Category: Viewers

2018 viewer releases summaries week #21

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, May 27th

This summary is generally published on 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.
  • Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release version 5.1.4.515016, dated May 7, promoted May 16 – formerly the Ouzo Release Candidate – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Love Me Render RC updated to version 5.1.5.515528 on May 22nd, 2018.
    • Pálinka Maintenance RC viewer, 5.1.5.515527 released on May 21st, 2018.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

  • Kokua updated on May 27th as follows: RLV to 5.1.4.43398 and non-RLV to 5.1.4.43399 – release notes.

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2018 viewer release summaries week #20

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, May 20th

This summary is generally published on 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.
  • Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

  • No Updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Ouzo: a viewer aperitif for Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has promoted the latest Maintenance RC to de facto release status. The viewer follows the Lab’s convention of naming their maintenance updates for the viewer after popular alcoholic beverages and aperitifs.

This release includes a range of updates and improvements to the viewer which are worth highlighting, and which will be finding their way into third-party viewers as time goes forward (if they are not already present). Including the following.

Installation and Log-in Improvements

  • The “Your account will not be available until” login failure message has now been removed, as it is no longer meaningful.
  • The GPU Benchmark test no longer causing issues when installing the viewer or when setting viewer defaults.
  • Non-English versions of the viewer can now be installed into non-default paths without causing incorrect fonts to be loaded, corrupting the text of the Terms of Service display in the viewer.
  • Mac OS updates:
    • Incorrect VFS (cache) creation time no longer shown in “help>about SL”.
    • Full version of the build in the applications is now displayed after install on Mac.

Avatar Appearance Updates

  • A new option added to the Appearance Editor right-click menu: Wear Only This Outfit.
  • The Edit Outfit panel in the Appearance Editor no longer displays “Loading…” when there is nothing to load.
  • An avatar’s hairbase is now correctly rendered in Appearance mode when ALM is enabled, and the alpha mask will correctly hide the default hair in the Outfit Editor.
  • A seated avatar’s rotation is now correctly updated when the object the avatar is sitting on is changed via the build floater X, Y, Z spinners.
  • Object position (and sometimes size) no longer greyed out when editing avatar parts or attachments.
  • Temporary attachments can now be detached via gear menu in Appearance >Wearing.

UI Improvements

  • Abuse Report floater clean-up.
  • Error messages no longer doubled (the first being generic, the second being accurate).
  • It is no longer possible to delete an inventory folder while trying to rename it by holding down the Delete key a little too long.
  • Chat scroll bar now properly displayed after a panel resize.
  • “Walk/run/fly” toolbar button no longer turns off “fly mode” once per session.
  • Received Items improvements:
    • The “New” icon in the Received Items folder now correctly disappears when navigating with keys.
    • The “New” tag now appears in front of folders when searching.
    • “Properties” menu item disabled for multiple selection in Object content, because it was causing Received Items to disappear.
  • The Donation check box no longer covered by the Purchase button when buying land from a group you’re already donating to.
  • Bottom part of “Filter” button at Snapshot window can now be properly clicked.
  • World Map no longer shows first friend location after searches.
  • Unicode correctly appears in the Windows viewer display name.
  • Arrows ‘Navigate back’ and ‘Navigate forward’ had wrong state.
  • Profiles now have a Back button.
  • Debug setting AvatarHoverOffsetZ will work regardless of whether Set Hover Height modal has been opened.

Efficiency & Performance Improvements

  • This viewer uses the new off-line messages capability to correctly fetch off-line IMs following log-in, hopefully resolving the issue of lost off-line messages.
  • Viewer no longer attempting to load file/mesh/LOD indefinitely in case of most failures.
  • Advanced Lighting Mode (ALM) improvements
    • Normal and specular maps no longer downloaded when ALM is disabled.
    • Local Textures for Advanced Lighting Projectors now keep the selected texture.
  • Particles attached to the muted avatars no longer render.
  • Texture animation flicker at certain frame rates has been removed.
  • Sculpties should no longer appear as spheres before their shape data has been received by the viewer.
  • Scripts memory usage should no longer return incorrect values in the Estate Tools.
  • Unneeded exception handling from LLAppViewer::frame() removed.
  • ExportCharts for performance analysis re-enabled.
  • Mods to allow nVidia nSight to capture frames of Viewer rendering have been added.
  • Deprecated and unused private memory pooling removed.
  • Various translation updates.

