New Viewer: Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Now Available!
Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 1:54 PM by: Jeska LindenThe Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer is now available. Again, with your help reporting issues in the Issue Tracker and participation in public bug triages, we were able to find and fix bugs in the Release Candidate viewer before making it the latest download. Thanks for your help improving the viewer!
You can download the new Second Life viewer at the Community: Downloads page.
New Features:
- New inworld search via the ‘All’ tab
- Includes improved search functionality on land parcels, profiles, groups, wiki documents, events, classifieds, and some individual objects
- Classifieds are returned both within and next to search results
- Search box added to upper-right corner of window; replaces old meters
Changes:
- SLurls with 3 slashes (secondlife:///app….) are now highlighted in the text window
- UI elements placement/sizing updated to accommodate localized versions of Second Life viewer
- Korean text displays correctly on Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)
- Permissions dialogs are now throttled to avoid griefing
Fixes:
- Public source bundle not getting all ares libs
- VWR-2959: Windows (Visual Studio) solution file refers to a non-existing project “build_all”
- VWR-2551: Error in macview.xcodeproj — invalid dependencies
- VWR-2856: libs package missing c-ares
- VWR-3073: Right-clicking someone’s attachments to view profile loads (???) (???) instead
- VWR-592: crash in LLTemplateMessageBuilder::addString
- VWR-2826: Several problems on handling Japanese input (and possiblly Chinese/Korean also)
- VWR-2834: Builds fail on 1.18.4.0 with no mozlib
- VWR-2030: Avatar only turns half-way in Appearance Mode
- VWR-2803: Lag Meter network ping metric doesn’t account for residents outside the USA
- VWR-3311: Web UI elements’ focus rectangle are offset from their displayed position
Complete 1.18.5 Release Notes available on the Second Life wiki. Please continue to report any new issues in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to 1.18.5.
Keep reading for more information on the New Search.
Key Features of the New Search
As many of you read in previous blog posts, Linden Lab is excited to announce that with today’s Release, you will see several changes to both the search website and client that improve search.
First, you may notice the blurb about Search being “in beta” as we wanted to clarify that the new search is a work in progress. The new search is primarily web based, which means we can respond more quickly and without having to require a new download for some changes and improvements.
The New Search is Inclusive
The new “All” tab includes Land parcels, Residents profile, Groups, Second Life wiki articles, Events, and some individual Objects present on public parcels.
The New Search is Relevant
Better search relevancy for the new search based on how well the page matches the query, how close the multiple words are together, and how many inbound links there are to the page.
The New Search is Private
Objects, land parcels, groups, and resident profiles all have a consistent “Show in Search” checkbox to include them in the new search. Resident profiles are included by default. We set “show in search” to on for all for-sale objects once when 1.18.4 was released. Going forward all objects, land, and groups are opt-in.
Please note it may take between 1-3 days for changes to be reflected in the search results.
Classifieds are in More Places
Classified ads are returned both inline (as with the current “All” tab) and also alongside relevant search results.
Got Feedback?
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.
Want to Learn More?
- Have more questions? Please check out the complete Search FAQ in the Second Life Knowledge Base.
- Want to learn more about the design and development process at Linden Lab? Download and listen to the first ever Second Life Podcast focused on Search (in MP3 format).
- Need tips on searching? Don’t miss Torley’s great Tip of the Week Video on search (more great video tips from coming soon!).
November 29th, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Fix the XML-RPC server please! While we love new features, this being broken is causing major problems.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:07 PM
First thing when I tried to start up the new viewer I get a crash. This is not a good omen
November 29th, 2007 at 2:08 PM
When will the issue addressed by : (SVC-930) Prims set for sale - prices are incorrectly set when multiple prims taken to inventory and rezzed : be fixed? It says “resolved” in the JIRA but it is far from resolved. Can we please get this fixed, numerous rolling restarts have occurred without addressing this issue that is supposedly fixed internally. When will it be fixed so that it actually means something to residents?
November 29th, 2007 at 2:08 PM
when looking for land,can you seperate the 3rd party from genuine sales,please.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:14 PM
Tulip what do you mean? Are you talking about L$1 sales on estate land or estate land full stop? The former should be in the rental section but the system is now so gamed with them that landlords are reluctant to play by the rules. The latter is possible already by filtering.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:17 PM
Nice! I was eager to find out when this would be released. ^^
November 29th, 2007 at 2:33 PM
Sorry, i mean covenant/non-covenant.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:37 PM
I was using the release candidate and it was working good. I will use the stable version now and I am happy of that.
But you know as well as everyone on SL, that as long as traffic is calculated using the old “dwell” formula - that was supposed to be an obstacle to camping and other cheating!- SL will continue to be seen as a “game”. And no one of us wants that.
