Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Release Candidate (RC2) is now available
Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 3:36 PM by: Jeska LindenWe’re getting closer to finalizing this viewer release! Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Release Candidate (RC2) is now available. Please go to the test software page to download to try out these pre-production viewers.
Bug fixes in Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Release Candidate (RC2):
- Fixed various XML errors related to the search feature, Windows & Linux only
- Fixed VWR-3064: Land Search does not show Description Text for any parcel selected in Search
- Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine.
- Fixed VWR-3200: Classifieds Statistics in profile are broken
Note, this is not an update to the WindLight First Look viewer. Keep an eye on the First Look download page for updates. Please continue to report any new issues in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.18.5 Release Candidate“. Also, an updated source code drop is coming soon!
REMINDER: Release Candidates (RC) are intended for evaluation purposes. Please try them out only if you want to participate in the bug reporting process and identify issues before these become the default viewer. You can have both a Release Candidate and a production viewer installed on your computer at the same time, so if issues are encountered when testing an RC you can switch back to the production viewer.
Keep reading for more detailed information on the Search changes in this Release Candidate…
With today’s Release Candidate, you will see several changes to both the search website and client that improve search. First, you may notice we added a blurb about Search being “in beta” as we wanted to clarify that the new search is a work in progress. One of the most interesting things about the new search is that it is primarily web based, which means we can respond more quickly and without having to require a new download for some changes and improvements.
Since this is a work a progress, we’d love to hear from you! Please send any feedback you have to search-feedback@lindenlab.com – we will be reading all of the feedback, although we may not respond to each inquiry. Thank you for your support, feedback and thoughts as we continue to develop and refine the new search.
New Search Features in 1.18.5 RC2
- Lag Meter
Some Residents may wonder where the little green and red meters from the top right hand corner have gone. They have been replaced by the Lag Meter, which can be found under the Help menu. The Lag Meter provides more information and possible solutions for what is happening in-world to cause slow frame rate and/or “lag”. It also helps determine whether the viewer, network or the simulator (server) is causing the issue.
- Place Dialog
The reworking of the Place Dialog brings several nice usability tweaks when interacting with places inworld. For example, if you click on a SLurl inworld or from the web, the dialog that opens include more information about the location you’ve selected – including photos or description.
- Landmarks Easier to Use
There is a very handy new feature with landmarks which allows you to double-click to teleport directly to the location. You can also still right-click and choose “teleport” if you’d prefer.
- Classified Changes
The top 8 classifieds (based upon price paid) are included on default Search All page when search is first opened. Classified results, based upon keyword matching, will also appear alongside the page(s) of results to your query. The classified results are based upon the same direct word search as is currently returned in the “Classified” tab. This may of course change in the future as we refine the classified returns.
- Coordinates for Objects in Parcel Listings
We have added the coordinate information for all objects currently listed as “Show in Search” on parcels. This information is shown at the end of each object listing. These coordinates are not currently linked directly to the location, but they may be in the future. We’d love your feedback on this issue in particular search-feedback@lindenlab.com.
Search Related Fixes:
- Place Dialog
Due to the place dialog reworking (see new features below for more information) there were several errors in the last release in the old search. The first caused the place dialog inside of the “old” search to not properly display the description field. The second caused the Teleport and Show on Map buttons to only work for the first item found in search. Both of these have been fixed with today’s Release Candidate.
- Items Set for Sale Improperly
Due to a temporary error in Second Life last year, some objects were improperly shown as for sale, could not be purchased and the owner could not uncheck the for sale checkbox (VWR-2908). These objects were incorrectly set to “Show in search” during the initial population of search. Owners have always been able to deselect the “Show in Search” toggle. There is a two part fix for the for-sale problem. With this release candidate owners of such objects will be able to edit the “For Sale” toggle on these objects manually. With the next server update (currently scheduled for some time in the next few weeks) all of these objects will be reset to not for sale and be removed from search automatically.
- Classified Statistics
The 1.18.5 release candidate incorrectly displays classified click statistics (teleport, show map, profile), often showing “0″ or “1″. The clicks are properly recorded in our database, but do not display correctly. Internally we are tracking 1.18.5 classifieds clicks separately from 1.18.4 clicks because we want to ensure classified click-through rates are similar with the new search. If you are still using the 1.18.4 viewer, you will only see click statistics from residents who are using 1.18.4. When 1.18.5 is the required viewer, you will see the total number of clicks from all versions.
- Groups Not Listed
Many groups were incorrectly not being included in the new Search All. This is now fixed and all groups should now be indexed. If your group has been set to include in search for at least a day and has not yet appeared, please let us know.
- Some Parcels Not Listed
About 6% of all regions and their respective parcels were not included in the new search last week. This has been fixed. If your parcel has been set to Show in Search for longer than a day and it is still not appearing, please let us know.
- XML Error Message
The new search sometimes returned a XML “key not found” error message when it was not able to locate a search page. This has been fixed. If you receive this error, please push the “back” button and try a different search.
