SL Mobile demonstration by Grumpity Linden – a screen capture from the June 2023 development video from Linden Lab
On Tuesday, June 27th, Linden Lab released a new video highlighting the development work for Second Life Mobile App. This video is embedded below, with what follows intended to form a short summary of comments made on the work during the SL20B Lab Gab session with Grumpity and Mojo Linden (and for which I’ll have a text summary available soon.
Key Points
Development work is continuing, with an emphasis on performance and rendering (for example: the capabilities of the hardware running SL Mobile is assessed to see if it can render with shadows enabled).
The user interface has been revised and improved.
The overall aim remains to provide an immersive an experience as possible, and provide users with an many of the capabilities found within the viewer as makes sense to include in a mobile device.
As it is, SL Mobile provides:
Chats and IM capabilities.
Friends on-line information.
Destinations / Places.
Teleport capabilities.
Groups and Group chat functionality.
High-quality rendering.
Avatar navigation via an on-screen joystick (only visible when in use).
Work will continue in adding features and capabilities and refining SL Mobile over the next two quarters.
The current time frame for releases is:
Limited “private” alpha testing towards the end of 2023.
Broader user beta testing in 2024.
Further news and updates will be made available as and when there are updates to share.
Rendering in the SL Mobile app / viewer – screencap via the June 2023 development video from Linden Lab
The Video
The new video – embedded below – provides insight into the work carried out since the last update / video released at SL19B, and highlights some of the purposes LL sees SL Mobile being put to.
Note that elements such as the UI as seen in the video are subject to possible change as the product develops.
While viewer updates are always in process across the available TPVs and clients, I thought I’d take a brief delve into recent updates for a couple of those I tend to routinely follow – Kirsten’s Viewer and the Speedlight Browser / Android / iOS client.
Kirsten’s Viewer
Late February and early March have seen a burst of activity from KirstenLee Cinquetti, with three versions of the Kirsten’s Viewer being released in a rapid-fire succession, started with S23.6.1500 on February 23rd and running through S23.6.1525 (codenamed Valkyrie, dated February 27th) and then S23.6.1533 (also, I gather, Valkyrie, released on March 2nd).
Give it’s been getting close to a year since the last update (see Kirsten’s viewer: a return to active duty and Kirsten’s Viewer gains the client-side AO), these releases do not focus on new features so much on both catching-up with the Lab’s core code base (which appears to be currently still in progress) and a lot of under-the-hood house cleaning.
In particular, the code clean-up means that as from the S23 release, Kirsten’s Viewer discontinues support for Linux /Solaris/ OSX, and the viewer will be Windows-only. The reason for this is simple: time.
Why would I do such a thing? Its simply the realisation that keeping this thing maintained takes time, which is a rare commodity and focusing on a pure windows based solution without sifting through endless defines and endif’s not to mention the triple whammy cmake files or anything else for that matter makes life a heck of a lot simpler.
– KirstenLee on why Kirsten’s Viewer is now Windows-centric
A further benefit of this move, as Kirsten goes on to note, is that it also streamlines the Windows built process itself, through the integration of some of the build libraries into Visual Studio 2017 (now the core build tool for the Windows flavour of viewers), rather than relying on third-party libraries.
Given this focus, it appears the viewer has yet to get some of the more recent updates from the Lab, including:
Camera Presets (contributed to the Lab by open-source developer Jonathan Yap).
Mesh Uploader updates (contributed by open-source / Firestorm developer Beq Janus, with further modifications by the Lab).
Avatar “jelly doll” rendering improvements (via Vir Linden).
That said there are a couple of new additions to be found in preferences:
The return of the Midnight UI skin (Preferences → S23 Features → S23 UI Selection).
Kirsten’s S23 see the return of the purple “Midnight” UI skinning (viewer restart required)
The inclusion of the Controls Tab from the Lab’s Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, which allows users to assign specific key mappings to a range of viewer functions (Preferences Controls).
S23 incorporates the Lab’s custom key mapping options, which at the time of this review, were still at viewer release candidate status in the official viewer.
As noted, these recent releases are more along the lines of maintenance work and under-the-hood changes that are vital to the viewer’s longevity and future ease-of-update, rather than intending to present significant user-facing updates.
But that said, and with this work now completed, it hopefully won’t be too long before options such as the jelly doll updates and Camera Presets appear within Kirsten’s Viewer and it continued to recover greater parity with the Lab’s code base and releases.
