This summary is published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version: 4.1.2.321518, dated November 10, promoted November 15 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes.
Project Bento RC (avatar skeleton extensions), updated to version 5.0.0.321958 on December 1 – primarily as a further fix for a rendering bug related to bad skin weights in some mesh avatars. (download and release notes)
Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.1.3.321792 released on November 30– some 42 fixes and improvements (download and release notes)
Cool VL viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.18.35 and the Experimental branch updated to version 1.26.19.37, both on December 3rd (release notes).
Mobile / Other Clients
Radegast updated to version 2.20 on November 30th – featuring a new voice installer linking to most recent SL Voice repository. Note that as there is currently no access to the Radegast website, this update is not listed there (blog post, download link, source code link).
The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the abbreviated TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, December 2nd. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update. My thanks as always to North for recording and providing it.
There was no deployment of a server maintenance package to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, November 29th, leaving it running on the same build as week #47 – 16#16.11.02.321369. However, the channel did undergo a rolling restart in order to update all private regions on it to the new land impact allowances – see my expanded report for more.
On Wednesday, November 30th, all three RC channels received a new server maintenance package, comprising internal simulator changes. This deployment also saw all private regions on the three RC channels updated with the new land impact allowances.
No Change Window
[01:51] The Christmas and New Year 2016/17 No Change window has been confirmed as running from Friday, December 16th 2016 through to Monday, January 2nd, 2017. There will be no planned server deployments or major viewer releases during this time frame.
SL Viewer
Project Bento RC
[00:23] On Thursday, December 1st, the Bento RC viewer updated to version 5.0.0.321958, which primarily includes a further fix for a rendering bug related to bad skin weights in some mesh avatars, which hadn’t been entirely fixed with the last update.
Unless something completely unexpected crops up in the next few days, and providing the RC performs well, this viewer could be promoted to release status early in week #49 (week commencing Monday, December 5th). Should this happen, it is likely that Firestorm will issue their own Bento update roughly a week later.
Maintenance RC
[09:46] A new Maintenance RC arrived in the release channel on Tuesday, November 30th. Version 4.1.3.321792 includes some 42 fixes and improvements including the following:
Abuse Reporting:
When you’re trying to file an abuse report and you crash – the floater will stay open and all information we were able to save will persist.
There is a new toolbar button: “Report Abuse”
Appearance:
Appearance floater will now remember your last selected tab across logins. You like your Outfit Gallery? Enjoy! You don’t like it? Enjoy something you prefer …
Pay floater:
You can now add an optional payment message when you send money, and it accepts UTF8 (via Ansariel Hiller).
360 Snapshot Project Viewer
[29:07] Issues have emerged with the latest version of the 360 snapshot project viewer (4.1.3.321712, dated November 23rd) and the back-end web viewer, with people reporting:
Images captured using the latest version of the viewer will not load into older versions of the web viewer (pages remain suck on the gear cogs).
Images captured using any version of the viewer will not load into the latest version of the web viewer (which also uses a different folder hierarchy for the location of ZIP files).
The Lab indicates that some of these issues can be corrected by adjusting the image resolution in the snapshot floater to take pictures at a lower resolution.
[13:27] Right now, effort is being directed towards the 64-bit viewer’s media handling, it is therefore unlikely further work will be carried out on the snapshots viewer until 2017.
64-bit Viewer
[10:35] The Lab has successfully built 64-bit versions of the viewer that launch, but is “wrestling” with assorted issues in the new build pipeline. Discussions on the build process are largely taking place on the open-source development e-mail list, but the related wiki information will be updated to reflect the updates, and the use of a new configuration repository for setting all the correct build switches, etc., once the Lab is more confident with the build process. The target for a project viewer remains Real Soon NowTM.
[12:50] The 64-bit viewer will also include the changes to the viewer update process and how the process is managed. These will appear in the 64-bit version after the initial release has been made.
Viewer Release Notes
[10:09] A relatively new feature introduced to the official viewer, and which is now finding its way into version 4.x TPVs is that when opening a newly installed version of the viewer for the first time, the release notes are displayed in a pop-up, to help encourage users read about what has changed.
