SL Viewer Beta
Issues within the 3.4.5 code have prevented viewer releases progressing through beta, with the code stuck in QA while LL tackled them. However, it appears the majority are now either fixed or on their way to being fixed, and an updated beta viewer should be appearing next week, which should see the beta viewer come pretty close to alignment with code in the development viewer, with the latter only having “a couple” of things not added to the beta branch.
Communications Hub User Interface (CHUI) Project
There have been a rapid series of merges between the CHUI project viewer code and the development viewer recently (as seen in my Viewer Round-up Page and weekly summaries), helping the former to keep pace with the latter, with the most recent CHUI development release (3.4.4.269464) being made on January 25th.
Speaking at the TPV Developer’s Meeting on Friday 25th January, Oz Linden indicated that a formal merge of the CHUI project viewer code with the development viewer code branch “pretty soon” (possibly in the next two weeks, putting it ahead of the server-side baking project). However, according to Nyx Linden, the plan will be to not merge CHUI with the server-side baking project for as long as possible, so that TPVs have the choice of deciding whether they wish to integrate both projects into their own code at the same time or not.
CHUI is viewed as potentially the more problematic implementation for some TPVs to undertake as it involves more widespread changes to the UI, and, and project lead Merov Linden pointed out, the need to refactor a number of areas within the viewer to work with the CHUI elements. As some TPVs have already made substantial changes to the communications floater and other aspects of the communications elements of the UI, there is also a need for these TPVs to work through the code and see how it works with / impacts / breaks / undoes the changes they have made, in order for them to make a proper determination as to which code to adopt / maintain, and which code to ignore / discard.
Avatar Baking (Server-side Baking or SSB)
Work in progressing on all sides of this project, with the various TPVs working on integrating the initial code release from LL into experimental versions of their viewers (with varying degrees of success) and LL working on “bug stomping” and fixes. As commented on in my week 3 project report, there are concerns over the speed of releases for updated code from LL and general visibility of JIRA items.
Nyx Linden was on-hand at the TPV Developer Meeting on the 25th January to provide an update and field questions.
In terms of the server-side code, there have been a number of fixes which should have rolled-out to Aditi on Thursday 24th January, although the status of these had yet to be confirmed at the time of the meeting. Various issues are still to be fixed, such as some avatars being reported with heights which don’t match LL’s computations (particularly very small / petite avatars and very big avatars), which may be down to a mis-match between the way some viewers are calculating avatar height and what the server is anticipating receiving in terms of a value range.
The viewer code has also been receiving a number of updates and fixes, which should be available for use by TPVs and in an updated version of the project viewer in the next day or so. These updates include a required fix for an issue whereby edits make to a wearable item are not saved unless the user also changes something else they are wearing (for example, edits made to a blouse are not saved unless the user swaps the pants they are wearing).
Currently, and so far as I’m aware at the time of writing, Cool VL viewer, Singularity and Radegast all have experimental builds of their viewers / clients which incorporate the code and which are being used purely for testing purposes, with Exodus planning to start merging the code shortly. Niran’s viewer has reported issues with the new code “breaking” RLV/a which (so far) haven’t been reported by other TPVs.
Given the overall pace at which things are progressing on LL’s side, particularly with CHUI and dealing with issues uncovered within SSB itself, it is likely the original eight-week window for TPVs to integrate the SSB will be extended inasmuch as the deployment of SBB to the main grid is now likely to be slightly later than LL may have originally anticipated.
Continue reading “SL project news: week 4 (3): viewer, CHUI, SSB, more materials, oh my!”
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