If the search is still indexed on traffic, then what relevancy there is in this new system?
Camping is based on the actual traffic calculation system. And camping is cheating instead of proposing real content to SL residents.
Its an obstacle to creativity and real work…It’s an obstacle to evolution to a better SecondWorld…
Please, don’t let it be too late, try to think about it!
November 29th, 2007 at 2:46 PM
Lukas - Thanks for the comments - traffic is only one of several things determining search relevancy in the new search. This is in comparison to the current search, where sort is based only upon traffic! We’re planning on refining and tweaking the relevancy algorithm to continue to improve search results for everyone.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Tulip: regarding land purchase, filter the results in the drop down to show Mainland, mainland doesn’t have covenants and are outright sales of land rather than rentals.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:52 PM
how about you explain a bit better how the sorting works, i thought the traffic algorithm was very sophisticated to begin with and a good way of sorting results…
November 29th, 2007 at 2:53 PM
I agree with Darius
PLEASE FIX XMLRPC!!!!!!! I can wait for the new features - please PLEASE fix it!!! gaaaaaaaaaa!!!
November 29th, 2007 at 2:54 PM
Thank you for your efforts to develop SL and make it even more attractive and interesting! We really love SL!
It’s a very good step, I am conscious of it.
It’s so sorry that almost all the “most popular places” on SL have the word Camping and free money in their description…
November 29th, 2007 at 2:55 PM
Cool another buggy ALPHA viewer! Maybe Torley can do a another movie to show us how to disable features so it can be installed. I really liked how he/she/it explained how to eliminate all the cool visual features so that the client would actually run. You need to ask yourself the question… why have these features when you can use them?? Ohh, I forgot, its a marketing piece. How cool is that??
November 29th, 2007 at 2:56 PM
o.h. - In the new All Search, results are returned by “relevance“, which is a term used in the search world to describe a numerical score assigned to a search result, representing how well the result meets the information need of the user that issued the search query.
We determine relevance based on how well the page matches the query, how close the multiple words are together, and how many inbound links there are to the page. Inbound links are created by references in top picks, classifieds, landmarks, parcels and groups. We create several pages with links to the top 10/20/1000 places, which adds to the relevancy of search for places with high traffic.
There is more information in the Search FAQ on how the result relevancy is being determined.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:57 PM
Camping is very unfair….. you can work yourself to death and never beat a place thats full of dancepads n poles… traffic needs to be worked out in a more fair way.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:02 PM
Um…the chat window is farkled…I could resize the width before…now I can’t…takes up way too much screen space
Well, I can *still* resize the width…it’s just that I cannot get it as narrow as before.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:07 PM
Bring back the bandwidth and packet loss meters. Removing those is a bad idea.
And I do not care for a search box.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:17 PM
Gee this is wonderful…..no Vista support….Bah!
November 29th, 2007 at 3:18 PM
Sure would be nice to have a land search that let me find a mainland parcel, somewhere between 8K and 12K meters for less than $L85K, irrespective of how much I currently have in my account, without having to wade through pages of irrelevant stuff.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:20 PM
@ Darius and Hewitt - We are aware of the XML-RPC issues and I encourage you to track their progress in our Issue Tracker, specifically SVC-29 and SVC-913.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
Sweet! I really start to love the new search!
November 29th, 2007 at 3:26 PM
Dazz - using the “Land Sales” tab there is a very easy way to do what you describe, instructions below:
1. Enter the maximum amount of L$ you wish to spend in the Price box (85000).
2. Enter the minimum square meters of land you are looking for (8000)
3. Choose “For Sale - Mainland” from the Land Type drop down box
4. Select PG or Mature (if you have a preference)
5. Click “Search”
A list of 16 parcels of land over 8000m2, all under L$85000 should appear. You can then sort the list by L$ Price, Area, or L$ per square meter.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:29 PM
What is the point on giving feedback when it is ignored.
The community has been very clear that they did not want the meters removed from the menu bar - improved, maybe but not removed!
November 29th, 2007 at 3:29 PM
Seems like the chat interface would have been fixed to allow us to lock the size and resize smaller. Looks like it takes at least 1/4 to a 1/3 of my window now and I run “in window” pretty soon I will be forced to run full screen since its REALLY hard to see SL as it is with the interface.
Are there any plans to fix this?
November 29th, 2007 at 3:42 PM
Nice changes, I’ll miss the old meters though. I like how everything’s improving, despite the few oversights.
I, too, don’t like camping much. Especially since the “Aeon Bot Family” lives right next to me now.
I’m not kidding, there were over 15 bots all with the last name “Aeon” on a newly sprung-up camping spot in the formerly relatively-peaceful Region I have my parcel in.