Details on KirstenLee’s recent work on the viewer can be found on her blog, and the viewer can be downloaded here.
Speedlight
Speedlight, the browser / android / iOS client updated in mid-February, with updates for both Basic and Gold users.
Core updates (Basic and Gold):
Places search has been added.
Speedlight now includes the ability to search via region / parcel name (subject to location’s search listing)
SLURLs are now clickable with an ability to teleport.
Avatar maturity can be changed via the Settings → Maturity tab.
The Avatars page (dashboard) now displays the current location of your avatars.
The location of your avatar(s) is now listed on the Avatar dashboard page
3D World View Updates:
Walk auto-pilot: right-click or long touch on device screen at location to the walked to, then select Walk Here from the pop-up menu.
In-world object interaction (Touch): right-click or long touch object, and select Touch from the pop-up menu.
Revised interface for the world view, with improved rendering.
Gold 3D Word View Updates:
While in low-poly mode, touch any object to load a high LOD model.
Holding ALT+mouse will rotate camera around avatar (as with a viewer).
On-screen joystick can be turned on in 3D settings.
Stick avatars size adjusted to fit with real avatars in preparation for avatar rendering).
The core updates noted above further tune Speedlight’s ability to meet with many use-cases for those needing to access SL while away from a full viewer. As noted last time around, however, my personal view is that the 3D world view remains hit-and-miss – even on my PC using a browser, objects frequently fail to fully render and avatar movement can be unpredictable.
Whether this is just done to my being Basic / have a bad connection to the rendering pre-processing server, I’ve no idea; but if these issues are more endemic, then perhaps they might suggest that more more needs to be tweaked before full-scale avatar rendering is attempted.
In the meantime, Speedlight can be run via any browser via the Speedlight Website, or downloaded from either Google Play or the Apple Store (fee payble for the latter, with automatic Gold lifetime subscription).
I’ve fallen behind in my tracking of Speedlight, the browser / Android / iOS Second Life client. There are several reasons for this – most of them down to me & time (or lack thereof), although I admit a couple of issues with the application have also kept me from using it. With regards to the latter, I’d like to offer a doff of my virtual hat and a “thank you” to the Speedlight Live Chat support mechanism and Speedlight Support Manager QuincyJohnes (that’s a name you have to love for it’s little play on things) for getting me sorted in very short order.
There have been numerous changes to Speedlight since my last article in July 2020 (see: Speedlight: group functionality and other updates), some of which are more under-the-hood than user visible, and there are several more in the pipeline. As such, this piece is offered as a quick round-up of things for those interested in Speedlight but who also haven’t yet had cause to use it, or like me, haven’t used it in a while.
Account Changes
Since November 22nd, 2020, Speedlight has no longer requires a dedicated user account to access the service.
While the option to create an account remains, new and existing users can now sign-in to Speedlight using any one of the following services on which they have an account: Google, Facebook, Apple or Discord.
Note that this is signing-in to the Speedlight service; it is not about logging-in to Second Life itself via Speedlight – you will still need to use your SL user name / password for this.
In addition, Speedlight on iOS supports FaceID log-in (again to the Speedlight service, not to Second Life).
IM Updates
User name is now displayed as well as display Name.
Long-tap / right-click options to pin IMs, mark them as unread, close an IM session or view the other person’s Profile.
Pinned IMs will appear with a red dot alongside them, at the top of the list of current / recent IN exchanges.
Speedlight IM exchange options – long tap (iOS / Android) or right click (browser) on avatar name in IM list to display
General improvements to link parsing in IMs, and improvements in reading off-line IM reading, starting IMs, etc.
Autoresponder
Speedlight now incorporates the ability to set-up and use auto responses to incoming IMs, accessed via IMs Autoresponder
Two options are available:
Autoreponse to be set when Speedlight logs you “Away”
Autoresponse when you are at your keyboard but do not wish to be distracted by responding to IMs immediately.
Each option has a default message than can be edited to suit your needs.
The relevant check box must be tapped / clicked in order to apply either / both settings, AND the Save Settings button tapped / clicked.
When initially set, the top of the Autoresponder panel will display “settings saved”.
In addition, the IM option in the left menu will display a red-bannered AUTO, which will also display the number of newly-received IMs.
