New Second Life release candidate viewer: 1.20(RC0)

Linden Lab has released the first 1.20 Second Life release candidate viewer. The numbering scheme is changing - the least significant digits groupis being dropped from version numbering, so the next release will be 1.21.

This release candidate contains Windlight, Dazzle, the default Dazzle skin (which we don't care for so much) and the Tools menu handily only appears when the edit floater is open (this is one change we heartily approve of!). There's improved joystick/3D mouse support in this release, and support for high altitude building.

Here are the listed changes for this release -- noting that paradoxically some of them seem to refer to server-side changes rather than changes in the viewer.

UI: This Release Candidate includes significant updates to the visual design and architecture of the Viewer's user interface, including:

• A new, lighter color scheme

• Improved UI graphics (icons, buttons, etc)

• Ability to customize text color of Instant Messages

• Enhancements to the UI texture rendering system

• Ability to reference textures by filename

• Support for non-powers-of-two textures

• Support for PNG textures

Some important notes regarding the new UI appearance:

• The new UI appearance is installed by default with 1.20; Residents who wish to continue using the pre-1.20 UI appearance should not update to 1.20.

• Based on feedback from the Dazzle First Look viewer, we are tracking a number of bugs related to the new UI appearance; see PJira for the complete list.

• 1.20 includes a limited capability to create custom UI "skins." Although this functionality is not officially supported by Linden Lab, a basic overview of the current XML functionality for creating custom skins is available on the Second Life wik

• The new UI appearance was developed in parallel with ongoing initiatives to improve Viewer stability and crash rates, and did not impact those important projects.

• For more information about the new UI appearance, including a list of frequently-asked questions, please see the Dazzle page on the Second Life wiki. For more information about Linden Lab's longer-term plans to enable Resident-created UI "skins," please see the User Interface Roadmap.

As always, Residents concerned about user interface and usability issues are welcome to attend Benjamin Linden's weekly in-world User Experience Office Hour, held every Thursday at 3pm in Beaumont

LSL scripting for object glow!

• Script a prim's glow attribute, details on the Second Life wiki:

• You may want to try a script such as THIS!
  default
  {
  touch_start(integer total_number)
  {
  list values = llGetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_GLOW, 1]);
  float glow = llList2Float(values, 0);
  llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_GLOW, ALL_SIDES, 1.0 - glow]);
  }
  }

Improved Joystick and 3D input device support

• Integrated a new open source library created by 3Dconnexion designed to integrate multi axis input devices with Second Life

• Joystick devices can now control the Avatar, Edited Objects, or the Flycam (View menu > Joystick Flycam)

• Added a "Joystick Setup" window to the Preferences under "Input & Camera" for adjusting multi axis input devices

• Settings are currently optimized for Logitech's 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator but should be tunable for any joystic or 3D imput device

Other changes:

• Removed voice setup wizard from Viewer

• Removed "Detecting hardware" from first-use startup to save 10 seconds of start time

• Removed "Critical Message" string from startup community standards dialog

• Removed "Start Gesture" from menu bar

• Removed "do you want streaming audio" dialog

• Removed Friends dropdown on Map

• Display the Camera and Movement controls by default

• Added online offline notification to open IM windows

• One click sit not be available if you're already sitting

• Replaced "(hippos)" and "(waiting)" with "(Loading...)"

• Print the name of the missing gesture in the error message

• Double-tap forward to run

• Adjusted the right-justified text on the splash screen

• Ctrl-shift-1 now displays Statistics in a floater

• Login progress bar change

• Option available to turn off all group titles to make name tags smaller

• Small UI tweaks made to the "near me" floater for usability

List of fixes:

• Havok 4 - Increased the max height for building objects to 4096m

• SVC-747: Estate Banned Residents list doesn't increment higher than 252

• VWR-5498: WindLight Release Candidate doesn't rembember correct size of IM window between sessions

• VWR-747: Texture preview should not have constrained aspect ratio

• VWR-3984: WindLight: Certain snapshot options incorrectly capture a part of the screen

• VWR-3438: WindLight: Glow (including water reflections) shows through HUD objects

• VWR-4616: Snapshot, clicking on more removes current pic

• VWR-1405: llMapDestination does not work as designed for OS X/Intel viewers

• VWR-3625: Highlights don't affect non-root prims

• VWR-2113: Mac Auto Updater "hides", giving appearance of failing

• VWR-2755: duplicate PARCEL_FLAG_RESTRICT_PUSHOBJECT line in keywords.ini

• VWR-442: Require confirmation when inviting a new group owner

• VWR-4903: Show avatar's name in the "Eject" and "Freeze" confirmation screens

• VWR-6066: "Are you sure you want to clear you browser cache" in "Perferences > Web > Clear Now" has a typo

• VWR-5656: Secondlife icon missing in Linux version 1.19.1 RC1 ?

• VWR-2600: Add option to enable Full-Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) in the viewer

• VWR-3633: Avatar impostor of not-yet-rezzed avatar not appearing

• Localization of camera controls/tooltips

• Fixed: glow is rendered on property lines and selection silhouettes

• LLImageJ2C now indicates what en/decoding implementation is being used

• New messaging to inform Residents about consequences of selecting "Can modify my objects"

• Fixed: Estate tools in non-english UI cannot change maturity level of islands from PG to Mature.

• Fixed: Agent Limit spontaneously resets to zero

• Fixed: Web control code does not correctly reject sl:// links

• Fixed: Wait before printing missing gestures if the name isn't yet available

• Abrupt velocity changes of SL camera are smoother

• llMapDestination() can be used to open place dialog to teleport user without opening map

• Fixed: Cannot close Buy Land floater when (waiting for data) from web site

• Fixed: Gestures appear in random order

• Fixed: Preference Help button is not pointing to the correct url

• Added Hyperlink to MOTD.

• Fixed: Occlusion crash on SIS cards

• Fixed: VBO related crash on ATI R100 cards

• Fixed: lowest avatar detail is higher than before

• Fixed: Avatar Impostor sprites have opaque black edges

• Fixed: Impostors tilt

• Fixed: Impostors need to update once after they stop walking

• Fixed: Provide way to visually mute "costly" avatars (check cost: client->rendering->info displays->avatar render cost)

Source changes:

• The settings system has been significantly revamped. llcontroldef.cpp has been replaced with an XML file controlling all settings values: app_settings/settings.xml

• The command line parser has also been revamped. All but a few special arguments are now associated with control settings and controlled by the file app_settings/cmd_line.xml

• VWR-2645: Source typo RELEASE_FOR_DOWNLOAD should be LL_RELEASE_FOR_DOWNLOAD ?

• Fixed: g++ 4 viewer compile issues

• Dead code removal createLegacyWearableFromAvatar

Release candidate viewers access your live account on the main Second Life grid (Agni). Potentially they may cause hair-loss in pets, and should be always be kept out of reach of children. The downloads are served by Amazon's S3 service and we use and recommend the use of a download manager to keep your download times to a minimum.

You can download this viewer from the usual place. The download for Windows is 34MB, Mac OSX is 72MB, and Linux is 55MB.