I’m sure it’ll be fixed soon, though. One thing at a time, in any order it needs to be in.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:44 PM
i agree with 24 & we need new Sims to go to auction to land Getting to high Ilinden labs That Greedy ???
Grinch !!!!
November 29th, 2007 at 3:45 PM
Kudos to stopping that permissions request attack!
@14: Quit trolling the blog, it’s unbecoming. There are plenty of us with the eye candy cranked up - I suspect that either your computer is a fossil, or there’s a severe case of PEBKAC.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:49 PM
Not all bots are bad. Try profiling one of the Aeons, you might find find in their profiles about what they actually do. Some do a useful job of crawling the grid (much like web crawlers which provide Google with up-to-date search results to integrate into its database).
I had a bot from an SL search website visit my home twice. I actually stood there and waved ‘Hi’ to it.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:51 PM
Help! It says Download Version 1.18.5.3 on my screen, it’s a link but I can’t click it. Anyone, please! I want this version, I never knew what those funny colors in the upper right corner are and I would love to be able to just click and type something I want to search for. After all, that’s what we’re in Second Life, aren’t we. To search. Search, search, search…
November 29th, 2007 at 4:08 PM
Annnnd classified search is still borked. What does it take, really?
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-953
November 29th, 2007 at 4:19 PM
Oh, now featured ads are only on page 1 of search. So only 8 people have to pay more than 50L for an ad. Fantastic!
November 29th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
The biggest thing you can do to make people happy with the new search–is to get rid of the gaming by campers and Alts.
People are sick and tired of being lied to here by bogus search results.
Sooooooooo Go for it! And for goodness sake tell us that you are addressing this huge flaw. I’m going to say it again–make this thing fair to everyone and people will love it.
Make ACTUAL SALES of things by UNIQUE customers (so it can’t be easy to pad the numbers) count! You have everyone’s transactions–total them up for each store and factor them into relevency–cause guess what! Sales are relevent!
November 29th, 2007 at 4:37 PM
“VWR-2826: Several problems on handling Japanese input (and possiblly Chinese/Korean also)”
there was a problem with japanese text? When i used the RC I had no problems? Wonders if this was a non native os issue.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:45 PM
> “Going forward all objects, land, and groups are opt-in.”
Thanks
I’m pleased LL listened to us, and seems to be inidicating they will listen to us to bring back the lag bars in the top right of the UI. The lag meter under help is pretty useless in fact.
I echo that traffic is a gamable metric and should not be taken into effect in places. Remove traffic and the grid will become usefull for those who are real people… the campingbots… well, they are just useless wastes of server and bandwidth.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:46 PM
@34 UM… the google search appliance couldn’t display Kanji characters in the results… this was fixed.
November 29th, 2007 at 4:47 PM
@32 Cristalle, The classifieds are also on page 2,3 etc. accordingly.
“Classifieds are returned both within and next to search results”
“The main search results list will occasionally return classifieds. The price paid is a minor factor in the relevance for those results.”
@ Jeska Linden
I hope you intend to remain fair to (non-sponsored) main search result by not advancing classifieds in the top 10-20 results, but only leave them behind as filling results (or with a lower relevance) inside the main search as I am currently seeing now.
Mixing classifieds with main results would be otherwise a bad idea. E.g. I find the Yahoo “Search Submit” program (which blends pay per click results in organic ones in a non transparent way) very questionable. In this case results are fairly identified as paid results, which is good, however I would expect no classifieds will ever show on the top 10 main search results.
Could you confirm this to be the current policy and behavior in place?
Thank you
November 29th, 2007 at 4:48 PM
[...] « New Viewer: Second Life 1.18.5 Viewer Now Available! [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 4:57 PM
I don’t really care that the bandwidth monitors are being replaced with a search box. The lag meter (I personally believe) more than makes up for the loss. However, it is interesting to note that two blog posts have been released that have been in some way linked to the new lag meter and all comments regarding the bandwidth monitor loss have gone unanswered from the Lindens.
I don’t mind the switch myself as I’ve already stated, but why has there been no official response to other folks’ concerns.
Several other issues have been addressed by Lindens in this blog alone, but no-one is piping up about the meters vanishing.
To be honest I think the lag meter is *so* much better that I, personally, am trying to ignore the cries for the return of the meters. I just find it interesting that nothing has been said from the “upper-ups”.
Why is this topic not being discussed?
November 29th, 2007 at 4:59 PM
@ZigZag - I’m not sure what the problem is you are describing, but you can download the new viewer here: http://secondlife.com/community/downloads.php
@ Sufi, Bethany4 - I’ll pass your feedback on chat window size onto the Resident Experience (rX) team.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
It is showing up now….but briefly, it wasn’t.
