Second Life and Virtual Worlds
Niran has released an SSA compatible version of the Nirans Viewer. Niran is wanting feedback on some aspects of the new release. See the announcement: Nirans Viewer 2.2.0 Alpha (2656).
The download is on Source Forge: Nirans Viewer.
I haven’t tried to run it. So… you are on your own. Well, there are about 500+ downloads of this version as of 3 PM SLT.
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.
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.
Niran has said he would stop building Nirans Viewer… So, there is a new release out as of March 7, version 2.1.2 Beta (3.4.6-2512). If you don’t know, Nirans Viewer is an ongoing experiment in user interface design. Niran has a talent for figuring out new ways to do things. Sometimes the ideas are better sometimes worse, but that is how people find the good stuff. I have a challenge finding things after the menus get changed, which is why I am not a frequent user.
This version of the viewer was much easier for me to use. The defaults are more like the SL Viewer, so I am good until I need to dig into the Preferences.
One of the interesting things in this version (new to me) is the ability to save Preferences settings as different sets of presets. I think this is a great idea. Those of us that move from shopping to exploring to photography to role play… can definitely make use of this feature.
The 27th of November Niran released version 2.0.4 (2321). The download is about 50mb. Source Forge is the code and binary repository. You download from Source Forge. It was very slow this morning taking 15 minutes to download.
I don’t use Niran’s viewer much anymore because Niran experiments with the user interface. I think that is a good thing, it just makes using the viewer inconvenient for me. I am forever in: where did ___(some control here)___ go mode. I needed to look at the viewer for another article I am working on, so I updated and checked it out.
Niran is releasing a new version about each week. The coming 1.44 release is delayed white new code from Linden Lab™ is integrated and debugged. And the user interface is being redone.
Version 1.43 is available for download. The news on http://niranv-sl.blogspot.com advises that the version is going to be buggy and crash prone. But, it does have new code and fixes coming out of the Lab.
NiranV 1.43 Download 32bit. A 64-bit version is available. The download is about 42mb and only takes a couple of minutes. Niran recommends clearing the settings and cache when installing new versions.
NiranV releases lots of iterations of this viewer. There are no massive changes from my perspective as a user. The changes tend to be in the nature of the user interface and new ways for established controls to work. For instance one of the previous versions change the default camera position. Expect lots of experimentation and innovation with this viewer.
[youtube aBNUpFUITGs]
The video is made by NiranV using the Nirans Viewer.
NiranV is using a new compiler (or library – not sure) to build this version of the viewer. I think the hope is the viewer will be faster. Whatever, the package fails to include a component: vcomp100.dll. You can get the component from: Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) 32-bit or Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) 64-bit version.