Saturday May 25th saw the arrival of Lumiya 2.4.5. Something of a maintenance release, rather than one which offers heaps of new features, the update should help improve the overall experience for users who make use of Lumiya to access Second Life while on the go. Which is not to say there aren’t any visible updates to the app – there are; however, these are more aimed at also enhancing existing functionality, rather than adding new bells and whistles.
This update also sees Lumiya made available via Android Pit as well as Google Play, allowing it to be purchased via PayPal.
Profile Pictures, Picks and Notes
Perhaps the most visible change with the 2.4.5 update has been made to the profile display, which now includes the ability to display people’s profile pictures within Lumiya, together with pictures included in their Picks, and which also allows you to add notes of your own to their profile.
Accessing your own (or a friend’s) profile will now display their profile picture on the left of an updated profile display, with their on-line and payment status information displayed to the right of it, together with their SL age. The selected individual’s About information is now displayed directly under their profile picture in a manner which mirrors the legacy “in-viewer” profile floaters which are common to v1-based viewers and popular with some V3-based TPVs.
Tapping the Picks tab will display a list of available Picks for the selected user, any of which can be accessed by tabbing on them, and will display their associated pictures after any descriptive or other text. Use the Back button on your device to move back and forth between Picks or to exit a profile display altogether, as per usual.
The Note functionality is also accessed by tapping a tab at the top of the profile display, and works exactly the same way as the notes option in viewer profiles – the notes you add are only visible to yourself.
Inventory Search
Lumiya 2.4.5 adds the ability to search your inventory for an item or items matching a given keyword. The search option is accessed by opening your inventory and then tapping the button with the magnifying glass icon (again in keeping with V3-based viewers). This will open a search field at the top of the display as well as displaying the device keypad to input a search term.
Deactivate Current Group and External Storage Device Support
With Lumiya 2.4.5 you can deactivate your current group tag, and also define which storage medium you wish to use for the Lumiya database.
The latter – selecting a storage device for storing your Lumiya database – is controlled through Lumiya’s Settings options (accessed through the Menu button on your device). It can be found under the Cache section of settings, towards the bottom of the list of options (“Database location”). Tap to display a list of available alternative (e.g. “Internal storage” and “SD card”) and then tap the desired option.
Deactivating a group tag is a simple matter of displaying your list of groups, then long-touching the name of the active group and tapping the displayed option to Deactivate. This will uncheck the Group name in your list, and will result in your avatar’s tag only showing your display name and / or user name in other people’s views. You can of course activate any group tag simply by long-touching it and then tapping the displayed Activate option once more.
Under the Hood
The under-the-hood changes to Lumiya are designed to improve your experience when running Lumiya and comprise:
- Auto reconnect after connection loss.
- Improved handling of large inventories.
- Runtime texture compression to reduce memory usage.
- Online/offline notifications in chat windows.
- Option to deactivate active group.
Feedback
This update to Lumiya is again somewhat “low-key” compared to some of the previous releases, but this doesn’t make it any less valuable. Alina is focusing on refining the client and the options it currently offers, rather than looking to add a lot of additional bells and whistles at this point it time. As such, this update is very evolutionary rather than revolutionary – and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that, and is a very worthwhile download if you don’t have Lumiya set to auto-update.
Related Links
- Lumiya home page
- Download – Google Play
- Download – Android Pit (accepts payments via PayPal
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Great little viewer but still has issues teleporting between Kitely regions and restoring animations post-flight (Nexus 7).
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The post-flight animation issue should have been fixed – at least for SL. I actually noted it to Alina when it first occurred. That said, I’ve not tested it lately on other grids; will give it a try and see. I must confess that I’ve not tried teleporting with Lumiya when in-world at Kitely, so must also give that a try next time I’m there.
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Neither issue is exactly a showstopper but I thought I’d mention it in case Alina dropped by.
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Yup. Good move :).
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I wonder if it’ll be automatically updated via Google Play as other apps do.
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On Kitely the avatar arrives inworld in a different orientation compared to most desktop clients — this is most evident in the transit world where the sign is not visible unless the avie does a 180° turn. Again, pretty trivial stuff.
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