Viewers Update 2013-10

It has been a while since I took a look at a number of viewers. Rather than post them separately, I’ve lumped them together, except for Nirans. I had not used it for months, so I expected lots of changes.

SL Viewers

The main Linden Viewer is still at version 3.4.5 (270263), pre CHUI (Chat Hub User Interface). I seldom use the Beta Viewer now. It is more of a fall back viewer for when a Development Viewer version has problems. This morning the Beta is at version 3.5.0 (271345). The Development Viewer had been at version 3.5.1 (270826) for about 10 days. Today it updated to 3.5.1 (271386).

I am still fighting with the CHUI update to keep it the size I WANT IT. Other than sizing problems I like the new CHUI. The new build 271386 seems to have some of the sizing problems fixed.

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Firestorm Q&A Video Released

The video of the Firestorm Team’s Q&A meeting has been released. Pantera Polnocy* made the video and posted it on YouTube. The video runs 2 hours 16 minutes. I left about 90 minutes into the meeting.

[youtube 8_B8iWQ46Wg]

I won’t be providing an index. I have other fun things to do.

*If you try to find Pantera Polnocy in SL, leave out the space.

Firestorm Q&A Meeting Summary

It looked like most of the development was there. The meeting was in voice. Questions were asked in local chat. Jessica Lyon was facilitating. She worked through the chat to answer most of the questions. Team members were also answering chat questions.

FS Q&A Meeting Feb 13, 2013
FS Q&A Meeting Feb 13, 2013

I think most of the audience was Firestorm (FS) fans. The meeting was civil and moved quickly without snide remarks or cheap shots, a nice thing for the team. It went well and was well done, I think.

Jessica took 15 to 20 minutes to start the meeting with news of coming things and to provide a warning.

As you might expect, the team is getting lots of questions about Server Side Avatar Baking (SSAB). The FS viewer will support it, eventually. For now FS is not yet merging the Lab’s SSAB code with the FS main build channel. Internally the team has merged to the Lab’s version 3.4.5. Jessica tells us that the internal version of FS is pretty bad off. It crashes often. The current release is far better than the current internal builds.

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Firestorm Q&A

There is an announcement on the Firestorm blog about a coming Q&A meeting. See: Wednesday Question and Answer Meeting.  

Phoenix Firestorm Support Meeting Auditorium
Phoenix Firestorm Support Meeting Auditorium

The plan is to have Jessica Lyon moderating and developers available for questions. Everyone is welcome. However… the region will only hold 70 people. It is first come first served.

The meeting will be Wednesday February 13, 2013, at 1:00 PM SLT/PST (or 13:00 military time), which seems a bit ominous with all the 13’s. The location is in the region: Phoenix Firestorm Support.

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Phoenix Viewer Office Hour

The Phoenix Team is going to hold an Office Hour… an open meeting in-world and streamed to the web. The meeting in-world will be at the team’s region: Phoenix Firestorm Support. This link lands you at the door to the meeting hall. You can probably figure out that single landing point is going to be stacking avatars like pancakes the day of the meeting. So, here is an alternate: PhFsSupport. It is about 20m east of the official landing point. Turn 180 and you’ll see the building.

Phoenix Meeting Notice
Phoenix Meeting Notice

The meeting will be Saturday at 1:30 PM SLT or PST… US West Coast time. The team is advising you get there 30 minutes early… Think about this. One region, one landing point, one entrance to the building… attending is going to be a problem.

The meeting will be streamed to the web: Phoenix Stream.

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New Major Firestorm Release 4.3.1.31155 Review

Yay! A new release of the Firestorm Viewer (FS) hit the net last night. You can read the team’s release announcement here: Firestorm Major Release 4.3.1.31155. This is a big release for the Firestorm team. It has lots of new features. Since the SL Viewer released a load of new features the FS team usually feels they can release their implementation of them.

Firestorm Splash Screen

Get your SL downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux here: Firestorm Viewer Download.

For OpenSim use this link: OpenSim Firestorm Viewer Download. More about this later.

Download & Install

The files size for windows is about 40mb. The download is fast, taking only a couple of minutes.

With this and the last several releases the team has recommended a clean install, meaning remove the previous install. That of course wipes out your viewer settings.

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