- Upper Right Corner Searches
The “All” panel search button sometimes was disabled when searches were started from the upper right corner search box. This is fixed.
- Improper Display of Non-Roman Characters
Non-Roman characters (including Russian, German, Japanese, etc) were not behaving properly in the new Search and resulted in the display of a corrupted result page. This has been fixed and you should now be able to search for non-Roman characters.
- Linux Frame Rate
When using the Linux client, there was a dramatic drop in frame rate after the first time you opened the new search. This has been fixed and should no longer occur.
Current Known Issues with Search
- Avatars not Listed (VWR-3351)
There is a known issue where some avatars are still not being included in the new search. We are working on this.
- Some Characters not Searched (VWR-3388)
Currently some searches with an “&” in the search query will not return properly. We should have a fix for this soon.
- Google Pagination Error (VWR-3159)
There is a known error with the Google Search Appliance where if you do a search that has many pages of results and view the results page by page, it will sometimes not show results past page 5. We are working with Google to resolve this issue.
November 26th, 2007 at 3:46 PM
My wife just downloaded, and is now feezing and crashing.
Beware.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:02 PM
I know not what others may think, but as for me …. I’m still running 1.18.3.5 XD
To me, “Release Candidate” means “software, bugs included”. SO freezing/crashing is not unexpected. That’s why it’s RC and not just “R”.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
“Some Residents may wonder where the little green and red meters from the top right hand corner have gone. They have been replaced by the Lag Meter, which can be found under the Help menu.”
Not acceptable. NOT ACCEPTABLE. Really. This is not acceptable. The Lag Meter provides less useful information and proposes “solutions” to non-problems. It also takes up WAY too much space. Get rid of that pointless “search box” and bring back the network meters.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:06 PM
1. WHY REMOVE THE RED AND GREEN BAR?! The Red And green bar is more than enuff to figure out its lagg, now we need to have a exta item up using more of the screen palce >:/
havin hud atachments blocks more than enuff of the view, now we get more things, BHAAA!!!!
PLZ PUT IT BACK!
2. why mess with the LMs? its so mutch more to do to map up a place, was so nicer you could dubbleclick the LM and press the Show on map button
well this one might be livable
but realy hope lindens make SL more like MS Word where you can add and remove stuff on tool bar, that would be REALY nice
November 26th, 2007 at 4:19 PM
BRING BACK THE GREEN AND RED BARS! Or so help me, the chipmunk gets it *points a BFG9000 at the Chipmunk*
November 26th, 2007 at 4:23 PM
Just downloaded, and so far it’s working well for me.
The only problem I’ve run into is the new landmark system. Whenever I unpack boxes the landmark for the store I purchased from(when included as contents of the box, which is often the case) automatically comes up full sized and takes up half my screen. I have to close it to be able to get to anything else.
When unpacking only a couple things, it’s not so bad. It’s only when trying to unpack a load of boxes that the constant popping up and closing of the large windows becomes a bit of an annoyance. It wasn’t nearly as much of an issue before, when the landmarks were small rectangular boxes that would go to the top left of the screen usually.
I haven’t done much searching yet to see how to remedy this, it may have an option to fix it that I have yet to see on the current RC client. But also wanted to mention it, since I may not be the only person who is a little inconvenienced by this occurance.
All in all, great job, Lindens!
November 26th, 2007 at 4:30 PM
“Some Residents may wonder where the little green and red meters from the top right hand corner have gone. They have been replaced by the Lag Meter, which can be found under the Help menu.”
Not acceptable. NOT ACCEPTABLE. Really. This is not acceptable. The Lag Meter provides less useful information and proposes “solutions” to non-problems. It also takes up WAY too much space. Get rid of that pointless “search box” and bring back the network meters.
Erm… what? Militant much?
Did you see the lag meter in action on Torleyface’s latest video? It’s priceless as far as I can tell. How many people have claimed “Argh! Lag! Stupid SL and LL the **%^&*&^” when all along if they’d just tweaked their draw distance they’d be fine?
How the heck can two monitors compare to the new lag meter.
Are you mad?
November 26th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
@7: it convinced me to turn off “automatically open” in preferences, so now I have to dig into my inventory to see textures and notecards people hand me. Now if the “recent items” tab actually worked, instead of showing me stuff that I got days and even weeks ago, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:48 PM
Windlight keeps crshing on me. I am running OS 10.4.10 and I hae super high end system. Yet everytime I log in in Windlilght it either crashes before I am fully logged in or it crashes within seconds of being rezz’d.
I hope there are some answers before this thing goes live
November 26th, 2007 at 4:54 PM
I use this release because it works better for me with Vista, for some reason when I use the normal client on Vista it changes all these things. Where this one doesnt make it bad
November 26th, 2007 at 4:58 PM
@11: Windlight has problems with the drivers in recent Macbook Pros. It works fine on my older model with the ATI chipset, it’s the nVidia chipset it’s got problems with. You need to bug apple to bug nVidia to fix it as well as filing (or voting for) appropriate bugs in jira.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:13 PM
/me joins the crowd and shouts “BRING BACK THE GREEN AND RED BARS!”