Those sending you an IM will be sent an autoresponse based on your settings / status the first time they IM you (the message will not be repeated each time they IM you while they have the tab / panel to you open).
Speedlight Autoresponder options. Via IMs Autoresponder
Note: You can set the time your status will automatically switch to AWAY via Settings → General → Time to “Away” (default: 15 minutes). This option can also be accessed by tapping / clicking the Configure option under the “Away” autoresponse field in the autoresponder panel.
Group Support
In my last update, I noted the expansion of Group related capabilities in the browser version of Speedlight (e.g. search, view and send group notices, leave a group, invite someone to a group). Since that time, these capabilities have been extended to the Android and iOS versions of Speedlight.
It is now possible to see your active group in the Groups list and change your active group via the Group Info panel.
Speedlight: identifying and changing your active Group
In addition, Speedlight now provides the ability to view Group roles, with the promise that the ability to edit them (by those with permission to do so) will follow in due course.
Speedlight: view Group roles
Pop-Up Notifications
Speedlight: notifications with interactions
Pop-up notifications are now available in all versions of Speedlight (i.e. IM, friendship offer / request, teleport offer / request).
Requests / offers requiring a response will include suitable buttons (see right).
IM pop-ups will include the text of the IM, but you’ll have to go to the IM screen to open and reply to the message (tapping / clicking the pop-up will not automatically open IMs).
General Updates
Ability to copy / paste location SLurl in Summary panel.
Multi-line chat input supported in all versions.
L$ and Transactions:
There is a “New recipient” warning for transactions.
The page now displays a list of recent recipients.
3D World rendering:
Chat overlay in 3D world view available to all users, Gold and Free.
Interactions (long touch / right-click) on objects available to Free as well as Gold users.
Options are Touch (dialogue menu), Sit, Stand.
Dialogues are displayed in the top right of the 3D rendering panel.
Gold (subscription / payment) user updates for 3D view:
3D world view walk autopilot added to replace on-screen joystick.
In-world object touching with single click/tap.
In-world object touching using a pop-up menu.
Improved 3D GUI.
iOS version:
Now available via the Apple Store for anyone (Gold and Free).
Note price is set via Apple pricing / commission requirements.
Future Updates
Work continues to update Speedlight across the board, with feedback also being sought from users concerning features. A major update – with no time-frame on delivery at present – is an overhaul of the 3D rendering to provide full avatar rendering in the world view, rather than the current stick figures.
Upcoming avatar rendering. Credit: Speedlight team
Feedback
Not all of the above are necessarily “new” updates for Speedlight – as noted, I’m playing catch-up. However, it’s fair to say that those I’ve particularly highlighted increase the usability of the client, although things can remain a little rough in places – such as with 3D rendering, which even allowing for the aspects outside of Spreedlight’s direct control, still has a good way to go. But, as I’ve mentioned before, such a capability didn’t simply happen overnight with the likes of Lumiya – so further time needs to be allowed for further improvements to the capability beyond things like better avatar rendering.
For those who simply need mobile access to SL without necessarily needing 3D rendering, Speedlight continues to build out solid functionality, marking it as an effective communications tool (chat, IM, Group, Friends), with good transaction capabilities, and a basic set of inventory options (that will also hopefully be built on). And if you’re on iOS, remember you don’t have to purchase the App version; it is possible to run Speedlight through a browser on a mobile device via the website. Certainly, given its current capabilities, Speedlight could potentially give the Lab’s upcoming iOS / Android communications App some strong competition.
Since that first article, I’ve provided a number of updates on the development work – please use the SL Mobile tag to catch up with all of them.
At the Web User Group on Wednesday, August 5th, Keira Linden gave a further update on the client’s status, as per the notes and audio below, which have been provided alongside my usual notes on the app.
August 5th Update
iOS Client
The iOS version has been in a closed alpha that includes a number of residents for some 2+ months, having started in May.
In keeping with the Lab’s plans, this version offers the ability to communicate via IM and view your Friends list.
As a result of this close alpha testing, the Lab now has a build that is “destined for [Apple’s] App Store”, which is currently “bouncing back and fort”h between the development team and LL’s QA team.
The hope is that this version can be submitted to Apple for review some time in August 2020.
This does not necessarily mean the iOS client will immediately appear within the App Store, as Apple can be exceptionally picky in their review process, which can result in requests for changes to an app to be made before listing is allowed.
