Category: Viewers

What’s so bad about living on the web, eh?

Posted on by Inara Pey

I thought the idea behind the creation of time was to stop everything happening at once? If so, it’s not working for me!

This is probably old news to most of you, as Hamlet has had it over at NWN for a couple of days, but for once I failed to take a peek over there when the restructuring announcement hit the headlines. My thanks to the ever-hunky Ciaran Laval for turning my nose in the right direction…

In his piece, Hamlet not only agrees with the view that LL, in their announcement, in fact mean having a web-based means of accessing SL in addition to the current browser, rather than replacing it; he also cites an example of the same – put together in 2007 by a now-definct (it would seem) UK company called Pelican Crossing.

The browser tool, initially backed by IBM, apparently offered “most of” the functionality found within the Viewer (what was missing is unclear), and therefore would suggest that browser-based access to SL could be both lightweight and workable. Which as has been previously said, shouldn’t be sneezed at.

Pelican Crossing c. 2007 (with thanks to Hamlet Au and New World Notes)

Again, other that having the world-view somewhat reduced, and facing the browser tool and navigation bars, I’m not entirely seeing why people are hating the concept of browser-based access, if it is presented like this: with the necessary functionality to do things.  To me, accessing through a browser (especially if you’ve never downloaded a Viewer) wouldn’t be an issue. And if the “viewer” element could be “popped out” of the browser, even better.

Certainly, there is mileage in offering such an access option, as I’ve already mentioned.

Pelican Crossing may well have gone (or have been sucked into the Big Blue), but if they could do it in 2007….

Viewer 2 – getting there?

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab have released an “Alpha” of Viewer 2.1.

They’re making progress it seems – calling the release “Alpha” rather than trumpeting it as an “almost ready Beta”. Who sez they don’t listen?!

On a serious note, the new release (which admittedly, I have yet to download and try) brings with it several much-needed improvements – such as the bane of my life, the Sidebar, now “overlaying” the world-view as an option, rather than shunting it rudely off to the left. Why anyone would want the latter option constantly shattering their experience, I’ll never understand; but at least we now have the long-overdue option to get rid of it for something altogether smoother.

They’ve also finally got the message about camera controls – recombining things into a single pane (why, oh why were they ever split-off in the first place?), and they’ve made the bottom button bar somewhat more customisable to meet the needs of experienced users.

All this is very much to the good – although again points to a broken train of thought somewhere along the development trail, as all of these features should have been there from the get-go, and thank heavens for Kirstenlee Cinquetti for demonstrating to LL that all this and more could have been done from the get-go via her (still) infinitely superior S20 viewer.

Viewer 2.1 brings us a step closer to OpenID authentication for SL-related services. About time to.

A novel feature being introduced to Viewer 2.1 is Voice Morphing. Clearly, despite claims that we’ve already clocked up 28+ billion years of chat on Voice, not enough of us are using it. There are many reasons for this – some of which I’ve pointed to in that post.

Voice Morphing is an attempt to resolve some of these issues by providing the means for people to “sound like their avatar should sound” – with a range of robotic, furry and other voices – including the option to sound like a member of the opposite sex.

I have to admit that I’ve avoided Voice in the past in part because I simply don’t want my mental image of the people / creatures I’m interacting with shattered by hearing the real voice behind the avatar. It’s not the only reason I’ve largely steered clear of Voice after some early playing (and using it at a couple of OH meetings in-world), but it is one. As such, I’m going to be curious as to how the morphing tool is viewed / taken up.

On the one hand, I can see it being a lot of fun; on the other, I can seen some trying to use it for drama purposes (anyone using a female avatar and one of the female voices in place of their own must be a guy, for example). On the third hand (yes, I occasionally have Beeblebrox moments) I can see it not making an iota of difference all ways around.

The main reason for presenting the third hand is simply because a) people are slow to change their ways, and in terms of rp, where this has the biggest potential use, if it is not adopted by the many within a particular rp environment, the few won’t bother either; and b) it is, at the end of the day, a subscription service; and while “only” about $3 a month (L$750), given LL’s recent track record, doubtless many will avoid it simply because of the pleasure they’ll have in not giving LL more of their hard-earned  pennies. Especially when the voices are pre-packaged. If you only want a female voice – then it is “only” $3 a month. But if you vary from, say a male gladiator to a sci-fi robot to a furry according to your mood, then you’re looking at $9 a month to give all your forms a voice.

