Advertisement

New: Imprudence 1.2 beta viewer for Second Life

Tateru Nino
Updated ·10 min read

The Imprudence project has started a new release cycle for their Second Life viewer. Imprudence is one of our favorite after-market Second Life viewers, and the new 1.2 beta contains a number of delicious treats.

The new beta features a grid manager, new minimap radar with some useful features, optional support for Restrained Life (using RLVa), a selection of Emerald viewer features, object backups (for your own creations only), and a heap more. Our personal favorite is the option to have a draw-distance slider on-screen, as it is perhaps our single most-commonly used UI feature.

Imprudence 1.2.0 beta

Known Issues

  • When you try to quit after having logged out at least once, the viewer may crash (Linux & Mac) or not quit (Windows). As a work-around (particularly for Windows users), we recommend not using "File > Logout" until this has been fixed.

  • Many new UI additions only provide English text. We'd love to have some bilingual users help us translate them. If you can help, please post in the forums.

  • The custom chat channel number entry doesn't behave properly for channel numbers longer than 6 digits. As a temporary work-around until we fix this, use the old "/NUMBER" (e.g. "/123456789 Hi") and "//" chat commands for chatting on large channel numbers.

  • The grid selection box on the login screen always defaults to "secondlife" at startup, when it should default to the most recently used grid.

  • The grid selection box on the login screen always shows "secondlife" after logging out, but behaves like it is still set to the grid you logged out from.

  • The minimap radar cannot be hidden yet. We're working on it.

  • The Windlight Water settings window doesn't have previous/next arrows like the Sky window does.

  • The Windlight toolbar sometimes forgets the last selected preset.

  • "File > Import" and "File > Upload & Import" may not work correctly for Mac users.

  • The grid manager compulsively adds a "/" to grid URLs, which may cause logins to fail when connecting to certain grids (like the Second Life Beta grid).

  • The double-click teleport feature should have a confirmation dialog to avoid accidental TPs.

  • "File > Upload & Import" should have a confirmation dialog warning people about how much it will cost to upload all the textures.

Changes

This version of Imprudence includes the following changes (as compared to Imprudence 1.1.0).

Version Highlights

  • Object Backup. You can now download objects that you have created and have full permissions for to your computer, and upload them back into the world (or another grid). Thanks to the Meerkat Viewer for developing this feature, and to Armin for helping us import it!

  • Grid Manager. You can now modify the list of grids available at the login screen. We have further plans for extending this feature, but this will serve for now. Thanks to the Hippo Viewer and Meerkat Viewer for this, and to Armin for helping import it!

  • Restrained Life support. Imprudence now provides optional support for the Restrained Life API (used by BDSM items and various scripted gadgets). Enable it with "Advanced > Restrained Life Support". Many thanks to Kitty Barnett for developing RLVa and working with us to integrate it into Imprudence!

  • Radar. The minimap now features a list of nearby avatars. Thanks so much, McCabe and Dale Glass!

  • Emerald features. We've imported a variety of features from the Green Life Emerald Viewer. Thanks to the Emerald folks for developing these, and McCabe for importing them!

    • "Advanced > Asset Browser" (Alt-Shift-A). Visual browser for textures in your inventory.

    • "Advanced > Animation List". Lists the animations you are playing, and allows you to selectively stop them and revoke animation permissions from scripted objects.

    • "Advanced > Phantom Avatar" (Ctrl-Alt-P). Prevents your avatar from being pushed, but also prevents you from moving.

    • "Advanced > Ground Sit" (Ctrl-Alt-S). Makes your avatar sit down at your current location.

    • Build tool shows objects' Last (previous) Owner.

    • When viewing your own profile, the Profile window indicates which of your groups are hidden.

    • You can now search your inventory by Creator name. ("Search" menu in the Inventory window.)

    • You can now double-click on a location in the 3D world to teleport there.

