As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest information and updates.
Main (SLS) Channel
On Tuesday July 22nd, the Main channel was updated with the infrastructure project deployed to the Magnum RC in week 29, and which adds support for the upcoming changes to the Skill Gaming policy, and includes the update to improve L$ transaction logging for payments made by scripted objects previously on LeTigre and BlueSteel- release notes.
Release Candidate Channels
On Thursday July 24th, all three RC channel should be updated with the infrastructure support for the upcoming changes to the Skill Gaming policy, and includes the L$ transaction logging update and Temp attachment fix previously deployed to LeTigre and BlueSteel.
SL Viewer
On Tuesday July 22nd, the de facto release viewer was updated to version 3.7.12.291824, previously the Maintenance RC release candidate. This viewer includes over 40 MAINT fixes, including:
MAINT-3135 Cocoa Viewer: Mac: Maximizing the viewer leaves garbage on the screen
MAINT-3171 Alt-clicking while moving mouse can move the camera significantly
Tuesday July 22nd also saw two other viwer updates:
Tthe Group Ban RC viewer updated to version 3.7.13.292225. This allows group owners and those assigned to a specific role to ban (and eject) others from joining the group. Useful for dealing with spammers and other trouble-makers in open enrollment groups. For an overview of the group ban viewer, please refer to my preview notes
The Oculus Rift project viewer also updated to version 3.7.12.292141, to bring it up to parity with the release viewer 3.7.12 code base. Note at the time of writing, there were no supporting release notes for this update – please refer to the Alternate Viewers wiki page for the downloads.
Group Chat
Simon Linden is planning on a further group chat test at the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday July 24th. Commenting on this at the Simulator UG meeting on Tuesday July 22nd, he said, “those have been really helpful with our development. The more people who can come, the better. The test is usually at the end, a little before 4:00 if we don’t run out of other topics.”
Updates for the week ending: Sunday July 20th, 2014
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
Group Ban RC viewer version 3.7.12.292031 released on July 16th – allows certain group members to ban avatar from a group or from joining a group When an existing group member is banned, they are also automatically ejected from the group (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
Experience Keys project viewer version 3.7.12.291846 released on July 14th – adds support for viewing and managing Experiences and for contributing content for Experiences (download and release notes)
Kokua version 3.7.12.34831 released on July 15th – core updates: core parity through to LL 3.7.12, chat text entry bar tinted based of the type of conversation; preferences added for name and grid display in the program title bar + more – change log
V1-style
Cool VL viewer updated on July 19th – Stable release to version 1.26.12.8 and Legacy version 1.26.8.66 – core updates: please refer to the release notes
My apologies for this appearing a little on the late side; things have been a bit manic in the physical world of late (not helped by the Tour de France and the German GP this weekend!), and I’ve been slipping behind on blog posts (I’ve also got to talk to my minions about vacation scheduling….).
Note that the following notes are taken from both the Server Beta User Group meeting of Thursday July 17th and the TPV developer meeting on Friday July 18th, the video of which is supplied below (my thanks to North, as always). Items taken from the later are time stamped within the text, so you can locate and listen to the discussion in full via the video.
Server Deployments Week 29 – Recap
On Tuesday July 15th, the Main channel was updated with the Experience Keys project, which had previously been running on Magnum. This roll-out coincides with the release of the Experience Keys project viewer (see below) and the release of the Lab’s first Experience Keys demonstrator game, The Cornfield. Please refer to the release notes for further information
On Wednesday July 16th, the Magnum RC was updated a new infrastructure project that adds support for the upcoming changes to the Skill Gaming policy. Release notes
On Thursday July 17th, BlueSteel and LeTigre were both be updated with the Experience Keys project, but otherwise remained on the same server maintenance project as week 28, which addresses a JSON-related bug, an interest list related race condition, and to improve L$ transaction logging for payments made by scripted objects. See the release notes (BlueSteel) for details.
SL Viewer
Group Ban Viewer
The Group Ban viewer reached release candidate status on Wednesday July 16th, with the release of version 3.7.12.292031. This viewer allows certain group members to ban avatar from a group or from joining a group When an existing group member is banned, they are also automatically ejected from the group. Please refer to my Group Bans overview for further information, if required.