Mind you…I can see the MOTD promotion for Premium Accounts now: “Upgrade and (homes, support, blah, blah)…offset the cost of your in-world Voices with weekly stipends!”

All-in-all, however, the moves being made with Viewer 2.1 are welcome.

Viewer 2: Getting the message

Posted on by Inara Pey

Esbee Linden posts about the forthcoming Viewer 2.1, and makes something of a ballyhoo over it. 400,000 downloads is a surprising figure. Emerald has been around a while and yet people question the Modular Systems’ claim that in excess of 70,000 have downloaded it. Given Viewer 2 has been with us less than three months, 400K is a very surprising figure. Nevertheless I expect at least one fanboi will be looking through Hubble and praising the figure for all its worth and using it as further “proof” that there is nothing wrong with Viewer 2.0….

Beyond the hype, however, there are some telling statements from Esbee. Most interesting is her list of forthcoming attractions, namely:

  • Adding individual volume controls for Shared Media objects.
  • Customization of the bottom bar, so that you can quickly access the features and functionality that you use most often.
  • Updates to the camera and movement controls, so we can allow you to pan and orbit your view of Second Life at the same time.
  • Adding the ‘Build’ option back to the right-click context menu.
  • Fixing the bug where CTL-ALT-F1 does not hide all the Viewer UI as it should. This fix should solve a lot of problems for our machinimists and photographers.
  • Adding a preference that allows users to control whether the Side Bar opening resizes the world or slides over it.

Frankly, while it is good news that the above are all being added to Viewer 2.0 – the fact remains that they should have been there from Day One. Period. While Viewer 2.0 is primarily aimed at new users who, granted, come into SL with a raft of different expectations than the rest of us, the fact remains that Viewer 2.0 also has to service those of us who have been here a while – and things like the irritating camera controls, restricted build functionality, lack of cohesive access to functions via the taskbar, etc., simply fail to consider, much less address the needs of the experienced user.

Similarly fundamental bugs such as the Sidebar jarring the in-world view to the left, the failure of CTRL-ALT-F1 should have been picked up and addressed long before the Viewer went to public Beta (and I have it on good authority that both of these issues were repeatedly raised during the closed beta testing, so absolutely no excuses here).

Performance issues are something I’m not going to comment on – they’re an accepted pitfall in an environment as dynamic as SL, and something somewhere is likely going to cause issues and problems along the way; as long as LL stay on top of them, that’s all that matters.

The Avatar customisation is also interesting, although potentially it will push Viewer 2.0 further from those wishing to stay with a 1.2x code base for their Viewer and put more of a load on TPV developers as they try to maintain and fix establish 1.2x code and integrate / back-engineer the newer code into their products. Even so, a greater flexibility for clothing layer use is to be welcomed.

Now, if they really could get the new search tool sorted out, then we might be approaching a waypoint to celebrate; but I’ll let Ciaran Laval give you the low-down on the situation there.

Imprudence returns

Posted on by Inara Pey

Following the recent discussions on the TPVP which led to some needed rewording, Imprudence have announced they will continue to support Second Life.

While SL may no longer be the primary “market” for Imprudence (and Lord knows the OS environment needs a viewer with Imprudence’s strengths), that they have reversed their earlier, and somewhat irrational action is to be strongly commended. So to is their willingness to engage in the issue of clarifying concerns around the TPVP’s ill-considered wording.

Kudos, Imprudence!

TPV: a further re-wording

Posted on by Inara Pey

Following last week’s meeting between Joe (Miller) Linden and some third-party viewer devs, it appear that concerns have now been addressed.

At the heart of last week’s meeting were concerns over the wording of Clauses 7a and 7d, both of which related to liability, and which have now been re-worded, vis:

Clause 7a:

Original: You are responsible for all uses you make of Third-Party Viewers. If you are a Developer, you are responsible for all features, functionality, code, and content of Third-Party Viewers that you develop or distribute.