    • Added "BlockClickSit" debug setting. Set it to true to prevent yourself from sitting on things when you accidently click on them.

    • Particle chat, which sends a message on channel 9000 when you select an object, for enhanced integration with scripted objects. You can disable this feature by changing the "ParticleChat" setting to False in "Advanced > Debug Settings".

Building

  • You can now choose which kind of grass or tree to rez. Before, it always rezzed a random kind. Thanks to Mana Janus for this!

  • Added "Link" and "Unlink" to the pie menu for objects. Thanks, McCabe!

  • Added "Link" and "Unlink" buttons to the Build window. Thanks, McCabe!

  • Several changes to the main menus. Thanks, McCabe!

    • "Edit > Duplicate" is now in the Tools menu.

    • Moved the selection-related options in the Tools menu to a new submenu, "Tools > Selection Options".

    • The "Tools > Select Tool" submenu has been renamed to "Choose Tool" to avoid confusion with the Selection Options.

    • "Tools > Set permissions on selected task inventory" has been renamed to "Set Bulk Permissions".

  • "Advanced > Rendering > Selected Texture Info" now displays partial UUIDs for the textures. Thanks to Henri Beauchamp and McCabe for developing this!

  • Added "Tools > Selection Options > Hide Selection Outline" (VWR-6918). This can help make it easier to see when editing small objects, and improves performance when selecting a large number of prims. Thanks a bunch, Aimee Trescothick!

Map & Minimap

  • The minimap has many improvements. Our enduring gratitude to Aimee Trescothick for these!

    • Enhanced zoom behavior and range.

    • It can be panned with Shift-Click and drag. (Right click the minimap and disable "Center on Camera" if you want to stop it from moving back automatically.)

    • Hovering the mouse over someone's dot on the minimap will show their name in the tooltip. Right click on a dot and choose "Profile" to open that person's profile window.

    • Window layout converted to XUI under the hood.

  • But wait - the minimap has other improvements, too. Thanks to McCabe for these!

    • Muted avatars are colored gray in the minimap.

    • Added "Show World Map" to the minimap right-click menu.

    • Moved "Rotate Mini-Map" to the minimap right-click menu.

  • The World Map displays the number of avatars in each sim, above the sim's name. That's pretty handy, Jacek and McCabe!

Misc. UI

  • The Communicate window title and "IM Received" popup button now show the number of unread IMs you've received. Nice work, McCabe!

  • The "About Land" window displays the L$/sqm cost for land for sale. Thanks to Linden Lab for this feature in SL 1.23.

  • The Resident chooser now has a "Near Me" tab with a list of nearby people (VWR-2681). Thanks to Matthew Dowd, Vadim Bigbear, and Coco Linden for developing this feature.

  • Double clicking an object in your inventory wears it (or detaches it, if you are already wearing it). Thanks to Nicholaz Beresford and Henri Beauchamp for developing this!

  • Quick access to Windlight presets and draw distance from the toolbar. You can toggle this in "Preferences > Graphics > Show environment control in toolbar" (a checkbox near the top right corner of the window). Nice work, McCabe!

  • When listening to audio streams, song info is output to your chat window. You can toggle this in "Preferences > Audio & Video > Show stream info in chat" (a checkbox about halfway down the window). Thanks to Dale Glass for developing this feature!

  • IM windows inform you when the other person has gone on or offline even if you have turned off "Show online Friend notifications". That's pretty handy, McCabe!

  • Added "View > Advanced Menu" to toggle the Advanced menu. Thanks, Armin!

  • The layout of the Profile window has been revamped. Thanks, McCabe!

  • In the Local Chat window, you can now click the name of objects that IM you to view information about the object and its owner. Thanks to Linden Lab for developing this in SL 1.23.

  • The Snapshot window can now be minimized. It's the little things, McCabe!

  • The Windlight sky settings window now has arrow buttons for quickly changing to the previous or next preset in the list. Thanks, McCabe!