Maintenance Release RC
[04:20] This viewer, version 3.7.12.291824, has been tracking with the same crash rate as the current release viewer (3.7.11.291465), and as such is expected to be promoted to the de facto release during week 30 (week commencing Monday July 21st). However, it has been reported that the Mac Alt-Cam bug (BUG-6760) fix doesn’t work and has been referred back to the Lab for further investigation.
Oculus Rift Project Viewer
[04:56] It is anticipated that an updated version of the Oculus Rift project viewer will be appearing soon, potentially in week 30. The update will bring the viewer up to par with the current 3.7.12 release code base.
Log-in Test Viewer
[04:44] There is a special log-in test viewer currently on closed use (there is no publicly available version), which is being used for some kind of A/B testing related to logging-in to Second Life. Precisely what this testing is geared towards is unclear.
Viewer Autobuild Process
[05:50] Oz Linden has been working on improving the viewer autobuild process, and there is a new version of autobuild, together with a wiki page on the changes and improvements. The new version brings with it a number of improvements, such as stricter library version checking, full transitive dependency checks, additional error checks, etc. This is considered to be one of the steps required in order for the viewer to be compiled using Visual Studio 2013. Full details in the video for those into self-compiling viewers.
Third-party Viewer Directory Updates
[00:20] The Third-party Viewer Directory, which lists all Second Life viewers and clients which have gone through the self-certification process, has been revised.
Until recently, the directory was listed by viewer crash rate – with the most stable at the top. However, this was something of a hit-and-miss approach due to a number of factors, including significant changes made to the code within the viewer which is used to detect and report crashes. So instead, viewer and clients are now split into three categories:
Those which are actively maintained “full” viewers which are updated regularly to track new developments in the Linden Lab viewer, and implement a full graphical environment
“Lightweight”, text and mobile clients, such as Lumiya, Group Tools, Radegast and so on
Those viewers which have not been updated recently enough to be considered fully compatible with current Second Life services (e.g. they lack things like server-side appearance, etc.).
Group Chat
[11:56] Work is continuing on group chat. At the TPV Developer meeting, Oz Linden summarised this work as:
We are working on group chat; I don’t really have much to report on that this week. We’re doing a set of experiments and collecting a lot of data, and then we’re going to come up with the next round of changes to make. One of the things we’ll try to do, once we think we’re done with this project – and I have no predictions for when that will be – is tell people how it went and what we’ve done.
It may well be that before we’re done, we’ll come back to this group and say we’re making changes to interfaces to viewers for group chat in order to improve the situation. I don’t know of any of those yet, but I’m not ruling them out. We’re going to try to make group chat a lot better, and if that means not being 100% backwards compatible, then that’s what it means. At this point we’re not looking at changing the protocol with anything else. Not ruling it out, but that’s not the correct direction.
Experience Keys
The Cornfield, the Experience Keys demonstrator game
The current creator beta programme for Experience Keys has now been filled. Commenting on it at the Server Beta meeting, Coyot Linden referred to it as proving “wildly popular” and that the Lab have “heard some really cool ideas for new experiences”. He also referred to this being “round on” of the beta programme – so there may be more opportunities for creators to be involved in the future.
During the Server Beta meeting, a request was made for the Linden to consider allowing the popularity of an Experience (e.g. the number of people engaged on it) to be made available, with the suggestion it could be done in a number of ways:
As information made available only to the Experience owner (so they can see how popular a given experience they’ve created is proving to be
As information which can be (perhaps optionally) published by the Experience owner (e.g. via the Experience Profile)
As information which can be displayed in the Search tab of the Experience floater, allowing users to search for the most popular experiences at any given time.
Commenting on this, Simon Linden said, “The numbers will definitely be interesting, but we’ll have to think carefully about what and how to expose it. As an owner, it makes sense for you to have an idea what’s going on with your experience. I’m not so sure about others.”
Part of the concern here is about the popularity figure potentially being used by griefers as a means of targeting popular regions / activities and causing disruption. Following Simon’s observation, Dolphin Linden added, “yeah, technically the number can be made available. But how and to whom needs to be thought about, but numbers about your own xp can be tracked if you want with a little bit of work. We might also be able to just get an ordered list of the top 10 experiences or something, without disclosing actual numbers.”
The Cornfield: the Lab’s Experience Keys demonstrator (game play area uses a much darker and more atmospheric windlight)
On Monday July 14th, Linden Lab issued the Experience Keys project viewer alongside the launch of their Experience Keys demonstration game, The Cornfield, which I’ve reviewed separately.