Update: You are responsible for all uses you make of Third-Party Viewers.

Clause 7d:

Original: You assume all risks, expenses, and defects of any Third-Party Viewers that you use, develop, or distribute. Linden Lab shall not be responsible or liable for any Third-Party Viewers.

Update: You assume all risks, expenses, and defects of any Third-Party Viewers that you use. Linden Lab shall not be responsible or liable for any Third-Party Viewers

Both re-wordings seem fair and concise and do not rob the TPVP of any teeth.

Elsewhere, LL has further reinforced their position that that are not in any way attempting to infringe upon the GPL (possibly for those who missed the various statements at the top of TPVP), by adding a new Clause 8f: Nothing in this Policy is intended to modify the terms of the GPL.

All of this should go a long way to reassuring TPV devs that Linden Lab isn’t out to “shut them down” as well as alleviating tensions. Doubtless, some still won’t be satisfied – but that is their choice rather than anything to do with LL trying to hound them out of the playground. The full TPVP can still be read here.

TPV: brown bag and changes?

Posted on by Inara Pey

On the 13th, Joe (Miller) Linden held the first of his brown bag meetings with TPV developers to discuss the Third Party Viewer Policy. The various transcripts and audio recordings make interesting (if headache inducing) reading / listening.

While it was unfortunate that LL decreed the meeting would be in Voice – thereby potentially limiting input and participation (specifics raised in chat seemed to be somewhat ignored) – the meeting wasn’t as fractious as might have been the case, given the amount of ire the TPVP has created. Certainly, despite the efforts of some to try an disrupt proceedings by crashing sims, etc., progress seemed to be made in the key areas of contention – notably Section 7 of the policy.

This section has caused contention largely due to the wording. If taken 100% literally, it would appear to be shifting all responsibility for TPV code onto the shoulders of TPV developers. While this was not LL’s intent – as I’ve said elsewhere, they are not malicious – the wording did leave a lot to be desired. And while some may disagree, part of the problem does stem from the fact Section 7 mixes the development of a viewer with its use by others. Beyond this, there is the problem that a literal reading of some of the clauses – 7a, for example, appears to give the impression TPVs take responsibility for LL’s code when LL absolve themselves of all blame.

Whether one agrees with this standpoint or not (I personally don’t – and I sincerely doubt the law would interpret the language in the manner some TPV devs fear) – the the wording does cause angst and could be reworded without compromising the TPVP rather suggests that there would be no damage done were minor adjustments to be made to the phrasing of the clause – and this was indeed suggested.

A similar discussion was had around clause 7d, where again, it was apparent that much angst could be resolved by simply striking the first sentence in the clause; what was more, doing so could clarify LL’s position on matters of liability.

Elsewhere, people were more receptive to the fact that the TPVP is concerned with connecting to a service, and therefore stands aside from GPL requirements – something that seemed clear to many “outside” observers on the matter, including myself. Most interestingly, Lance Corrimal indicated that the Free Software Foundation’d licensing expert did not find the TPV to be in conflict with the GPL. That it would be is something I’ve had a hard time getting my head around; again, LL are not stupid. They did blunder with the original draft of the TPV – but they also stated the re-draft would be passed in front of experts in licensing and the GPL. I doubt that they  would subsequently go ahead and release the re-draft without following through on their intent to do so; ergo, it was hard to see how the experts they potentially used to review the TPVP got it so badly “wrong”, while those (with the greatest of respect) not versed in licensing and law were so adamant it is “wrong”.

What remains to be seen for the moment is how much fruit this first discussion bears between now and the next (set, I believe, for next week). When one puts aside all the angst and subjectivity surrounding clauses 7a and 7d, both could be more clearly worded without, as I’ve stated, impinging on the TPVP’s overall intent. As such, I would hope LL will take the suggested re-wording of both to heart and update the clauses.

It would still be nice to see the TPVP more clearly focused on the development of such viewers, with anything relating to the use of the same moved to the ToS. This would not only make the TPVP more focused for both LL and TPV developers – it would ensure the limitations on the use of such viewers are placed where they have a chance of being read by the majority.