high and should wrap
- VOB – Inconsistent sort order in “Outfit Gallery” tab
- VOB – Request for Drag & Drop functionality for adding images to Outfit Folders
- VOB – User can add any size image to an Outfit Gallery outfit folders
- VOB – Click on an outfit folder from Outfit Gallery tab does not open folder or enlarge image
- BUG-18260VOB – Adding image to an outfit folder changes the folder’s order
Summary
I love the Outfit Galley! Yay Lindens and thanks.
“very probably Bernie supporters” What an odd political jab to throw in. I’m not personally an American, and have no strong support for anyone, nor would it especially matter if I did. It just seemed way out of left field for an SL blog post, heh.
Just wait… when the viewer comes out and and people find they have to pay for the images, you’ll see them come out. Talk with the loudest protesters and find out who they are.
YES!!! for months and months i have been trying to learn scripting so that i can make a visual closet for my sl hair, inventory, outfits!!! i think this is going to do it. yes! for the longest time i have been wondering why our inventory is not visual in the sense that there are no pictures. it is like settling for MS DOS when you should be using windows it is funny that we have these word inventorys when pictures would make more sense by far. i know that this is just for outfits, but i am really hoping they expand on this. maybe the start of something that would allow everyone to really engage with there inventorys! i wish i could say just how excited i am about this. thank you for this news Nalates!
I suggest you file a feature request in the JIRA.
I tried IMVU on mobile recently, God help me, but I was struck by how nice it was to have thumbnails like these. In the IMVU, you see that thumbnails for each outfit and inventory item are generated, it’s quite nice.
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