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3156
Even, more, I want orange and blue bars as well:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3353
And the search box gone:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3089
November 26th, 2007 at 5:36 PM
The new features seem fine to me & it is not crashing or freezing much so far. Looking good so far.
I don’t understand why people complain so much. I run 2 second life businesses and the only thing that really makes me feel blue is if a region goes down, and one did today but it was fixed quickly (thanks Dee).
November 26th, 2007 at 5:49 PM
@ 9 Argent Stonecutter
You have to set the ‘recent items’ preferences up. I wondered about his for a while, I just got everything I’d ever bought in ‘recent items’. After I discovered you can set up the preferences it has only ever shown me what I have bought or received in the past 24 hours.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:51 PM
” Avatars not Listed (VWR-3351)
There is a known issue where some avatars are still not being included in the new search. We are working on this.”
Can you please make this a feature rather than a bug and tell me how to get my avatar delisted from the new search please, seriously should have an opt out option on this.
Besides that, is everyone on unhappy pills or something? It’s not all bad and some of it can be ironed out.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:59 PM
Sorry Lindens and folks… what the new so called “lag meter” is totally missing is the information about bandwith. If you do remember, before you could set the bandwith slide by looking at the bandwith meter as you would do with an audio VU meter and an audio recording volume. Then you could easily monitor it and do additional setups. You cannot find this information anywhere now.
You can use very different internet connections in different places. As SL doesn’t offer connection profiles, you have to set up manually bandwith when moving from one connection to another. Before, if I forgot, it was just obvious from the bandwith line going all-red or too low. Now you cannot find this information anywhere, not even in the statistics bar. It is very difficult there to visualise changes due to different bandwith setups, as line is ever moving and scale doesn’t even change with the bandwith slide position. Not to mention the space the statistics bar will take away from the screen, being additionally impossible to reposition.
So if you want to remove the lag bar and replace it by the lag meter, altough it doesn’t seem to me anyone was asking for it at all, and although it uselessly takes a lot more of screen space, fair enough. But please give us back the unreplaceable bandwith bar.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:02 PM
the following issue NEEDS to be addressed:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2997
November 26th, 2007 at 6:04 PM
@1/.
looks like there is a big storm where my wife is, and that was the reason for the feezing and crashing, sorry LL :-))
November 26th, 2007 at 6:05 PM
@15 Dekka Raymaker
Hmm, this sounds like a bug to me. I think by default it should be since last login. Or maybe you changed it a long time ago accidentally and forgot about it. But if Argent is having that problem too, it could be a pattern.
Well, I completely forgot that the filter for Recent Items is separated. Goody, now I can set it to 1 day. Yeah, Torley has that in video for sure, but at the time I was watching it I was focused on other things. Gee, he packs so much into a video, gotta watch it over and over again to catch everything
November 26th, 2007 at 6:10 PM
When will the XML-RPC service be fixed? When will the additional server come online. Can this be fixed BEFORE new features are added, please?
November 26th, 2007 at 6:13 PM
@18
agreed there is a memory leak, I had problems with 1 gig ram, upgraded to 2, was better, upgraded to 3 gig RAm, no more problems.
it woulkd be good if it can be fixed, but there is a workaround, add more RAM
November 26th, 2007 at 6:13 PM
you gotta love second life !!!
November 26th, 2007 at 6:43 PM
@16,21
Nice place to hide it. Looked all over the preferences, client settings, all the menus, didn’t see where to change the preferences for “recent items”. Until ZigZag noted that it was a *filter*. That’s not at all intuitive. Well, thanks, ZigZag. Pick anything you want from my store, IM me, I’ll drop it on you.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:47 PM
How many people do you know that are NOT using windlight?
Maybe you should join the Windlight and RC branches. You might get more actually testing this?
Remember this when it has more bugs that a certain version of Windows released around the millenium and you ignored these comments.
PS: Lag meter? who dreamed up that waste of window space? Lets have the bars back and lose the ‘Search’ bar. We have a search button already?
November 26th, 2007 at 6:49 PM
Now how do you get it to stop showing you empty folders?
Ah. Set the filters, close the filter window, create a new inventory window, close the old one, and open recent items.
Obvious!
Look, Linden Labs, if you even give us an option under Client->Character->Abbot and Costello->Who’s On First->Replace Search Box->Show network meters, so newbies don’t accidentally get rid of it and fail to see how proud you are of search… I’ll take it. Just let me get rid of that damn box and get the network meters back.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
I have been using WindLight for two weeks now, and am quite impressed. As far as red bars, give me the lag meter any day. For me, no crashes, no complaints, no problems. Kudos for this wonderful new improvement Linden Labs. I hope to be along for the ride for a long time.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:55 PM
“Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine. ”
I called this one!