As a quick overview for those not in the know, an Experience in Second Life can be almost any immersive / interactive environment within SL where the user needs to provide permissions for objects, etc., to interact with their avatar. Experience Keys mean that anyone wishing to participate in any activities suited to the use of Experience Keys need only give their assent once, thereafter, actions within the Experience which affect their avatar happen automatically – teleports, attaching a HUD or item of equipment, etc. – without any need for user approval (although notification of so actions may still be displayed in the viewer window).
The Experience Keys project viewer – version 3.7.12.291846 at the time of writing – is available from the Alternate Viewers wiki page, includes a number of key UI updates which are used alongside experiences in Second Life, and which apply to those creating experiences, those using experiences, and those who allow experiences to run on their land.
Please note that until server-side support for Experience Keys is fully deployed across the main grid (Scheduled to complete on Thursday July 17th, some elements of the viewer will not function on BlueSteel or LeTigre RC regions – for example, searching for experiences will not return any result if you are on a region running on either of these two RCs).
The Experiences Floater
Within the Experience Keys project viewer, this is accessed via Me > Experiences (no toolbar button or keyboard shortcut with the project viewer), and provides the means for users to locate experiences in Second Life, manage the experiences they have encountered during their travels through Second Life or which they have created or contributed to, and also check any actions any given Experience has performed on their avatar. It comprises five individual tabs.
Search
Allows you to locate experiences in SL by all or part of their name and filtered by maturity rating. The tab also includes an option to view the profile for an Experience (see below).
The Experience floater is accessed via Me > Experiences, and comprises 5 tabs. Search allows you to search for SL experiences
Allowed / Blocked
These two tabs allow you see those experiences you have either allowed – that is, you’ve granted permission to – and those you’ve blocked. A blocked experience is one in which you have refused to participate and have blocked it so that you will no longer be prompted to join it whenever you visit a region / parcel where it is active (until such time as you choose to revoke the block).
Each tab displays a list of experiences by name. Clicking on a name will display the relevant Experience Profile (see below).
The Experiences Allowed tab displays a list of experiences in which you have participated. Click on an experience name to display the associated Experience Profile. The Blocked tab is similar in nature, but displays all experiences you have blocked from bothering you
Admin, Contributor and Owned
These three tabs respectively display:
Those experiences for which you have been made an administrator of (via a special group role called Admin). Administrators are those people assigned by the creator of an experience who can edit the Experience Profile
Those experiences for which you have been made a contributor (via a special group role called Contributor). Contributors are those people assigned by the creator of an experience who can contribute scripts and objects to an experience
Those experiences you have created and own. While an experience can be a collaborative piece – hence the Admin and contributor roles – one avatar must be the designated owner of an experience and hold overall responsibility for it.
Events
This tab allows you to see the actions (events) taken on your avatar by any experiences in which you’ve recently participated. It includes a number of additional options:
Notify: turn-on on-screen notifications for a given event – so if you wish to be notified each time your avatar is animated by any experience, for example, you can use this button
Profile: display the Experience Profile for the experience associated with the event
Report: will open the Abuse Report floater, which has been pre-populated with the relevant information, allowing you to instantly file an Abuse Report against an event / object which is causing grief / harassment
Notify All Events: checking this will cause all on-screen notifications for events within any experience to be displayed by the viewer
Days: the total number of days history of events you wish the tab to display
Clear: clear the event list
< and >: page through the list.
Experience Profile
The Experience Profile floater
The Experience Profile provides the following information on any given Experience:
The experience name
A short description
An image (if provided)
The maturity rating for the experience
The experience owner
The group associated with the experience
A link to any associated Marketplace store
In addition, the Profile contains four buttons:
Allow: will add the Experience to your list of allowed experiences without you having to actually visit it and agree to participate. When visiting experiences allowed in this way, you will not see any invitational dialogue boxes displayed, because the system will already consider you a participant. Note that if you have already participated in the experience, this button will be grayed-out
Block: will add the Experience to the list of those you have blocked, so that you will not be bothered with any invitational dialogues when visiting regions / parcels where it is running – although you also won’t be able to participate in it until such time as you unblock it. Note that if you have already blocked the experience, this button will be grayed-out
Forget: If you have previously added an Experience to either your Allowed or Blocked list, this button will remove it from whichever list it appears on. This means that for a previously allowed Experience, you will have to once again agree to participate in it when you next visit, and for a previously Blocked Experience, you will receive invitational dialogues on visiting it once more, allowing you to participate in it, if you’ve changed your mind.