Voice Updates
[12:40] There are still bugs to be addressed in the next set of SL Voice updates, and the Lab wants to have these addressed before the updates are released at a project viewer.
SVC-7532 Roll-Back
[14:03] After all the investigations into the recent llTakeControl issues, include the “Horizons gun issue“, which was recently fixed, the Lab has looked more closely at the overall issue of weapons breakage in general, which was introduced as a result of SVC-7532. The conclusion drawn is that the “fix” for the issue should not have been implemented, and the issue as reported in that JIRA should have been marked as “expected behaviour”.
As a result, the Lab will be reverting the change. This means that TPVs should not need to offer a menu / preference toggle to allow users to switch between behaviour modes when using weapons depending upon how the weapon has been scripted. However, this does mean that touching things in Mouselook may not work if you are under the control of an attachment using llTakeControl.
The change to revert SVC-7532 will most likely go into an update yo the new Maintenance RC viewer.
Other Items
Proprietary Licensing
[18:30] There is an issue with proprietary licensing, apparently related to music and MP3 decoding and issues around it successor, AAC, and possible patent infringement. The discussion has been going on elsewhere, and I’m currently not au fait with the problems.
Community Gateways
[22:34] The updated registration API for new users, which features the latest avatars, etc., was made available to those in the Community Gateway programme in August / September (London City was one of the first in the programme to implement the updated API). Firestorm is dealing with some issues in updating their own landing pages to point to the new API.
Last 2016 TPV Developer Meeting
This was apparently the last TPV Developer meeting for 2016 – although one has been appearing on the calendar for December 16th.
Radegast client is the leading lightweight client for many users with disabilities
Earlier in November 2016, I invited Beq Janus to write about recent issues which have come to light for people trying to use SL Voice with the Radegast client. In short, it was recently noticed that Radegast would no longer install SL Voice on a new or clean (for those who had previously used it) installation. The problem lay with the Voice package being used no longer being available, compounded by the fact that since the sad passing of Radegast’s developer, Latif Khalifa, no-one is actively maintaining the client.
At the end of the article, Beq put out a plea for someone with the necessary coding expertise to consider stepping forward, and – if not take over maintenance of Radegast – at least update the installer to ensure it can use the correct Voice package going forward.
Well, that plea has been answered.
Cinder Roxley, a TPV developer and open-source contributor to Linden Lab, has stepped forward and updated Radegast to work with the current SL Voice, and provider a new installer package. The links are as follows:
Radegast 2.20 installer (with updated Voice – users wishing to install Radegast with Voice should use this link)
There was no deployment of a server maintenance package to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, November 29th, leaving it running on the same build as week #47 – 16#16.11.02.321369. However, the channel did undergo a rolling restart in order to update all private regions on it to the new land impact allowances – see my expanded report for more.
On Wednesday, November 30th, all three RC channels should receive a new server maintenance package, comprising internal simulator changes. This deployment should also see all private regions on the three RC channels also updated with the new land impact allowances.
SL Viewer
On November 23rd, the Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions) RC viewer updated to version 5.0.0.321760. This primarily comprised a fix for SL-534, a continuously growing bone error (aka “the Viagra bug”), and to bring the viewer to parity with the current release version.
Also on November 23rd, the 360-degree snapshot viewer updated to version 4.1.3.321712, maintaining parity with the current release viewer.
Grid Status Changes
The new Grid Status page is now in operation, complete with new RSS feeds and subscription options – see my expanded report for more.
This summary is published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:
It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy. This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog
By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
Official LL Viewers
Current Release version: 4.1.2.321518, dated November 10, promoted November 15 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes.
Project Bento RC (avatar skeleton extensions), updated to version 5.0.0.321760 on November 22 – bug fixes (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
360-degree snapshot viewer updated to version 4.1.3.321712 on November 23 – ability to take 360-degree panoramic images – hands-on review – download and release notes.
Cool VL viewer Stable branch updated to version 1.26.18.34 and the Experimental branch updated to version 1.26.19.36, both on November 26th (release notes).