November 26th, 2007 at 7:02 PM
THANKS FOR THE UPDATE to the release candidate… now i crash every few minutes… glad to see things have improved..lol
November 26th, 2007 at 7:14 PM
@22 Taff Nouvelle - Fortunately RAM is cheap nowadays. Got myself 2 GIGs too. For many reasons. But that leak should be fixed, it affects performance too, I suppose. BTW, what do you do once SL grows to 1GB? Surely you don’t close it, it takes ages. Task manager, Processes, right click, End Process, Pooooof.
@24 - Awwww, thanks Argent Stonecutter, I’ll stop by and find the most expensive thing :p …. Hope it isn’t a freebie store, lmao.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:24 PM
Removing “little green and red meters from the top right hand corner” and replacing them with the search text field and its icon the magnifying glass, don’t u think that might have been a premature decision? It would be understandable if the icon for search was added to the top left corner, but why do u have to add the text field too? If somebody wants to search they can click on the search icon. If u want to keep the top right corner the way it its at least give people a way to switch between seeing the search text field and the green and red meters. The new lag meter is a poor substitute for the “little green and red meters” as it takes too much space on the screen. If any more of this dialog boxes are added to the screen, it will no longer be a 3D viewing area, but will become filled with dialogs. Would people even be able to see the world around them anymore?
I also hope that objects that were intended to be for sale by their creator will not be changed to not be for sale.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:39 PM
Please bring back the bars, being on the screen all the time means you can quickly glance to see your bandwidth. Having to open the lag meter to see this is not ideal.
Also the double click to TP from a landmark is not as good. I prefer to see the landmark, especially with the great new information, to make sure it’s the right one. I have gone to so many wrong places recently as I check my landmarks it’s not funny.
Is there a resident UI panel? You know a group of people drawn from the resident community who advise you on UI changes? The Lindens just doing them themselves is not demonstrated as not ideal and not what WE want. We know how we use the world.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
/me wants to join the UI panel
November 26th, 2007 at 8:12 PM
The reason I don’t like (sometimes) shopping is because it can take so long to find what you know is there!!! But now, we get “Coordinates for Objects in Parcel Listings” !
Anyway, I really think RC’s are an important component in the best solution for making SL more stable.
U.M. You’re famous now, which sometimes is just a liability if you aren’t also rich =) LOL
November 26th, 2007 at 8:14 PM
There is a “UI” panel, I think. You just have to find the right Linden’s office hour and go attend: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours
November 26th, 2007 at 8:35 PM
I’m still using 1.18.3.5 but judging by so many upbeat comments, I’m tempted to try.
As for the little red and green meters, I rarely look at them.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:40 PM
@16
I for one would LIKE to be included in the Search database. First I wasn’t in there at all, and now it says I have declined to be included. I fixed that four or five days ago and I’m *still* not in there. I’d post a bug about it or submit a ticket, but since my fixed income doesn’t stretch far enough to cover an additional $10 for SL I’ve long learned not to wast my time trying to get it fixed.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:55 PM
12 Argent Stonecutter Says:
“@11: Windlight has problems with the drivers in recent Macbook Pros. It works fine on my older model with the ATI chipset, it’s the nVidia chipset it’s got problems with. You need to bug apple to bug nVidia to fix it as well as filing (or voting for) appropriate bugs in jira.”
it doesn´t work fine with ATI and 10.13.9.- Teleport by map crashes the viewer, avatars do not render, it flickers like mad, and in comparison to any other online 3D game the performance is still extremely poor. It actually didn´t work “fine” for any mac user i asked about it so far, regardless on which OS version and card it pretends to “run”.
Anyway, there are slightly better framerates, but only if you disable all the eye candy except basical stuff. There is still a long way to go until this gets from alpha to an acceptable beta on the Mac.
You need Quartz Extreme (10.14 at least) for enabling most effects and i doubt that any card slower than the 9800 pro can handle this.
November 26th, 2007 at 8:58 PM
All UI decisions are done by the offices of Borkit & Breakit while under the influence of too much haggis and mead. They get so pie-eyed that they can only vusually make out oversized text boxes, hence the 3D content blocking.
Linden Labs is well aware that by blocking content there is less to draw and one’s frame rate goes up, minimizing the impact of Windlight on the average resident. The noobs won’t know better and the old timers will leave and everyone will be soooo happy.
…and you thought LL didn’t know what they were doing when they added that unnecessarily huge communicate window.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:04 PM
agree with the rest, dump that junk or keep it as extra but bring back the frigging packet/speed bars back
ditch the search bar as we have a big giant button saying “SEARCH”, you may use google, but don`t trash the UI more with useless junk, kthxbye
November 26th, 2007 at 9:49 PM
I like the new Lag Meter for one reason: it’s optional. If everything seems to be running smoothly, you can turn it off and move on with your Second Life, but it’s there when you need it, and the flashing colors are sufficient to tune bandwidth by. Now, if only there was something more useful in the old meter’s place than a redundant search engine.