LL obviously hopes the app will not encounter significant issues, but because of the review process, no time frame can be given on when the app will appear in the App Store – but there will presumably be an announcement once it is available.
Android Client
Having started much later than the iOS version, which remains the Lab’s focus, the Android version is still at a somewhat earlier stage of development.
However, it is under active development.
When it is ready, it will likely follow a similar Alpha / Beta test process to the iOS version.
In-world Presence
In a change to earlier statements, Mobile app users will have an in-world location.
This will be in one of several special “Mobile” regions. However:
As Mobile users have no 3D world view, these regions are not landscaped or populated in any way.
Access is restricted to those using the Mobile app, general access by users on the viewer or other clients is not allowed.
Currently, three Mobile regions have been set-up.
General Capabilities
Note: this is a reiteration of notes from earlier updates on the SL Mobile client.
It should initially be regarded as more of a communicator / companion app than a fully-rounded client. The initial intention for the client is to provide users with a means of maintaining basic contact with other users whilst away from their main means of accessing Second Life.
As such, it will support logging-in to Second Life services to support IM and group chat support.
Capabilities such as having an in-world rezzing location, the ability to chat locally, support for scene rendering will be added over time.
However, in terms of any in-world rendering, this will not be part of any initial released (in the meeting it was described as “not even Soon™”), as LL are focused in just trying to get the basic app available to users as soon as reasonably possible.
Reporting and Updates in this Blog
Again, all information I’m able to provide through this blog, including future updates can be found under the SL Mobile tag, and can be accessed directly from the top menu options:
SL → User Group & Viewer → Viewers → Android & iOS and then selecting either:
It’s been a little over a month since my last update on Speedlight, the browser based Second Life client, so here’s a quick round up of the major updates since then.
Note that unless otherwise stated, the following notes apply to the browser version of Speedlight, as at the time of writing they had yet to be applied to the dedicated Android app version or (so far as I’m aware), the beta iOS app version.
Group Support
Perhaps the most noticeable update to the browser version of Speedlight since June is the expansion of Group related capabilities, specifically:
Search your groups.
View group notices and send group notices.
Leave a group.
Invite someone into a group.
Obviously, all group actions are subject to the group permissions assigned to your role within the group.
Notes:
Groups are accessed via the Group option in the Speedlight client menu.
The Group option will display your current groups as a searchable list, via the Search option at the top of the list.
When using Speedlight on a mobile device, the group list is displayed as an overlay to the main group information display, and is shown / hidden by tapping the Groups>> link displayed at the top of the options menu.
Tapping on the name of a group in the list will open the Group Info panel, shown below (and auto-close the Group list mobile devices).
The updated group display panel showing: 1. The pre-existing Group Chat button; 2. the new Group Notices button; 3. the Button to Join / Leave a group; 4. the Group Invite button.
Group Notices
Note: at the time of writing, the group notices functionality was only available to the browser version of Speedlight (any browser / device).
To view your group notices, click / tap the Group Notices button.
The Group Notices panel will open and load any available notices.
Click / tap on any notice to display it below the list of available notices.
Note that notice attachments cannot presently be viewed / opened, but are listed in the text of the notice.
View a group notice in the Speedlight browser version
The Group Notices panel has two buttons associated with it:
Send New Notice – described below.
Schedule a Notice – this option is either awaiting implementation or a Gold / Patreon subscription option. As I currently do not have either of the latter, I was unable to check, ergo it is excluded from this article.
Send a Group Notice
Subject to group permissions you can also create and send group notices from Speedlight:
From the Group Notice panel, click the Send New Notice button at the top of the panel.
The New Notice panel is display. Here you can:
Enter a title for the notice.
Enter the text of the notice. Note the character counter will turn red if you exceed the 512 character count for a notice, and the text beyond that point will be truncated when the notice is sent.
Click the Send Notice button when you’re ready to send your notice.
Send a Group Invite
Subject to group permissions you can send a group invitation to one or more users from Speedlight:
From the Group Info panel, click the Invite to Group button.
The Invite to Group panel is displayed.
Speedlight Invite to Group panel
Role To Invite: select the required role (if available) that will be offered in the invite.
Resident Name: enter the avatar name of the person whom you wish to receive the invite.
IM Message (optional): if you wish, you can send the person you are inviting an IM alongside the group invite – such as an explanation on why you’re sending it, etc.