I have no problem with search all, when not limited to classifieds, showing up using the “relevance” standard. But someone perusing classifieds only should see ads in paid order. That’s what people pay for - visibility.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:09 PM
What did you do to voice??????? Why does the microphone keep cutting out. I hate it. It cuts out what the person I am talking to in the beginning and end. I am going back to the old one
November 29th, 2007 at 5:10 PM
@36……..ui issue maybe? thats related to users based OS? could be………I had countless issues with the text and font not showing my native fonts. It wasnt my os it was related to OS. Int he case of google it more likey is related to the users side.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:14 PM
1. We want the meters back where the search bar is. Why do you need two ways to get search? Are your customers having difficulty finding the Search button?
2. What is the point of this viewer and the RC when most are using Windlight where possible?
November 29th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
The landmarks are huge - if you want to minimize them you cant’ even see chat now they are in the way. And not being able to resize the communication bar is crazy. The landmarks are a bad move and makes no sense.
All these un-needed additions added to bells and whistles when we can barely move because of lag and log in anyway!
November 29th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
I have questions:
Did the bandwidth and packet loss meters in the top right corner cause extra network strain or server strain somewhere?
Is this why you have tried to eliminate them by covering the space with unneeded search bar?
Some communication on this might help us understand.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:35 PM
I want the meters back, too. The search box provides no useful functionality… at the most it saves you *one* mouse click over ^F or clicking on the Search button. Saving one mouse click is not worth it.
I’ve been using the standard client and not bothering with the third party ones, but between Chatterbox and the search box I’m beginning to think it’s the only way to go.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:37 PM
“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.”
I sent feedback. I hope everyone else reading these blog comments does as well.
November 29th, 2007 at 5:41 PM
#19 Ilya Nightfire Says: Gee this is wonderful…..no Vista support….Bah!
works fine in vista for me.
The communicate box needs to be more adjustable. and for some reason when its open FPS takes a big hit.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:21 PM
There is something really new and really good we can see through this post, it is not a technical improvement its simply: Communication!
It’s lots better!
I imagine it’s difficult to listen to all what we are asking for. especially when its contradictory demands:)
But really its great to feel that there is someone “up there” reading our comment and taking time to answer us. Personally, it gives me a feeling of reassurance.
Thank you Jeska Linden!!
November 29th, 2007 at 6:23 PM
Thanks Linden Lab for all your hard work on this - rest assured, it’s a huge improvement and don’t let off-topic, banal comments for the (mostly) stupid, ignorant people here put you off.
Concentrate instead of knowing you have added a useful piece of technology to Second Life that can only make it get better.
Thank God for sensible, well reasoned comments like #48
Onward!
Manitoba
November 29th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
So, any way to get rid of the annoying search window on the top toolbar and get back the bandwidth and lost packet bars? I find those much more useful than another search button.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:17 PM
So when will this viewer be issued in a Vista version?
November 29th, 2007 at 7:50 PM
@ Cristalle - Classifieds are returned in paid order along side all relevant search items and are also returned inline alongside other results.
@ Garth - We’re researching and compiling all of the feedback on the performance meters and hope to be able to bring together a design that is both useful and provides more information to the Residents.
Many of these features are also in WindLight, which as you know is still very much in Beta.
@ Lukas & Manitoba - thanks so much for the encouragement! We here at Linden Lab are all trying to work together with all of the Residents to make Second Life better and more stable.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:28 PM
Jeska. I know the sidebar is paid order. That is not my issue. But if you read the jira and look at the pictures I submitted, searching the classified tab and search all classifieds do not return the same results, and I would be pretty pissed if I paid tens of thousands for an ad and turned up on page 21 of the body of search. Is this by design, then, that search all classifieds should not return results in paid order? If that is the case, I would expect a lot of people to make massive cuts in their advertising budgets.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:56 PM
The RCs were crashing without any warnings, it just ‘blinks’ out and
so does the new mainstream version. Anyone else seeing this.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:12 PM
Ilya Nightfire Says:
Gee this is wonderful…..no Vista support….Bah!
Contra Demonia Says:
So when will this viewer be issued in a Vista version?
I hope you guys are posting on the Vista site
“Bah no SL support!”
You support a company that deliberately retro bjorks previous software for its bling operating system to make money and then it’s somehow the fault of the previous software companies?
November 29th, 2007 at 10:39 PM
@40 Jeska Linden - Well, my viewer shows the extra box on login, with that text, nicely colored and underlined, but it is not clickable. How does that get through QA?
