The Imprudence Team is building a new series 2 viewer based on the new Linden Lab Viewer 2 code. Wednesday they released a test build of the Kokua Viewer. This is probably what many would consider Alpha version software. Before you run off to download it, read on.
First off, they are warning you that this viewer may do horrible things… shrink your male package or sag your breasts and fatten your butt while killing your pets and erasing your inventory and hard drive. Did I say this is a test viewer? It is a test viewer and may have some dandy bugs like you might find on the SyFy channel. I did not find any but you have been warned.
There are new things coming for the Basic Mode of the SL Viewer series 2.
Sign Ups Per Day - from Dwell On It.
We are seeing more signups per day now. About 3 weeks ago I would not have agreed it was a trend. I think it is still early but the spike is different than the one in November. So, something seems to have changed. It may be the Basic Mode is having an effect.
Basic Mode
The top question of new users in Basic Mode is: where is my inventory? Another is: how do I get to Advanced Mode? Where is the sidebar?
If you have thought about that Advanced Mode one, the answer is unnecessarily difficult. The answer is: Close the viewer, restart, but don’t login, change to Advanced, close the viewer, open the viewer and login. Whew! This has to be made easier. Even something like how the clear cache process works would help.
Also, because so few of us are unfamiliar with the Basic Mode we cannot answer a new resident’s questions. We want them to change to a series 1 viewer or advanced mode. At that point the new users is swamped. So, while we have a much better beginning step, the next step is still too big.
It appears that Basic Mode users are going to get an inventory. I wonder if the easier way to open packages and wear items that Rosedale spoke of at SLCC 2010 is going to be implemented. That would be nice. Whatever the case I suspect some simplified inventory will appear. But, with inventory are new clothes and appearance tasks to learn. It will be interesting to see how the new Basic Mode changes.
I see the wiki has just been updated to show the educational organizations using Second Life. The wiki page providing a list of the organizations is: Second Life Education Directory
There are 149 organzations listed (if I counted correctly). Each has an SLURL to their in-world location. There is also a link to the university’s main web site. Also provided is the in-world contact name and the iRL email address and contact name.
New code is rushing to the viewers in a torrent. This release of KV has lots of fixes and new stuff. Unfortunately the Apple versions are lagging because the machine used to compile those versions is overheating. The Windows version RC3 is out today.
New Physics Layer Object
Enhanced Avatar Physics: This is the booby juggle code for bouncing breasts, belly, and butt. If you don’t already know one adds their breast enhancement by going into clothes and creating a physics layer. It can be worn just like clothes. Other people will see you bounce or not according to your settings.
Mesh Upload: More work done on the mesh uploader.
Code Updates: The Windows code is now being compiled to the Windows 7 Std. Developer’s Kit. For most of us this means little. The benefits are not so much in your face as they are about making things more efficient when running in newer Windows versions.
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.
Update – Bug Fix Release
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.