November 26th, 2007 at 10:45 PM
@39: I was referring to the two Macbook Pro versions. The older one with the ATI chipset, and the newer one with the nVidia chipset.
Yes, you do need a 9800 or better to get good performance in SL. You need a 9800 or better to get good performance in SL on Windows, too. That’s not a Mac issue. The real Mac issue is that Macs are, unfortunately, pretty anemic computers for the money, and SL by its very nature requires something pretty beefy. That won’t change as long as SL allows resident-created content, and since that’s what pretty much makes SL what it is, well, that’s not going to change.
November 26th, 2007 at 11:34 PM
so what happens when a noob like me gets the 5 min tour on the new lag meter an goes through all the hoops (basicly turned every thing off) an still get red buttons?
November 26th, 2007 at 11:58 PM
“Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine. ”
Sorry LL, not fixed on the Mac. After using the new search the fram rate drops to 0.4 fps.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:25 AM
I truly hope this viewer is optional as I don’t want it. I have enough problems without adding more.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:58 AM
viavox for linux???
November 27th, 2007 at 1:07 AM
“Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine. ”
When I see this pattern of ‘fix/new’ things breaking something that appears to have near-zero connection in function, I keep trying to imagine the LL software engineering process.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:38 AM
@42
ROFL - you sound like you really know yer stuff! That should end all discussion on that matter.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:39 AM
map dead, search dead, no account balance
Please check, thanx
November 27th, 2007 at 1:45 AM
no map, no search, no tp - snafu
November 27th, 2007 at 1:52 AM
******THIS JUST IN!******
SL TAKES A HUGE CRAP ON ITSELF -stop-
SEARCH OPTION DIES -stop-
PROFILES FAILING TO LOAD -stop-
LL FAILS ONCE AGAIN -stop-
MORE LAG/FAILURE DELIVERIES ON THE WAY BY BUS - stop-
WILL LL FIX IT TONIGHT? HAHAHA NO - stop-
(If you don’t understand the -stop- part, its like a telegram via morse :p XD)
November 27th, 2007 at 2:41 AM
@42
Run Hide!! something was done less than a hours and the freaking sky is falling.
is the koolaid that good?
November 27th, 2007 at 2:59 AM
“47 Sling Trebuchet Says:
November 27th, 2007 at 1:07 AM PST
“Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine. ”
When I see this pattern of ‘fix/new’ things breaking something that appears to have near-zero connection in function, I keep trying to imagine the LL software engineering process.”
Well they are not smart enought to deal with fixes like 180 degree or halfing of the avie. Or shoe in butt etc………………………..
November 27th, 2007 at 3:03 AM
“40 Alicia Sautereau Says:
November 26th, 2007 at 9:04 PM PST
agree with the rest, dump that junk or keep it as extra but bring back the frigging packet/speed bars back”
What? and say we are not cutting edge? fret the thought! shakeshead people that are always screaming for more features don`t understand that they need to fix what is broken rebroken, conting to be broken by grid monkeys……….they just don`t never learn how to do anything right.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:10 AM
@42: It’s nice that you have a reliable internet connection all to yourself… for many of us we never get to “turn it off and get on with our second life”. We need something that’ll keep us in touch with the network behavior ALL the time. And the lag meter can’t do that: even if we DO leave it up all the time it doesn’t provide any detail, so we have to use the even bigger control-shift-1 meters instead.
@53: This isn’t something that’s “just happened”. VWR-3089 and VWR-3156 were created almost two weeks ago when this idiocy first showed up, VWR-3353 calls for improving the network meters instead of getting rid of them. And no, the lag meter is not an ‘improved’ meter, it’s an idiot light… idiot lights are fine for automatics but SL is a hand-cranked non-syncromesh manual-transmission steam car, if you don’t have a tach you’re never going to shift without grinding.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:31 AM
i’ve noticed using windlight that at some angles and sometimes when an area gets “busy” and laggy people disappear but i can still their nametag another thing is people may still be rezzing, where their avatar is i see everything from eyeballs (where the avatar is supposed to be) to who knows what else i’ve noticed this especially in clubs when dancing
November 27th, 2007 at 3:37 AM
@56: A lot of web sites have a “mobile friendly” mode where most of the graphics go away and you get plain text. Or they have an option to turn off the fancy hovertext and the like.
SL is getting to that point. I want a mode where the windows are smaller, with more concentrated data, fewer “improved details”, and if you want to enhance SL add more user tools… like the ability to turn *any* inventory filter into a new tab, or even simple stuff like changing where minimized windows are docked(!)… and more scripting access to what’s already there… like llTeleportAgent* or llPlantSystem or llGetLinkPrimitiveParams/llSetLinkText or llHTMLDialog… so that we can make it “our world”. And commit to a plugin API so that third parties can implement their own lag meters (or whatever) without having to ship whole custom clients. And YOU can concentrate on improving performance and stability while WE do the “feature thing”.