And a question, how does a group contribute to the relevance of an item in the search database? Does it count as a link to the land the group owns? Probably yes. Does is count as a link to a member’s profile? Probably yes. Does a group contribute any other links? Like slurls in charter? In notices? Anything else? TIA
November 29th, 2007 at 10:45 PM
Too quick, as always …. Obvious question - Does the number of members of a group count?
November 29th, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Hmm, regarding the unclickable link … it works from this computer. Was it fixed in the meantime? Maybe it was just a glitch on the other one…
@ 54 Jeska Linden - How about assigning VWR-3156 and VWR-3353 (and maybe some others linked from those) to yourself so we see that you’ve got everything compiled?
November 30th, 2007 at 12:55 AM
Thanx a bunch for creating so much work for me…Can´t find myself anywhere in the new search. So no revenues for me this weekend, already stopped last night…Again thanx a million
Now I need to find ways to get back into the first 10 of the all search, cose all others can close very soon, if this is what your product will stay like.
What´s next?
Geez, i have rl too, you know
November 30th, 2007 at 1:00 AM
Lotsa: give the new search database a day, then try search again. (Geez, doesn’t anybody have any patience nowadays o_O)
And, uh, the Lindens aren’t responsible for your RL.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:12 AM
Well, i lost my patience with sl quite a while ago
Just looking into a few of my fav keywords now and find 50% resell stores among the first 10 and also the ads next to the all search bar, is full of crap…Wonder how they managed to game it…But i guess from now on there is no point of return from playing dirty
But 1 thing that definetely needs to change is that there are only 10 results on page 1. Everybody not being on this page has practically no chance to survive.
Not that I don´t want to give a chance Ron, it´s more that i find it totally unneeded at this point in time
November 30th, 2007 at 1:46 AM
@39 - the problem with the new lag meter is that it is yet another window in the main screen which can get in the way of interacting inworld or end up on top of or underneath other windows. Having meters in the menu bar meant they were always visible without getting in the way.
Jeska, “We’re researching and compiling all of the feedback on the performance meters and hope to be able to bring together a design that is both useful and provides more information to the Residents.” - it is bad practice to remove functionality on the basis that something better is in the pipeline until that something better is at least ready for a release candidate. The comments on the release candidate should have indicated to LL that the lag meter was not a replacement for the menubar meter, and these should have been brought back until a better design could be implemented. Unfortunately this bad practice is a common practice in LL with functionality being removed on the basis “something better” is in the pipeline - and it can be months before that “something better” emerges (if at all).
LL needs to be prepared to roll back changes based on user feedback. The issue about the chatterbox window is a very good one - the problems mentioned in this blog were raised during the voice client testing and never addressed. Indeed, some issues were closed back in August on the basis that LL were working on a modified design (which has yet to see the light to day, and on which LL has gone very quiet).
November 30th, 2007 at 2:40 AM
@64 - I wasn’t asking what the problem with it is. I understand why people don’t like it and I personally think their reasons either don’t apply to me or just aren’t a big deal in general.
What I was asking was, there are 6 posts in this thread with yellow backgrounds and none of them mention anything (dang, just read the last one and it does mention it) about peoples concerns about the meters.
After having read the one post that does mention the meters’ disappearance, it’s still not a satisfactory response.
Why was this topic not brought up by someone at LL sooner and why can’t we have a proper discussion about it?
It sounds like LL know there’s a problem, but are hoping it’ll go away.
I personally think there isn’t a problem and for me, the lag meter window can stay.
Nuff said.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:45 AM
First, pleas forgive my ignorance…. I came to SL via the Virtual CSI: NY game, and downloaded the OnRez viewer through that website. Is this the same viewer that I would be downloading if I were to use this update?
I guess my real question is, Is there any difference between the CSI and SL viewers, and should I download this update? It seems to me that the help topics don’t really address this.
Second, I don’t understand what WindLight is — a program used to create the world, a separate viewer used to access the world, or ??? Is it something that would be incorporated into the SL viewer, or would it be used instead of the SL viewer? As a non-techie, I’m confused. Not everyone who plays in-world knows much about computers.
