Snowstorm's Second Life Viewer Progress

Snowstorm
Snowstorm Project

If you don’t already know, the Snowstorm Project is the SL Viewer (SLV) development project. There are several things currently going on that will affect new releases of the viewer. These are the ones I found interesting.

Prim Alignment Tool

Many of you have seen the Qarl Fizz Prim Alignment Tool that is now starting to appear in TPV’s. It is in the Imprudence Experimental viewer. It is great. See: Qarl Fizz Prim Alignment Tool

Because of some technicalities about signing agreements and code licensing it appears Linden Lab cannot just ‘use’ the code. So, whether they are going to talk to Qarl and come to some agreement or write their own version of alignment has not been decided. Whatever, the feature is in the backlog. You can vote for the feature here: STORM-468 Add Qarl Fizz Prim Alignment Code to SLV2

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Second Life Beta Viewer 2.2.0

Project Snowstorm Team Members

Tofu and Aimee Linden in the UK are leaving the last day of the month. This is part of the previous layoff that was announced. Still it is sad to see people that have done such good work leaving. But, the UK office is closing… closed.

The team is now made up of Esbee, Oz, Merov, and 3 contract engineers. Plus there are various open source contributors.

Second Life Viewer Progress

SL Viewer Beta 2.2 is out. The Release Notes are here: Release Notes/Second Life Beta Viewer/2.2.0. The thing with release notes is they are really boring. I’ve added tips on how to find and use the new features to make this worth reading.

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Second Life Development Viewer Updates

If you don’t already know, Linden Lab makes several versions of their viewer; the main stable viewer, a beta viewer, development viewer, and a number of project viewers. The main viewer is for everyone and is the most tested. The beta viewers are Release Candidates used to test changes on their way to general release in the main viewer. The development viewer is a frequently updated viewer Lab staff uses and works with. Project viewers are open beta viewers specific to a project, like Display Names.

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Snowstorm UI Thoughts

Snowstorm
Snowstorm Logo
Snowstorm Project
Floating Panel

In Esbee Linden’s Thursday meeting User Interface (UI) changes were being discussed. The item currently being worked on is detachable sidebar panels and how to open multiple copies of them. The latest Second_Life_2-1-2-209322_Development Viewer has a test version of the change.

Imagine being able to arrange the panels for building or scripting and save the panel layout. Or save several different layouts. The idea is that there could be a newbie setup, photographers, scripter’s, explorers, builders, and more. Some of these would be default layouts that come with the viewer. Users would be able to create their own.

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Snowstorm Updates

Lots of the work being done by the Snowstorm team is boring, sorry guys. But, it is necessary and it is moving the viewer forward and laying foundations. JIRA and Backlog issues are being resolved. Ideas from various people are being incorporated. Some of the things I think are noteworthy follow;

Plugins and client side scripting are items being dusted off. They were considered earlier in the year and ran into obstacles, which moved them to shelf. The change in development process and the more modular nature of Snowstorm appear to be bringing new life to the features.

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