  • "Show HUD Attachments" has been moved back to the View menu, and its shortcut (Alt-Shift-H) has been restored. It was moved to the Advanced menu and lost its shortcut in Imprudence 1.1. Thanks to mashaeilde on the forums for giving us feedback about this!

  • You can now select a default channel number to chat on, for interacting with scripted devices. Turn on "Preferences > Text Chat > Show custom chat channel" (a checkbox near the bottom of the window), then set the channel using the new number entry field on the chat bar. Channel 0 is normal chat, all other channels are only seen by scripts. You can still chat to other channels using "/1", etc. Thanks to the Emerald Viewer for the inspiration, and to McCabe for the implementation!

Other

  • Imprudence 1.2 has been rebased to SL 1.22.11. Previous versions of Imprudence were based on SL 1.21.6. Thanks, Jacek!

  • Ability to logout without quitting and restarting the viewer (File > Logout). Thanks to the Meerkat Viewer for this!

  • Several bundled software libraries have been updated to new versions:

    • Gstreamer, Zlib and Iconv on Windows. Thanks, McCabe!

    • OpenJPEG on Linux. Thanks, Armin!

  • The login screen displays the awesome Imprudence logo while the login page is still loading, instead of that smelly old SL logo. Way to go, McCabe!

  • Linux-style middle mouse paste on Linux viewers. Thanks, Armin!

  • The maximum bandwidth setting has been raised to 5000kbps, and the default set to 1000kbps. Thanks, McCabe!

  • Added several new windlight settings by CodeBastard Redgrave, Ana Lutetia, and Torley Linden. Thanks, Codie, Ana, and Torley!

  • Added the adult_compliant capability, for teleport compatibility with Linden Lab's adult content policy. Thanks for providing a patch for this, Linden Lab!

  • Added two patches (VWR-11128 and VWR-11138) to support Visual Studio Express. Thanks, Robin Cornelius!

Bug Fixes

  • "Stop All Animations" (aka "Stop Animating My Avatar") only affected your own viewer; other people would still see your avatar being animated (VWR-2850). Thanks to Tofu Linden for fixing that in SL 1.23.

  • The Resident chooser was showing hair instead of calling cards. Thanks for fixing that, McCabe!

  • "View > Communicate" wasn't toggling the Communicate window like it was supposed to. Thanks for fixing it, McCabe!

  • Small textures weren't being cached (VWR-12686). Thanks for fixing that, Robin Cornelius!

  • Certain malformed animations could cause the viewer to abort with an assertion about the joint number. Thanks to Linden Lab for fixing this in SL 1.23.

  • The chat history window couldn't be minimized. Thanks, McCabe!

  • The Contacts window couldn't be toggled with "Edit > Friends" (Ctrl-Shift-F) if it was detached from the Communicate window (VWR-5370). Thanks to Latif Khalifa for making the patch to fix that!

  • When trying to attach multiple objects at once from your inventory, it would fail with a message, "Cannot complete attachment. An Attachment is pending for that spot". Many thanks to Kitty Barnett for fixing that awful bug!

  • Teleporting very long distances on OpenSim Hypergrid would sometimes cause weird issues (SVC-2941). Thanks to Mana Janus for the fix!

  • Avatars would be invisible until you zoomed in on them (in SL 1.22). Thanks for the patch to fix this, Aleric Inglewood!

  • Special symbols in group titles were appearing as question marks in avatar name tags. McCabe fixed the heck outta that one!

As always, you should consider the risks before installing third-party binaries on your system, and this is a beta-release, so you shouldn't expect everything to work just right out-of-the-box. Imprudence viewer 1.2 beta is available for Linux (45MB), Windows (26MB) (with a special version optimized for SSE) and for Intel Mac (56MB), or go to the project's download page where you can also get the source code under the GPL license. As usual, the Imprudence team has provided a forum for feedback on this release so that you can pass on your experiences and suggestions.

Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.