Lastly, I too, am very frustrated by the lag problems in SL; yet I keep coming back to play in-world. I would really enjoy SL so much more if I didn’t get frozen, or stuck, or kicked off several times a session. I guess that just goes to show what one is willing to put up with in order to feed one’s addictions
Thanks for SL
Bird Girl
November 30th, 2007 at 3:32 AM
@66 Bird Girl - Windlight is yet another version of the viewer. You have the main viewer for everyone, then you have the RC viewers which are candidates to become the next released viewer. And there is Windlight which is a “beta” playground and has features which will come into one of the next releases, but not necessarily the very next one. Hope that clarifies it. Oh, and you can build the world with any of the viewers, as long as you have land that is. But you can start by playing in the so called sandboxes
As for the OnRez viewer, I would like to hear more on that too
My guess is, if you want to play the CSI thing, you might want to stick with it for a while. If not, meaning you’re more into exploring the Second Life grid, you can probably try the main SL viewer. But don’t take my word for it, wait for more suggestions from others. Or, also check what the CSI site says about it.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:52 AM
The OnRez what i heard have a really big advantage to the official viewer, a working list of friends and group, yo don’t want to get the official viewer until Linden fixed that bug in 2097 or when the get ready with all UI rewrite… (Patched version is Nicholaz for one.)
I’m about to try to get Nicholaz Patches applied to this version for Linux now. Hopefully this code release is more complete that the windlight first look. That don’t compile.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:58 AM
When do changes/updates reflect in the new all search?
I just did a few changes, however when i look up the results in the new all search, i see no updates. While the classifieds & places search show the updates.
I could probably look this up somewhere, but i find the blog dialogs much more direct and handy…
Anyone?
November 30th, 2007 at 4:03 AM
“…while the classifieds & places search show the updates”
by that i mean the classic version of it
November 30th, 2007 at 5:29 AM
Very strange that you have changed the IM-chat window !!! Building and answering an im is not fun anymore, walking and the same time having my im-chat window open is not possible. Chatting this way is like MSN !!!!!! Please change this back to normal as soon as possible
November 30th, 2007 at 7:29 AM
@69 Question Atall - Maybe you should check the next blog entry. Torley has a video that might explain a thing or two. In short, it takes about a day for the search to crawl through everything.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:36 AM
Hmm, as soon as I DL the new viewer, I continually get the error message that Despite Our Best Efforts, something unexpected has occurred. I have not been able to log in with the new viewer since yesterday I DL it yesterday evening.
my support ticket was closed with the message to check the blog, as LL is aware of the issues with the release. So… Im supposed to wait for a new one before I can log in? Its the support issues which drive us crazy LL!!
Im dl the OnRez CSI viewer to see if I can get in that way. This is absolutely ridiculous….
November 30th, 2007 at 7:39 AM
Where is the opt-out feature for profiles in web search ???
Unselecting the “show in search” box does not lead to any change, and the profile is still accessible from the web, with http://world.secondlife.com/resident/your-avatar-key-here
This is a SERIOUS issue as it leads to privacy violations (the search bots will find all those profile pages, and then everything will be archived forever in Google and other search engines databases).
This is also a violation of the French Law (”Informatique et Liberté”), as you are publishing personal information without the approval of the French residents neither a mean fro them to opt out.
Please, till this problem is fixed, add the following html tag in the header of your web based search:
November 30th, 2007 at 7:41 AM
lol; it looks like the blog interprets HTML in text comment… Here is the tag I was speaking about in my above post:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow,noarchive”>
November 30th, 2007 at 9:18 AM
@ Cristalle - The classified tab and the classified setting in the new Search All are not meant to return the same results. The drop-down setting is meant to return results based on relevance, not simply money paid. The sidebar and the old classified tab will return results sorted by price.
@ Henri - It can take up to 72 hours for changes to be picked up by the search crawler. Please see the the Search FAQ
November 30th, 2007 at 9:44 AM
@74 there is no opt out of the profile search, the best you can get is to have your profile only show your name. LL have been told about this and they don’t seem bothered, they can’t even muster a reply to this question.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:23 AM
Thank you for the definitive answer, Samuel.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:29 PM
Why do the results under all change within seconds?
I can use the same keyword and whenever i hit search it comes up with slightly different to totally different results.
No. 1 from the first search is sometimes not even on page 1 anymore. Checked the wordings of a few and cannot really see any changes.
How does that work?
btw, seems keyword independent, i tried quite a few now
November 30th, 2007 at 1:11 PM
@ Cristalle - as mentioned before - having classified results mixed in with other results is by design, it is not a bug. This is also how they return in the ‘old’ search.
@ ZigZag - That sounds like a bug, please report it in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.18.5“.
@ Matthew - I do understand your frustration, to clarify the lag meter has been an ongoing discussion internally since the issue was initially raised in an earlier blog post. When I say I’ve taken the feedback to the team I mean exactly that - we’re having design discussions, doing research and talking to Residents about how to move forward on the issue.There is definately a balance between fast iteration, focusing on stability and allowing amble time for QA and we are always working to maximize that balance.
@ Bird - The On Rez viewer is different than this new release of Second Life, please visit this page for more information: http://viewer.onrez.com/
@ Question Atall - It may take 1-3 days for those updates to be reflected in the search results. Due to the nature of search indexing, we’re not able to make any guarantees about when any changes will appear.