Gentle Heron, second from the right encountered a Radegast Voice installation during the recording of a Designing Worlds special. Credit: Beq Janus
Update, November 30th: Cinder Roxley has updated the Radegast installer to work with the most recent SLVoice package. See her comments here and here (following this article). There is also a separate blog post on her work, for easier future linking.
It was recently discovered that the Radegast client was no longer installing the SLVoice extensions with a new / clean installation. On hearing of the problem, Beq Janus and Whirly Fizzle decided to investigate, and thanks to their work, we now two workaround solutions. As they had put the effort into sorting things out, I asked them if either would like to write about the issue and the solution, and Beq, with Whirly’s blessing, agreed to do so.
by Beq Janus
A few days ago when I was invited to reprise my role as a videographer for a special episode of Designing Worlds on the Future of Second Life, which will air in early December. The panel for the discussion included Gentle Heron of Virtual Ability Inc, the group who work to enable access to virtual worlds for those who, through disability or illness are unable to make ready use of regular viewers.
During the show, Gentle urged Linden Lab and us all to look for ways to make Virtual Worlds more accessible, remarking, somewhat fatefully, that many of her communities are limited to a single, troubled viewer, Radegast.
A subject of reviews in this blog, Radegast is a lightweight, extensible client which has been the ideal foundation for the disabled communities to build upon. It boasts an impressive set of speech to text and text to speech integrations and can be integrated with other devices such as braille screen readers. Sadly, Latif Kalifa, Radegast’s creator, passed away earlier this year and despite the code being open source, no-one has yet stepped forward to maintain it at a time when the Lab viewer is moving ahead in leaps and bounds, with the risk that non-maintained viewers and client might lose functionality.
Radegast client is the leading lightweight client for many virtual world users with disabilities
As if to underline this, Gentle fell silent towards the end of the show, as she was dealing with a number of users who were reporting they were unable to use Voice with Radegast as it was failing to install the all important SLVoice extensions. While I am unfamiliar with Radegast, I offered to try looking into it for Gentle.
SLVoice is a pre-built binary package supplied by Vivox and distributed by Linden Lab. During the summer, it had been upgraded to address some security concerns and so it seemed likely to me that Gentle’s problem might be that the older SLVoice package had been deprecated and removed from the download server. Sure enough, a quick check on the package URL resulted in the dreaded 404 not found error. I sent an email to Oz and Patch Linden asking them to confirm whether older versions of SLVoice had been moved.
The next day Oz confirmed that all old SLVoice packages were still available and nothing had changed. Whirly Fizzle, the powerhouse behind Firestorm QA, leapt into action: she cracked open the installer and discovered the URL actually pointed to a separately hosted Voice package which was no longer available, causing the Voice installation to silently fail during a new or clean Radegast installation as a result. However, Whirly also found a working back-up archive we could perhaps use. Unfortunately, neither Whirly or I are C# coders and cannot update the installation package directly; so how could we get a Radegast installation to work with the back-up Voice package?
I hit on the idea of first installing the backup package that Whirly had discovered, and then running the standard Radegast installer. Success! So, for anyone who is performing a clean / new install of Radegast and needs Voice, I’ve produced a set of instructions – see the link below. There is, however, more.
I mentioned above that Linden Lab had updated the SLVoice packages over the summer to deal with security concerns. Because of this, older versions of SLVoice are to be blocked from connecting to the service, and Radegast would once again be without a Voice option. Knowing this, and never one to leave a job half done, Whirly successfully tested my approach using the most recent SLVoice package available from the Lab, and confirmed it will also work.
This means that providing that there is no internal dependency within Radegast on the legacy Voice package, we now have an upgrade path for Radegast users that will ensure continued voice support after the block on older SLVoice packages comes into force. To help ensure people know what they need to do, Whirly’s instructions can also be found in the link below.
These instructions are only a workaround. We still need to find a way to have Radegast install the correct Voice extensions automatically, as a part of the client install process. So, if you are a C# (C-Sharp) developer and are willing to spare a few hours looking at this, please take a look at the Radegast codebase and see if there is a way to incorporate the correct binaries into an installer package. Thank you.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 