Media Updates

  • (MAC only): viewer Media Browser no longer doubles entered Cyrillic capital letters.
  • Magnify glass button no longer returns camera to avatar after select other nearby media in “Start/Stop ALL Media” tab.
  • Scrollbar should decrease when the number of displayed media decreases.
  • The viewer no longer sends multiple GET requests against prim media when PRIM_MEDIA_AUTO_PLAY is enabled.
  • Social floaters launch a somewhat different version of the internal browser.

Crash Fixes

The viewer includes a range of crash fixes, as detailed in the release notes.

Downloads

The viewer can be downloaded from the viewer’s release notes page, if preferred.

2018 viewer release summaries, week #19

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, May 13th

This summary is generally published on 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.
  • Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release version 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27th, promoted April 13th – formerly the Media Update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2018 viewer release summaries week #18

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates for the week ending Sunday, May 5th

This summary is generally published on 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.
  • Note that test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are not recorded in these summaries.

Official LL Viewers

  • Current Release version 5.1.3.513644, dated March 27th, promoted April 13th – formerly the Media Update RC.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • No updates.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

  • Kokua updated to versions 5.1.3.43237 (RLV) and 5.1.3.43238 (No RLV) on May 6th. This release includes a Linux flavour built using LL’s Alex Ivy code base and Kokua’s Linux libraries – release notes.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer stable branch updated to version 1.26.22.4 on May 5th – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No updates.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

Kokua presents Alex Ivy based 64-bit Linux Viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Viewer support has been a subject of frustration among SL users who prefer to use Linux (around 1%-1.5% of the total SL user base) over the lack of official support for the operating system.

As I reported at the time, in 2015 and due to a lack of Linux expertise, Linden Lab pulled back from active Linux viewer development in favour of seeking support from the open-source community in order to maintain a Linux version of the viewer (see here for more). More recently, the Lab has been looking to provide a means to build a Linux flavour of the viewer, based on their Alex Ivy 64-bit code base and libraries, but not distribute or build all the various dependencies required for the viewer, instead leaving this to TPVs to do as part of providing their own support for Linux users (see here for more), although this is taking time to happen.

In the meantime, on May 6th, 2018, the Kokua team released the first third-party viewer for Linux based on Lab Lab’s 64-bit Alex Ivy code base, although built using Kokua’s own Linux libraries.

Kokua release 5.1.3.43237 (RLV) and Kokua release 5.1.3.43238 (no RLV) are  are supplied in Windows, Mac and Linux flavours. In addition, and as is to be expected, both are built using the latest LL release code base (SL 5.1.3) while the RLV version is at parity with RLV release 2.9.23.0.

The viewer is currently available for download on the Kokua website for those who wish to try it – just scroll down to the RLV 64 bit (active development) or the NORLV 64 bit (active development) sections of the download page for the version you’d prefer to use.

If you are a Linux user and opt to download the viewer, please do take the time to report any issues you find with it via the Kokua Issue Tracker at Sourceforge,  as refinement and enhancement of the Linux flavour of the viewer is dependent on the Linux community, perhaps more so than the Mac and Windows flavours (which each have the advantage of larger user bases and more chances of issues being more widely identified and reported).

It should be noted that the Linux flavours of the viewers does come with a warning:

Some areas of the Linux release are still being worked on, however we believe that enough is working and well enough to share this with a wider audience to help us squash any remaining gremlins.

– The Kokua May 6th 5.1.3 release notes

However, the news that there is now an up-to-date 64-bit Linux viewer available for download which is based on the Lab’s current code-base should hopefully come as good news for Linux users.

Additional Links