@ Henri - The basic avatar profile (which includes only the avatar’s name) is included in search for all Residents. The advanced profile (which includes an extended profile) is toggleable via the “Show in Search” checkbox.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:01 PM
@ Henri - The basic avatar profile (which includes only the avatar’s name) is included in search for all Residents.
So Jeska, when the avatar’s name is spammed to death because you refuse to give an opt out option, can we forward the inevitable spam to you?
Business is going to suffer from your refusal to allow an opt out, you’ve been warned about what will happen, the stable door should have been shut, this horse will bolt and you won’t be able to stop it.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:22 PM
To add on to 79, i am just checking with a few other shop owners and creators and they all see the same thing happening.
Sometimes they find themselves at position 1 under all and then they disappear from page 1 entirely
Just one more click its position 3
one click more pos 10
Why is that?
November 30th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
@ Bit Confused - Sorry for the confusion! We’ve got several different Google Search Appliances running and we round-robin the requests to load-balance search. Each of the appliances have slightly different index files, although it shouldn’t vary too much. I’ll have our search team take a look at this.
November 30th, 2007 at 6:01 PM
[...] refuse to allow our profiles to completely opt out is completely ignored, as exemplified in the blog post about the new viewer. Jeska Linden simply ignores the issue. Unfortuately anyone running a [...]
November 30th, 2007 at 8:09 PM
Jeska, my issue has been with searching ONLY for classifieds using the new search. I do not care about them being mixed in with a general search of all categories - it makes sense that they would be sorted by relevance there, when mixed in with places, etc.
What does not make sense to me is that, when searching **only** classifieds, that classifieds return a result that is not in paid order. What you have done is added value to 50L ads, but taken away value from all but the most expensive ads - the first 8 to 40 or so, assuming people will search about 4-5 pages deep before getting tired and stopping. This is the point of paying for visibility, and you just eliminated it for anyone between #40 or so and anyone that pays 51L.
You have removed the point of paying any more than 50L for ads, since a properly gamed ad will hit the top pages without paying more than 50L. I have already cracked it for my desired keyword. The only incentive for me to pay more than 50L for an ad now is to keep the people who continue to search classifieds using the classified tab. But if that is deprecated/eliminated in favor of this new search, then I will happily adjust my advertising budget down and save my Lindens for something else.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:19 PM
[...] there is a new viewer and the windlight viewer is also updated. The problem I encountered now with the windlight viewer [...]
December 1st, 2007 at 2:42 AM
The results now seem to stabilize a lil more, however one would expect that there are 100% equal, assuming no changes were made to descriptions.
But one more thing. How large does a parcel have to be to get listed in the new all search? Some smaller ones i was using as Landmarks don´t appear at all (at all, lol), while there are only 5 results for my particular keyword. I would at least expect it to show up some where.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:09 AM
KUDOS to LL. “Very” surprised to see Jeska’s replies to blog posters. A welcome addition to the blog. Hope to see more of these proactive responses.
December 1st, 2007 at 7:05 AM
With regard to the relevancy in the search…Is there any difference between the tags of an object that can be bought per or through “pay” and an object that can be bought per “buy”?
I mean obviously you got more tags available when using single sales boxes rather than multi item (network) vendors…But suppose i would put the same line of keywords into the name field of a vendor and into the name field of a sales box…Would they have equal relevancy in the search (what ever that technically means)?
Btw, Thanx for answer Jeska…
December 1st, 2007 at 8:46 AM
the new search sounds great. I agree why do we need traffic counts in search? how about making it like the phone book listings. You type in a search item and it is listed in alphabetical order. When I go shopping and place a search the order based on traffic has no meaning to me other than it screws up the search. Like the above post mentions about campers making a stores traffic higher.
Just because a store has a higher traffic count doesnt mean their items for sale are of good quality.
Speaking of shopping. be careful again. this is back. [8:21] Attempt to rez an object failed.
You see that the item is lost and the so called clear your cache fix, Actually makes the item disapeer.
Pick your vendors wisely. If they have the “it’s not my fault SL lost it policy” go to another store that is willing to work with their customers rather than ignore them.
December 1st, 2007 at 1:44 PM
I am extremely displeased with this viewer’s modifications that were made to the SLVoice.exe module!!! It would appear that they have now implemented a form of ‘voice actuated noise gating’ and it is absolutely ruining conversations I am having with others!
They need to put the voice system back the way it was in the previous release and LEAVE IT! They really need to learn to live by the old addage…”If it ain’t broke…don’t fix it”
I have had numerous people revert back to the prior version just so that we won’t lose the great voice quality that we had in that version.
