Category: Viewers

2017 Viewer release summaries week 42

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, October 22

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

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

SL “Moonshine” viewer release

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Friday, October 13th, the Lab promoted their “Moonshine” release viewer, version 5.0.8.329115  to de facto release status. This viewer brings some new options to the official viewer, as well as including a range of improvements and bug fixes.

The code name for the viewer is described thus: “Moonshine was originally a slang term used to describe high-proof distilled spirits usually produced illicitly, without government authorisation. In recent years, however, moonshine has been legalized in various countries and has become a term of art. Legal in the United States since 2010, moonshine is defined as ‘clear, unaged whiskey’. This deploy is filled with a jigger of crash fixes, a splash of translation fixes and a kick that will make you say ‘I can’t feel my face any more!'”

In terms of the updates, probably the most visible is the new Worn tab within the Inventory floater. Those who have used third-party viewers like Firestorm will be familiar with this: it presents a list of items your avatar is currently wearing, defined by the folders in which the items are located.

The new Worn tab on the updated SL viewer

In addition, the scroll zone associated with the inventory floater (and the Marketplace floater) has been improved, and the inventory filter options (My Inventory > Gear menu > Show filters) have two new options:

  • Created by me, Created by others
  • Search by Name, Description, Creator, UUID.

The viewer includes the ability to increase the cache size to up to 9.75 GB in size, and cache performance has been improved. This work is all part of on-going viewer infrastructure work, which with this viewer includes changes to reduce the rate at which log-in retries are attempted.

As I’ve reported in my weekly SL project updates, the rate at which these login retries were being carried out could cause a detrimental impact on services when the grid was experiencing issues; it is an update TPVs have been asked to adopt as soon as they can.

Users of the official viewer can now set the size of their local cache (up to 9.75GB)

Also included in this release as a part of the infrastructure updates is a general clean-up of the log-in code.

In addition to the above, the viewer includes a range of UI behaviour improvements and bug fixes, all of which are listed in the release notes.

Feedback

I’ve not had the opportunity to use this viewer extensively, but performance-wise and in terms of the length of time I have been using it, the performance easily matches previous releases when running on my main system. In terms of the updates, the increased cache size could prove beneficial to those able to take advantage of it, and who use either an SSD or who can make use of a RAM drive on their system.

Overall, another useful viewer update from the Lab, with a good range of resolved issues and fixed bugs.

2017 Viewer release summaries week 41

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, October 15

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 5.0.8.329115, dated September 22nd, promoted October 13th – formerly the “Moonshine” Maintenance RC – NEW
  • Release channel cohorts (notes on manually installing RC viewer versions):
    • Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 5.0.9.329464, dated October 13th.
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2017 Viewer release summaries week 39

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, October 1st

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

  1. These two viewers were updated on September 22nd and withdrawn shortly thereafter pending action from Microsoft re a Windows SmatScreen issue affecting the most recent viewer updates (see here and here for more). This issue has now been resolved and the two RCs are once again available.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2017 Viewer release summaries week 38

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

Updates for the week ending Sunday, September 24th

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 5.0.7.328060, dated August 9th, promoted August 23rd – No change
  • Release channel cohorts (notes on manually installing RC viewer versions):
    • Wolfpack RC viewer updated to version 5.0.8.329128, on September 22nd – this viewer is functionally identical to the release viewer, but including additional back-end logging “to help catch some squirrelly issues.”1
    • Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 5.0.8.329115, on September 22nd.1
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.
  1. These two viewers were updated on September 22nd and withdrawn shortly thereafter pending action from Microsoft re a Windows SmatScreen issue affecting the most recent viewer updates (see here and here for more). This issue has now been resolved and the two RCs are once again available.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V5-style

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • Lumiya updated to version 3.4.1 on September 21 – hot fix for Sprint subscribers.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

MetaChat – a new virtual worlds client for iOS

Posted on by Inara Pey

MetaChat is a new virtual worlds text client produced for Apple iOS and which was recently added to the third-party viewer directory for Second Life.For those VW users with iPhones who are missing Pocket Metaverse, it could be just the ticket.

The app has been in development for several months, and was first accepted into the Apple Store in August 2017, where it is available for US $2.99. Development of the client is continuing, and the current release (10.7, released on September 12th at the time of writing) includes:

  • The ability to add accounts from different grids with different start locations.
  • See your Friends list, add / remove people from the list, set permissions for fiends (see you on-line, edit your items, etc.)
  • View avatar profiles.
  • Search for an avatar by name.
  • Chat locally or via IM.
  • View group information, join Group chat and / or send Group notices.
  • List inventory and preview textures and images.
  • Teleport to landmarks and move around a mini-map.

The MetaChat website / blog makes for a fascinating read, looking as it does into the background of putting together an application like this, including jumping through Apple’s many hoops in order to get an app accepted on their store (like not being allowed to use the word “beta” with an app – which caused problems when including the SL Beta grid in the grid list). The blog also provides interesting insight into why MetaChat works the way it does with certain things.

MetaChat screen captures via the MetaChat Apple Store page: Friends list (l) and Inventory. Note the quick access buttons at the bottom of each screen

As I’m not an iPhone user, it’s a little hard for me to road test the client. However, I’ve been talking to the app’s creator, Monti Messmer, and will hopefully have a more informative piece on MetaChat, including images from the newest release, in due course.

In the meantime, here are the all-important links.

MetaChat Links

With thanks to John Brianna for the heads-up.