* With PERMISSION_TELEPORT only, automatically granted for attachments and for scripts owned by the parcel owner (throttled to one teleport per 10 seconds) so it can’t be abused by griefers.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:38 AM
ah once again people flame rather than comment. fun times.
regarding the topic of the lagmeter replacement:
I agree on the point of this being a rather bad decision. the old lagmeter was simple and sleek and allowed an instant glance on important facts. I want the old design back, frankly, along with possibly a third bar for sim FPS. then you would have the critical infos (bandwidth, packetloss and sim FPS) all in one small place and could instantly tell if something was wrong.
and personally, Im eagerly waiting for the fix for lossless sculpts. that was something that was supposed in 1.18.5, no?
November 27th, 2007 at 3:43 AM
@60: they’re saying the lossless fix will come in with the 1.18.6 *server* update, if I read the blog entries correctly.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:06 AM
I can’t bring myself to use anything but Windlight anymore. Even with any glitches it has.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:35 AM
Although I don’t like the placement of the search bar (maybe just resistance to change), all the complaining about the lag meter vs bars is kind of pointless in my opinion. SL has a great feature already built in for diagnosing lag, bandwidth, and packet loss problems called the Statistics bar: View > Statistics Bar, or Ctrl + Shift + 1. This handy tool is fantastic for diagnosing these kinds of problems and there is a great guide for what some of it does here: http://secondlife.com/app/help/guides/stats.php. While the old bars, and lag meter show you if there might be an issue, the Statistics Bar actually helps you pinpoint what the issue is.
The new search is slowly shaping up, and the latest viewer does seem more stable, especially on Vista. Now to get the bugs sorted in WL and we will be doing even better
November 27th, 2007 at 4:49 AM
@60 I agree even with all the bug. beta testing is needed. and who better then those that been around to do it
November 27th, 2007 at 4:59 AM
Remove the surplus SEARCH on the top bar - replace them with the lag meter lights and replace the old bar meter — everybody is happy then .
Having 2 “SEARCH” links is completely redundant and a waste of valuable screen real estate.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:07 AM
@57: Well said. I would appreciate such an approch! Give us more control over the viewer features as well, f.e something like llMemberOfGroup, llName2Key, llSetObjectPrize or all the other functions that will be so usefull to create cool stuff. Or give us the point where an object is touched to be able to use that instead of a extra prim for a button. And I agree that an API for features like search, lag-meter, sim info and so on would be great and could be done by the community!
November 27th, 2007 at 5:08 AM
@63: “SL has a great feature already built in for diagnosing lag, bandwidth, and packet loss problems called the Statistics bar: View > Statistics Bar, or Ctrl + Shift + 1.”
Which is even bigger and obscures even more of the display than the lag meter. It’s a great tool, but it’s too big to leave open for alerts… it’s only useful after you already have a problem.
“While the old bars, and the lag meter show you if there might be an issue,”
The old bars did, yes. The lag meter doesn’t. First, it doesn’t adapt to circumstances… for me it treats acceptable frame rate as an error and doesn’t catch bad network conditions at all until it’s too late. Second, the lag meter is too big, it obscures too much of the screen to leave up all the time.
Leave the lights up there, and click on them to toggle the lag meter for anyone who wants it. Replace the search box with… nothing, just leave more room for the parcel and region info.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:25 AM
@15
Thanks Dakka. Been thinking this was a bug since the default was no longer set to since logoff. I can use my recent items again! HUG!
November 27th, 2007 at 5:36 AM
@ U M
I aint getting at you, but I have one request. Instead of posting three comments (53, 54, 55) one after the other, could you include it all in one comment next time?
plus little onelines like 62 when you already own the largest majority of comments on the blog is wasting comments for other people.
I’ll say thanks anyway, whether or not you do as I ask
Because I’m no one special and don’t expect you too. Just would be nice 
Anywho, on topic.
I also agree that the packet loss and ping bar removal from the top right was not the best decision. It was useful for me also, to take a quick glance and see what (network wise) was causing an issue.
If it had to be replaced I think instead, it should of been replaced with the three lights from the lag meter dialog. So we can just see what state its in, without having to have the dialog open. But if we wanted a more detailed explanation, we could open the dialog and see what it thinks the issue was.
Nik.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:37 AM
Unable to rez anything whatsoever out of my inventory
November 27th, 2007 at 5:49 AM
anyone else having issues with the personal pics in profiles not showing for periods of time? Or massive drops in fps? With windlight.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:58 AM
@38. I am ATI on the Macbook Pro and, as good as WindLight looks, you have to strip/reduce your current settings considerably and even then it never really gets back to the same level of performance.
It is no wonder that LL had to introduce new features (such as avatar imposters) and do a in-depth turn-your-settings-down tutorial in conjunction with the WindLight rc release - it is a resource pig.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:07 AM
I NEED THE ORIGINAL BANDWIDTH/PACKET LOSS BARS IN PLACE OF THE STUPID SEARCH BAR. Numbers for bandwidth and packet loss when hovering over them is far, FAR more useful than the oversized, oversimplified, dumbed down “Red light, Green light” Lag meter. You can’t even move the thing to another spot on the UI. If I want a search bar…I press the search button, simple as that.
