Update Thursday, December 11th: There will be a hotfix update for Firestorm, which will likely be made available on Friday, December 12th. This is to correct a couple of issues related to voice and RLV/a discovered with the 4.6.9.42969 release, and will likely add some additional fixes as well. I’ll have a further report available once the update is available.
On Wednesday, December 10th, the Firestorm team announced the release Firestorm 4.6.9.42969.
This is a hefty update which brings with it a lot of new functionality, together with bugs fixes and assorted improvements and updates.
As always, the complete list of changes, together with all attributions, can be found in the release notes / change log, and I refer readers to that document for specifics on all contributors, FIRE JIRA links, etc. The following is intended as an overview of some of the more major / interesting changes, updates and fixes to be found in the release.
The Before We Begin Notes
For best results when installing this release:
Firestorm Blocking
Note that as a result of the Firestorm team’s policy to keep only 3 versions running, version 4.6.1 will be blocked, most likely early in the new year. The advice from the team is that If you are on 4.6.1, to please update now. Version 4.4.2 will continue to remain for Mac users until all the major Cocoa Mac bugs have been resolved. However, if you are not a Mac user, then there really isn’t any reason for you not to have updated, and the team again ask that you update as well.
Lab Updates
This release sees Firestorm remain on a parity with the Lab’s 3.7.8 code-base. However, a number of updates and fixes have been cherry-picked from upstream (such as the group ban functionality – see below), particularly bug fixes and stability improvements – please refer to the change log for details.
Building and Scripting Updates
Some additional updates and tweaks have been made to assist builders and scripters:
- There are two new buttons located in close proximity to the Edit Linked check box.
These buttons cycle forward or backward through a selected linkset, in the same way as the existing keyboard short cuts. note the buttons will only be active when Edit Linked is checked - The issue of the script editor failing to open scripts in copied objects (see VWR-27512), which has affected v2 and v3 viewers, is corrected with this release of Firestorm, and the fix has been contributed to Linden Lab for inclusion in the official viewer code
- The build toolbar button should no longer be disabled when it shouldn’t be.
Communications Updates
Firestorm 4.6.9 brings with it a large number of features, updates and improvements to communications. These include, but are not limited to, the following.
Audio / Voice
- Parcel media and audio now have a separate auto-play option (Preferences > Sound & Media > General > Allow audio to auto-play/Allow media to auto-play). Parcel audio should now auto-play correctly on logging-in
- A reset voice button has been added to Preferences to help with fixing voice issues (Preferences > Sound & Media > Voice Settings)
- You can now “zoom in” on a speaker using voice to hear them more clearly (Comm > Nearby Voice > Right click a name >Zoom in)
- Voice level icons in the radar are now independent from other voice level icons
- Sounds used for opening scrip dialogues can now be customised (Preferences > Sound & Media > UI Sounds 2 > Script Dialog)
- The viewer now automatically adds http:/ to the music URL in the parcel audio panel.
Auto-response Updates
With Firestorm 4.6.9, auto-response messages are now localised. There is also a new option for an item of inventory to be automatically sent with your auto-response messages, when set. The selected item must be COPY / TRANSFER in order for this capability to work, and will be sent when one of the following is set:
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Busy / do not disturb
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Away
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Autorespond
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Autorespond to non-friends.
To set an item of inventory to be sent with auto-response messages, drag and drop a suitable item from your inventory and into Preferences > Privacy > Autoresponse > Autoresponse Item.
In addition, this release fixes getting an IM from yourself to yourself saying “Autoresponse sent” if somebody answers from an off-line IM via email. Also, having both “Autorespond to non friends” and “Only friends and group can call me or IM me” set no longer results in you getting two new IM sound alerts for every non-friend IM plus the non-friend receives your auto-response twice for each IM sent.
Contacts List
The Contacts List floater has been revamped to match the look of the nearby chat and IM session floater, for a smoother and unique appearance. In addition, an option to pay someone directly from your Contacts List has been added to the right-click context menu (Comm > Contacts > Right click a name > Pay).
New to Firestorm 4.6.9 as well is the ability to choose which name columns should be displayed in the Contacts List. You can now choose between choose between user name, display name, full name, or a combination of these, and you can now display full names in your Contacts List as “Username (Display name)“. Finally, a option has also been added to hide the permissions columns (whether those in your Contacts List can see when you’re on-line, map you, etc.).
All of these options can be found under Preferences > Firestorm > General.
Continue reading “Firestorm 4.6.9: a Christmas feast of features and fixes!”
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