Second Life and Virtual Worlds
General Viewer Information
Yesterday, the Phoenix Team announced that the 1050 RC version would become the final 1050 version. No changes are being made. The version worked as is. So, if you have the RC, you have the final version. But, if you have had problems, there are some things you need to do.
No sooner do I see the Kirsten release than up pops a Phoenix Viewer 1050 release. This is another Release Candidate. While the Phoenix team is calling this an RC they say they will provide support for it. So, again the lines between esoteric alpha, beta, RC, and final versions gets fuzzier, at least from my side.
This release is mostly bug fixes and improvements to existing features. The goal was to get a stable viewer. Over the previous part of this year most developers have been getting previous features and new code and features from Linden Lab working. That has lead to crash prone viewers.
Today we get a new version of KirstenLee’s S21 viewer. KirstenLee says this is a NEW viewer, new in the way that it is compiled, created, using VS2010. For weeks this has been a main topic of discussion in Snowstorm mailing list for weeks… and weeks… It is quite a feat to get viewer working with VS2010. Plus KirstenLee says there is a ton of new code in the viewer.
UPDATE: As of 1:55 PM SLT there have been 4 quick fixes. If you have downloaded a copy before then, get a new download. I’ll be running over to ADITI and then OSGrid.
You probably know by now that the Lab’s viewers have Enhanced Avatar Physics. I can now control how my breasts, belly (belly?), and butt bounce and jiggle. This version has improved physics for the avatar. So, the big question from club owners is: can she make the tassels helicopter?
You may know that most Third Party Viewers (TPV) have in-world groups for user support. You may not know that there are in-world groups for the Second Life Viewer (SLV). There are some other groups that are for SL support too.
The Groups:
The Second Life Viewer 2.0 group is slightly misnamed. The group is for all SL series 2 viewers, not just 2.0. The group was founded by Teqi Falta and was recently given to Opensource Obscure (yes, that is a resident’s name).
Opensource Obscure’s blog is in Italian, http://opensourceobscure.com/, but it translates pretty well with Google Translation. It is a good blog for those with Italian as their mother tongue. It is technically oriented.
If you have friends using SLV2, recommend the group to them.
This is still an issue that Linden Lab has not figured out. It is too hard for new residents to find the support groups they need.
A new version of the Dolphin 2 Viewer is out. The released planned for this slot was to be a 2.6 version. But, things change. Bug fixes, features, and the load of changes coming out of the Lab seems to have pushed this release out the door. It may be several weeks before we see the next release. There is lots to upgrade going into 2.6. The Development viewers are coming out in 2.7 versions.
The tools used to build our viewers are not the hot topic among most residents. However, the VS2010 in this latest project test build is all about the tools. VS2010 means Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Getting to where this tool can be used to develop the SL Viewer has been a main topic in the viewer development circles. Why is this important to you?
It will be a big deal for those with newer computers. First, the VS2010 is a tool much like Microsoft Word but for programming. Developers use it to write programs. It enables links to programming libraries, like Word has Thesaurus and Dictionary. It has syntax checking that is very much like spelling and grammer checking for word. Imagine if you could literally not read a document, it scrambled all over screen, just because a comma was in the wrong place. That is the level of precision with which programmers must write. VS2010 provides lots of help and support. While that is nice for the programmer, the benefit seen by residents is faster updates and bug fixes.