It’s also on the Windlight client..which ticks me off to no end.
If nothing else, this little “feature” has me feeling dumbed down.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:13 AM
How sad. Now even the crash logger locks up. LMAO! What are you all doing over there?
November 27th, 2007 at 6:25 AM
I got in world not long ago after a long time being away (RL stuff to do), made a chair for my new project. Wanted to save it, so I used “Take” option. But this did not do it, the game crashed completely (Lagg? or just another grid glitch?) I came back in and found that the chair was NOT on the spot where i left it before the crash. I looked in the objects folder and nothing, directly I noticed a lot of my inventory is gone! My work of a long time is just plain gone! After several relogs and a clear catch I just found out that I still didnt have everything. Especially the project i was working on! I had only the stuff I had 2 months ago! So I can not finish it and also I lost my work which I put in a lot of time! Also things I boughed from SL exchange are gone! I really am P-off at the moment and totally not amused!
November 27th, 2007 at 7:27 AM
I’ll echo what everyone else has said - the Lag meter window is *not* a replacement for the old meters as
a) it is yet another window in an already overcrowded space (and the default top right position is already over subscribed)
b) it takes time to open from the help menu (and in too large to keep open)
We *do* need some form of performance monitoring meters in the menu bar. Whether these are the return of the existing ones or new better ones, and whether these are in addition to or instead of a search box are points for discussion, but it should be clear to LL that some meters *are* needed. Please don’t just ignore the community yet again!
November 27th, 2007 at 7:29 AM
My 2 cents about the lag meter…
1) It’s too big, even when you shrink it down.
2) The items are too far apart.
I think the text should be removed and the dots placed in the menu bar then use roll-over windows or tool-tips to display any extra info (like stats).
November 27th, 2007 at 7:59 AM
MY SL DONT WORK AT ALL AND SINCE IM NOT A MONTHLY PAYING RESIDENT I DONT GET HELP. AM I REALLY THE ONLY ONE GETTING THESE MESSAGES? I REINSTALLED FOUR TIMES.. DEFRAGED.. IM ON 100MBIT… SO ARGHH…
You have been logged out of Second Life:
The viewer has detected mangled network data indicative
of a bad upstream network connection or an incomplete
local installation of Second Life.
Try uninstalling and reinstalling to see if this resolves
the issue.
If the problem continues, see the Tech Support FAQ at:
http://www.secondlife.com/support
Click Continue to look at existing IM and chat.
You will not be able to perform any other operations.
Click Quit to exit Second Life immediately.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:23 AM
Memory leak anyone? Crashing on rotation anyone? GEsh here we go again!
November 27th, 2007 at 8:42 AM
Memory LEAK? Try waterfall, dude. All these viewers have terrible memory leaks. I wonder if any of the ‘thord party’ viewers have been aboe to correct it, I guess maybe not.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:50 AM
@ 42 Argent Stonecutter
“The real Mac issue is that Macs are, unfortunately, pretty anemic computers for the money, and SL by its very nature requires something pretty beefy.”
This is bare nonsense. I do not want to discuss this in detail. But. If SL needs something “beefy”, it needs - taking you by the word - at least an investment of 2000 US dollars (a beefy PC with LOTS of RAM and the latest and greatest video card). If this is the case, Phillip Linden and his “vision” of “connecting the world” is absurd. The WORLD does not run this “beefy” stuff, you know.
“That won’t change as long as SL allows resident-created content, and since that’s what pretty much makes SL what it is, well, that’s not going to change.”
Yes, user created content CAN be a problem. But instead of raising hardware demands to a ridiculous highest end Linden Lab would be better off by teaching the users on how to create content that does NOT cause the known problems. And a ban of the most lagging stuff like Temp Rezzers would help SL much more than the most beefy of the beefy machines.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:55 AM
yeah well whatever it is i have no clue.. came back from holidays and sat down infront of the comp.. happy to see my old friends again when boom.. wth… *cires*
November 27th, 2007 at 9:42 AM
[...] Second Life Blog Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Release Candidate (RC2) is now available Quote from the site - We’re getting closer to finalizing this viewer release! Second Life 1.18.5 [...]
November 27th, 2007 at 9:47 AM
could i please have a second laptop for the lag meter, the statistics bar, the communication window and all my HUDs to be able to have a look at in world ‘caution: irony’
November 27th, 2007 at 9:59 AM
Please do not finalize without windlight included. You will be wasting your efforts.
Most residents (when will you call use ‘Guests’ like Disney does?) use Windlight client if possible.. or 18.3.5.
Why would they use this client and lose windlight by choice?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:42 AM
fix Core
Delete bum fluff
rinse repeat
@62 on what do you base that on?