Report: opens the Abuse Report floater, which has been pre-populated with the relevant information, allowing you to instantly file an Abuse Report against an event / object which is causing grief / harassment.
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest status / updates / issues.
Main (SLS) Channel
On Tuesday July 15th, the Main channel was updated with the Experience Keys project, which had previously been running on Magnum. This roll-out coincides with the release of the Experience Keys project viewer (see below) and the release of the Lab’s first Experience Keys demonstrator game, The Cornfield. Please refer to the release notes for further information.
Release Candidate Channels
On Wednesday July 16th, the Magnum RC should be updated a new infrastructure project that adds support for the upcoming changes to the Skill Gaming policy. This would appear to be the changes required to support the new Skill Gaming region type. Release notes.
On Thursday July 17th, BlueSteel and LeTigre will both be updated with the Experience Keys project, but will otherwise remain on the same server maintenance project as week 28, which addresses a JSON-related bug, an interest list related race condition, and to improve L$ transaction logging for payments made by scripted objects. See the release notes (BlueSteel) for details, and part 2 of my projects update for week 28.
SL Viewer
As noted above, the Experience Keys project viewer, version 3.7.12.291846, was released on Monday July 14th. This provides viewer-side support for accessing and managing SL experiences using the new Experience Keys permissions capabilities.
The Search tab on the new Experience floater, accessed from the Experiences option in the Me menu in the Experience Keys project viewer
This viewer can be used in conjunction with the Lab’s Experience Keys demonstrator game, The Cornfield, and with other experiences as they are opened to public use. Please keep in mind that the viewer may not behave correctly until after the server-side deployment of Experience Keys support has completed on Thursday July 17th.
For further details on Experience Keys, please refer to the following:
There are also some further notes from Dolphin Linden on the subject, below.
Yet More on Experience Keys
Dolphin Linden at the Simulator UG meeting
Dolphin Linden again attended the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday July 15th, where he answered more question on the Experience Keys project.
Lucia Nightfire offered up a couple of points of feedback which appear especially relevant to the new capabilities:
An estate / parcel setting to disable all non-experience scripts. This would be useful in game experiences, as it could prevent participants cheating by using non-game scripted objects
An estate / parcel setting to block all grid-wide experiences from running on an estate / parcel. Currently, any grid-wide experiences which come on-line have to be explicitly blocked by name, which means if an estate / parcel owner didn’t want any grid-wide experiences running on their land, they’d have to keep adding them to their block list as and when they become aware of them. A single check-box option would eliminate this.
Feature requests are to be filed on both of these points, which the Lab have agreed to look into.
Other Bits
Sim Crossing Hiccups
There have been renewed reports of region crossing issues which seem to be occurring regularly, but only between certain regions when tested. The issues mainly appear to affect vehicles and take the form of the avatar taking an exceptionally long period of time to cross between regions – with the vehicle the avatar is say upon taking up to 30 seconds longer. When this happens, the avatar appears to be visually unlinked from the vehicle, but the vehicle itself fails to get auto-returned, as the simulators appear to consider the avatar and vehicle as still being linked.
Motor Loon provided some specific details on the issue, and has indicated he will raise a bug report using the information he has, as the Lab are unaware of any specific problems which may cause this. However, while it has yet to be confirmed, it was also reported at the meeting at a similar issue on a region crossing between two regions was resolved by restarting them in a specific sequence.
Updates for the week ending: Sunday July 13th, 2014
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 updated to version: 3.7.10.291265 July 8th – formerly the Snowstorm viewer – Windows XP users, please note that you must have Service Pack 3 (Win XP 32-bit) or SP 2 (Win XP 64-bit) in order for this viewer to install (download page, release notes)
SL Maintenance RC version 3.7.12.291824 released on July 10th – almost 40 MAINT fixes from the Lab “to make your Second Life smoother” (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
Project refresh viewer version 3.7.12.291799 released on July 10th – contains an update to a large set of libraries used by the viewer to provide security, stability and consistency improvements to this and future viewers (download and release notes)
Cool VL viewer updated on July 12th – Stable release to version 1.26.12.7 and Legacy version 1.26.8.65 – core updates: please refer to the release notes