Either they need to stop this, or they’re gonna start losing people left and right.
December 1st, 2007 at 5:29 PM
I note that if you opt out of the main search your profile is useless to other residents. Nice touch, bordering on blackmail really. Other residents in world can’t even get an IM tab for an opted out profile, yet the name still appears, the avatar key appears, the information that is useful to spammers appears but information that is useful to those in world does not appear.
Nice move. How utterly pathetic.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:51 PM
@ Cristalle - yes, the classifieds are sorting solely by relevancy in the new search results and are sorting by price paid only in the results that show up at the right hand side (this is as designed). The thing to remember is that the ads are showing up all the time alongside the search results, not only when searching for classifieds, which should increase the value of classifieds. But I agree that there is still a lot of work to do with classifieds, as the new search is still very much a work in progress.
@ Bit Confused - In order for a parcel to show up in search, the owner of the parcel needs to select the “Show Place in Search” checkbox in the About Land dialog. We’re still looking for a solution for vendors - keep watching for more improvements as we go!
@ Tony - After various responses from this blog and other places, we did decide to only have the name of an avatar listed if a Resident decides not to include their profile in search. Please send any additional feedback you have to this email address: search-feedback@lindenlab.com
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:34 PM
Thanks for the response, Jeska.
My view is that classified ads that are not sorted by paid order in a search of all classifieds are inherently less valuable to the middle body of ads that would otherwise be featured earlier in the body of search.
I know from running my own tests with certain keywords that even the top 10 ads often fall deep into the search - 20, 40 pages deep and beyond, in favor of ads that pay a scant fraction of the cost. People pay for visibility, and that you would remove it for so many people really is disturbing, considering the many thousands of L paid weekly for high positioning. That such highly paid ads would be pre-empted by a barely descriptive 50L ad with a lot of keys hammered into it is salt in the wound.
I hope you’re measuring the amount of clickthroughs on the featured ads versus the main body of search, and are measuring how many pages deep those ads are getting clicked through. Because I honestly think that because search is tedious, and attention spans are short, that after a few pages, it’s not worth having a featured ad. As such, the value of a featured ad is debatable, and is definitely not the same value as having ads listed in paid order.
I myself have a middling priced ad - enough to land on page 1 of my category, but not right at the top. It’s a level of positioning I am comfortable with. Without diddling with my ad, which was highly descriptive of my offerings, I would have ended up on page 41. 41! That is not acceptable, not when I paid for that visibility. So now I have a bigger block of keywords than I would have otherwise had, and have gamed my way to the top. My middling ad comes up as a feature on page 3 or so in the feature listings. Not too shabby, but not as effective as being on page 1.
I would like to request that classified stats get broken down and show us the top 3 keywords used to find us when teleporting, mapped, or profiled. And to tell us how many clicks we got through search results, and through featured listings. This is the only way to gauge whether or not it is worth paying more than 50L for an ad, and by how much.
Because I’m already poised to adjust my ad budget down a bit, not enough to land on page 2 of the classic search, but enough to keep the best of both worlds and spread a few more cheap 50L ads that I will summarily game to the top.
December 4th, 2007 at 5:44 AM
Jeska,
i got several 16 qm parcels ticked as show under places…I assumed i don´t have to state this. So question rephrased, is there any minimum size of a parcel listed under places, to be listed under all as well?
And a bit more feedback
The Search shouldn´t start with those 8 top paid ads. They cover 80% of the basic avatar needs if not more and lots of revenues are getting diverted to those 8. For now it´s a fight between the “sl majors” but soon Wowdumbfoam & Co will kick these out and we got only irl advertisement in there.
The featured ads should not appear at all. For some i wonder what they do there anyway. They are watering the search results completely and again divert revenues to businesses that should be mentioned next to the top search results. What is the criteria for showing up there? I even see 51 L$ ads there. I will now kill all ads above 100 L$ and replace them with 51 L$ ones. Hopefully everyone else does too, so it finally hurts you too.
Why can i filter to see only classifieds on the all search. That´s not an all search anymore. If at all, then give us a feature to exclude categories from all and not just to list a certain category. What´s the difference to the classic search then?
My revenues are down by ca. 40% since the new search despite me having managed to climb on top again for a number of my fav keywords. If it remains like that, it will make me close and sell my land.
Almost anything a business owner changes now will either negatively affect the old all search or the new one. Worst, you cannot even see if what you´ve done made sense instantly.
Stop using us as beta testers and pretending to the outside world sl is a business platform. It´s a secondliving joke, when it comes to business. How can you release this now, forcing all merchants to change their places names & ads, when you already state that things are still up for change. Does that mean, i can put another few days in there every once in a week?
regards