Note you can use the listed variables to personalise the IM. For example, clicking the %FIRST_NAME% option will precede your IM with the recipient’s first name, while %GROUP% can be used to display the group’s name in the IM.
When you’re ready to send the invite, click the Invite button.
Additional notes for group invites:
Pressing ENTER after typing the recipient’s name will actually send the invitation, so if you want to send an IM with the invite, be sure to click / press TAB / tap to position the cursor in the IM field.
You can also append “sent from Speedlight” to the invite IM (and any other initial session IM you send to someone) by going to Settings in the left menu and then checking Append “Sent from SpeedLight” to my IMs (first message of the conversation only) .
Other Updates
Search Functionality
The Search functionality has been tweaked so that you can now:
Search for friends in your Friends List.
Search for IMs in you IM history by sender’s name.
Search for a group in your groups list (as described above).
Teleport Offers
You can now accept / decline teleport offers via the Notifications bar.
Multi-Line Text Entry (Chat and IM)
Both IMs and local chat accept multi-line text entry – use SHIFT-ENTER to start a new line / offer a paragraph break.
RLV Support
RLV support is now available to Speedlight Gold and Patreon users. However, it is not clear if this is Marine Kelley’s RLV API or Kitty Barnett’s RLVa API.
Android and iOS App Versions
The Android version has yet to receive the multi-line text input option and the group updates, as noted. However, it has received a series of bug fixes and allows errors or issues to be reported back to the developers.
The iOS version version of Speedlight is available for Speedlight Gold and Patreon users, and requires Apple’s TestFlight app to be installed on the device using it.
Feedback
The group updates are good to have, with the promise of more to come. Further performance improvements are in the offing as well, apparently. This may well be a good thing, as it appears the issue from April of an avatar refusing to stop moving once set in motion in the 3D World view, is back, and once again requires a relog to stop it. I’ve no idea how widespread this issue is, or if it is encountered on Android devices (as my poor little Nexus 2013 HD cannot run Speedlight’s 3D rendering, being stuck on Android 6.0.1), but for me, it is consistent and appears to be a regression. I shall await further updates with interest.
Speedlight, the browser based / Android Second Life client, gained a further series of updates at the end of May and the beginning of June, together with an important announcement about the client’s future direction.
Key within the updates were the following:
The Android app now supports sending error feedback to the Speedlight team to help with bug fixing.
Web links are now displayed in IMs, local and group chats, together with a warning that following them will take a user away from the Speedlight site.
Links contain in IMs, chat and group chat are now clickable. Those that connect to external web pages will display a warning when clicked.
Further performance improvements.
Full-function 3D capabilities are now available to basic and well as Gold subscribers. So, Basic account holders can now move their avatar around.
The feedback capability means that the Speedlight developers are currently focused in bug fixing, although the team also note they are working on group management capabilities – viewing groups, sending notices and moderating group chat, and state these capabilities will be release soon™.
iOS Version Coming
While Speedlight is entirely operating system agnostic in its browser version, allowing it to be used on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS through a suitable browser, the team has already released a dedicated Android version, as I noted in Speedlight: using the Android app, back in February 2020.
On May 27th, 2020, the Speedlight team have started working on a dedicated iOS version of the client as well, with an expectation that it will follow the same development path as the Android app, and – if all goes according to plan – should initially be made available in around 2-3 weeks.
Observations
The two key points of the recent announcements are likely to be the 3D avatar capabilities now being available to all Speedlight users, Basic or Gold, and the iOS app development, and the upcoming iOS app version.
The former could help make Speedlight a more attractive alternative to users who would like a “light” / mobile client (remembering that with Android, the device must be running version 7.0 or higher, whether using the dedicated app or running Speedlight through an Android browser), but who were not keen on paying a fee to be able to do so.
This does, however, also beg the question as to what the Speedlight team plan to do in order to maintain the attraction of Gold subscription. Currently, there is the mass IM capability, but his is liable to have limited appeal for most SL users, some one can only assume other features will be made available on a Gold subscription basis, although obviously, time will tell on this.
Given that Speedlight is already on the road to developing world rendering with interactive capabilities, the news that they are working on an iOS app version of the client may also be welcomed by users, particularly given that many feel such a capability is is “essential” to a mobile client, and Linden Lab has indicated that it will be some time before their in-development iOS / Android client will have such a functionality.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 