Viewers

General Viewer Information

Emerald Viewer’s Radar Icon Review

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Over on Modular’s forum a member named ‘gench’ posted a list of the icons used in the radar along with their meanings. See: Radar Icons – What they mean.

As one reads down the thread they will find several posts expanding on the meaning of the icons and workings of the radar. For instance, one can tell when an AV is chatting by the green square that appears to the left of the name.

After reading through the thread I have the impression the coders have not completely implemented all their ideas. Or the code is some mix of ideas and changed ideas. Whatever, read through the thread.

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Using Emerald Viewer to get to Arda Grid and Beyond

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The Arda people put step-by-step instructions on their site. See: How do I Login to Arda Grid

If you need detailed step-by-step instructions use the link above. Below I’ve provided the quick summary. Also, this type of setup works with the SL viewer. Be warned that both the SL and Emerald viewers have some grid hopping gotcha’s, which I’ll get to.

Quick Instructions (Windows)

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New Impudence Viewer 1.3 Out – Review

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Massively has someone that likes this viewer and generally writes up good reviews. This one is a bit sparse, but they link to the Imprudence site’s notes.

Imprudence 1.3 merge test build for Second Life

Notice the word TEST in the title. This is a beta version viewer. They included dynamic shadows in this one. Then made disclaimers about it. So, if you want shadows use Kirsten’s S18 Viewer. See: New KirstenLee (215) Viewer Out – Review

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New KirstenLee (215) Viewer Out – Review

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S18 (215),Second Life Viewers
AV Scanner

KirstenLee released an update of her S18-1 (215) viewer. I’ve downloaded it. KirstenLee S-18 Viewer

Previous blog: KirstenLee’s S18-1 (214)
Previous blog: KirstenLee Cinquetti S-17 and S-18 (208 & 209) Viewer Review

This (215) update includes some fixes, a bit more speed and nicer graphics panels in preferences. However, tis update is mostly about Niran’s Mod exposing more advanced graphics options for end users.

The image left shows the AVATAR scanner/radar. This scanner is more combat RPG friendly than others. Those with the tracking ability are usually frowned on by most RPG combat players. It makes it impossible to escape a pursuer.

Several viewers are adding support for multiple avatars. Most of us selling products in SL have at least a second AV for testing our packaging and permissions. Combat RPG players use several to allow them to play different characters in the same or different games. Some people share a computer and have separate accounts and with alternative AV’s the may have several ID/login’s to deal with. The multi-login feature is popular.

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Hippo Viewer Review – OSGrid

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Hippo Viewer,OSGrid
Hippo Viewer Logo
OSGrid
Open Simulator Logo

I have a friend that has a couple of SIM’s in Second Life. She started looking at the cost of a build she would like to make. The pricing on the OSGrid is much lower. So she started playing on the OSGrid to see what is possible. That got me interested in my private open simulator grid (OSGrid or OSG), which broke on my last update.

Getting my grid updated and running again is another story. I was having trouble with Emerald on the OSGrid. Camera and select problems mostly and the camera zoom. (I can go change values and fix those but…) I decided to try the Hippo Viewer.

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Emerald Viewer Review – Update

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Emerald released version 1.23.5.1101 in a normal and optimized version today.The downloads have been temporarily taken down. The new install was breaking voice. If you broke yours, install the voice pack from the previous install (950). They are fixing it and downloads will be back ‘soon’. UPDATE: New files went up about midnight SLT.

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Second Life Viewer: Imprudence 1.2 Review

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Second Life Viewers
Imprudence Viewer Logo

There is a new Imprudence Viewer out, version 1.2. Massively’s Tateru Nino has a write up about it. They have itemized the new features and improvements, so I’ll skip repeating that.

The viewer has a User Interface (UI) that is a bit different than other viewers. Expect to take some time to get used to it.

Imprudence has added chat with vertical tabs, which I love. This change puts the tabs on the left side rather than bottom of the chat dialog. You can see many more tabs. It makes it much easier to keep up with ongoing IM’s. They don’t get scrolled off so easily.

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Snowglobe Experimental Viewer Review Update

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Snowglobe
Snowglobe Logo

On November 18 a new release of the Snowglobe Viewer came out, 1-2-4-3007. On November 23 a new version of the bleeding edge beta Snowglobe Viewer was released, 1.3.0.3008. You can find the download links on this Second Life wiki page.

WARNING: Often new viewers crash more often than the previous version, not always. But often enough that one wants to keep a copy of the previous viewer in case one needs to rollback. Windows users can create a System Restore Point before installing a new viewer version for easy rollback. Linden Lab has a blog post on what to do if one keeps crashing. See: Keep Crashing

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