November 27th, 2007 at 11:17 AM
@80: “This is bare nonsense. I do not want to discuss this in detail. But. If SL needs something “beefy”, it needs - taking you by the word - at least an investment of 2000 US dollars (a beefy PC with LOTS of RAM and the latest and greatest video card).”
First off, I’m a Mac/UNIX guy, I’ve still got my first G3, as well as my an old G4, a Mac mini, and a Macbook Pro. I’m not anti-Mac, I’m just realistic.
My PC is a year and a half old AMD 3800+ with 2GB and an nVidia 7600 with 256M. It cost me less than a Mac mini to put together and the hadware itself is definitely more powerful overall than anything Apple has had below the “Mac Pro” level until the last couple of hardware updates… the most recent Macbook Pro or iMac do beat it, but at well over twice the price. The “Mac Tax” is not cheap, but it’s the price you have to pay for an OS and applications that don’t suck.
And if you have a recent MBP it’s not all Linden Labs’s fault, ir the residents. The bugs in the nVidia drivers for the latest MBP are known and well documented. That’s not a hardware issue: even my first generation MBP can run Sl smoothly, and with the corresponding settings Windlight is smoother than the old client. I don’t like everything about the look… we need more sliders on prims and avatars (like ‘reduce shiny by 80%’ and ’set surface type to “matte”‘) to match Windlight’s capabilities… but I do like the feel.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:19 AM
Bring back the RED & GREEN bars, or better yet make then PINK & GREEN to show Torley some love.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:47 AM
@61 Chaos Mohr - Yes, I have the statistics bar open all the time. But it occupies too much of my ’second desktop’. I want to see and click in the world! Isn’t that why we are here for? That is why I want:
Mini lag meter where the bars used to be:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3353
Statistics bar to be made more useful, a start would be:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3364
And the ability for ALT clicks to not hit the UI:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3442
(could start with the statistics bar first)
@73 Matthew Dowd - You’re right on. We’re told this is the bleeding edge technology. I agree, it is. But as such, it has huge resource requirements and we need to be able to monitor that. With efficient tools, not some…. I don’t want to insult some poor programmer, so I’ll stop. We need those. Period.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Agree the lag meter should be done on the old spot, and the search window there is total overkill. Uhhm and yes if your guys could make some options off the client screen with params, would be AWASOME!
November 27th, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Everyone, could you use a name with your @number please? Blog is censored occasionally and therefore comes out of order.
Back to the ‘comments closed’. Maybe you’re right about that, maybe you’re not. But, it is obvious people need to vent somewhere. Or even not vent, how about REPORT it. So, there should be a page on secondlife.com where users would report common failures:
* Login failures, categorized by error/symptom
* Errors like missing gestures and the like
* Teleport failures (possibly with region from & region to)
* Greymapped + region (I call that greymapped or greysighted, don’t confuse with redmapped, which I believe is typically caused by bad network).
Speaking of which … why the hell is there no DIALOG when REDMAPPED?! Submitted http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3482
Back to the report page. This would give the people some satisfaction or even a feeling they’re contributing. Would give LL an additional sensor, which could trigger off sooner than your existing monitors. And would open possibilities to do some correlation for sporadic issues.
For the residents to get a feel of the shape of the services, there should be statistics, similar to some on http://taterunino.net/statistical%20graphs.html
* like # of reports in last five minutes, trends, averages, top issues
* There should be explanations of possible causes
* An acknowledged issue would link to blog post
* Everything would be nicely coupled with an improved grid status page: http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-391
Sigh. Does Santa bring bug fixes and lil useful features?
November 27th, 2007 at 1:08 PM
The Lag Meter can’t replace the package loss and bandwidth bars, because it only measures the package loss and this is just red/green, while the others showed us how many package I lost (sorry, I promise I’ll find them) and how much bandwidth was needed to lose the packages.
The search button is fine to click before I type..
Please have a half-day and think about all context menues.. the TP for instance needs
- “Teleport to”… this is now assigned to a “open” function
- “Open” .. this is what happens when you click “teleport” atm
- “Show on map” (does not exist in the pop-up menu now)
- and the standards like cut, copy, delete…
But BEFORE you do that… reduce the lag and make the system stable.
A question about the new search: does it make any sense to place an add and pay more to get on the top of the search results? I don’t see why I should pay more than 1l$ for an ad, since the sorting seems no longer depend on it. Do I miss something?
November 27th, 2007 at 1:36 PM
*shakes my head in wonder and dismay*
Please Linden Gods and Goddesses, listen to us. Is there any one in SL that was here before the @#!## Communication bar was dropped on us like it? I want my screen back!!!! I want the flexibility of the old system for friend list. I want to see the world not lots of windows that have a limit on how much you can shrink them. Give us some flexibility on setting up our own UI if you guys can’t understand what we are all bitchin about.
Please, please please. would it help if I offered a burnt sacrifice of a pile of pc’s?
November 27th, 2007 at 2:32 PM
Please bring back the red/green bars or make them optional. I don’t want that lag meter window on my screen, it is just useless. I would never use the search thing up there anyway.