Second Life 1.5.8-Preview Release Notes

I can't get in. I'm getting an error message at the beginning of the install process of "Error! Can't initialize plug-ins directory. Please try again later." Did you break something for Linux?

ARG I HATE the chat thing.

I can't work with that up!

Seriously, WTF!

The chat window fades?

you guys dont use the chat history window? you can put that anywhere (almost, mind out of the gutter, you)



control H

it's an option to disable the smoked glass chat fade thingamajob...



Inventory fix kinda... Gonna take some time, a lot of time... To sort an inventory that has not been sorted since February..... Or should I stick it out and go for a year unsorted?

Murphy's law: when you get around to sorting your inventory a bug will make it too annoying to bother.

YAY thank GOD, you guys haven't seen how long my sodding inventory is! this is a godsend! THANK YOU!!!!!

Even better: make it a proper call instead of a hack.

--

On the other hot topic, I agree -- please make the chat shade thing optional. I can see times where I'd want it (when people use an especially "noisy" ground/floor texture, and I can see times where I don't want it (in a place where there's a lot of conversation and it starts to fill my screen).

I do! As soon as I log on I turn on Chat History. It stays in my upper right corner next to my mini-map. Been using it since my second week in SL back in Sept. 2003. I could *never* keep up if I didn't use this feature.




LOL! No kidding. I haven't sorted my inventory since I started (again Sept 2003). I sometimes wonder if I ever should.


PS: ROFL at Cristiano's sig line!! You meanie!!!

Wow they fixed something they broke the last up*cough*grade !!! Sweet ! When's the rest coming or is that being R&D 'd for TeenieTown?

Yei! Now I can properly file the 200 objects in my objects directory!

Thank you!

- T -

I do not see how anyone could possibly think that people who don't want their view obsured by a fluctuating sized translucent gray tint would prefer to have their view completely blocked by the chat history window with it's totally opaque background and extra space around its perimeter. One might just as well take some aluminum foil and cover the front of the monitor, or turn the monitor off, or face carefully away from the monitor at all times, or put some duct tape over one's eyes.

I don't get to spend much time in Second Life, if the tinted chat becomes mandatory, I will reduce it to zero. I knew there was some good reason not to pay for the whole year in advance.

I agree, that smoke screen chat has to be optional.
If someone types a long sentence, your whole screen gets grey.
Then when that long sentence is disappearing at the top, the grey part gets narrower... So when you're in a conversation, the grey chat keeps changing in size, both horizontally and vertically.

How do I get to Dore? I saw a green dot there... If it's not for testing, but just for Lindens, why show it on the map?

Last one: why dont I have any of the stuff I made or bought since the last preview?
I have none of my new things, but it seems I have the inventory of the last preview... Can I get my new things in this preview?

Not saying this is a complete fix, I do think the new tint should be optional, but I just wanted to let you know that you can actualy change the transparency of the Chat History by editing the colors.ini. I've actualy changed the transparency of the entire GUI so I can see through everything (script windows, inventory, toolbar, menubar, etc.), gives SL much more render space and makes it actualy feel more open. Attached is a copy of my colors.ini, same colors as the default GUI, just transparency changed, you can copy and paste it into your colors.ini file, if you don't like it, you can copy and paste from the colors_base.ini and that will restore the GUI to the former settings.

Riffey4, more than likely Bonificio(sp) which was between Dore and the rest of the sims, crashed, and will braught back, whoever is in Dore probably was there on their last log-out. This happened with the last Preview, where a sim acting as a bridge sim crashed and left other sims impossible to get too unless someone TPed you.

About the inventory, more than likely your current Preview settings are either still from the last Preview (i.e. they didn't create a new backup, and just kept the same ones from last preview), or some other crazyness.

Regarding the "collisionless avatar exploit":

Despite this being an incredibly useful feature (for both personal protection and the ability to fly through annoying builds), I categorically cannot fault Linden Lab for fixing what was, essentially, a bug.

However, it would be awfully nice for them to make up for this by adding a no-clip option, for instance, to the debug menu.

I LOVE YOU!

I'm glad the "phantom avatar" bug was plugged. That ruined a game I had built since anyone exploiting the bug had a huge advantage, and there was no way to detect it or prevent it. You can't get stuck in a still-rezzing building, since the collision is done on the server end where the whole building exists. You'll just be bumping into the outside until it rezes. If you need to get in or out of an inaccessible location, SIT ON SOMETHING. It works wonders. Alt-drag your camera inside or out and right click something with sit-room. Works like a charm.

And I hate, I HATE, I HATE the irremovable chat-fog on my screen!

I want to see the world. If I could, I'd opt to have no interface at all except when needed. This eye-distracting, world-darkening, window of doom is... Well, I won't say, but I hope this is April 1st.

Seriously, I think I know why this was added. It can be very hard to see the floating chat text when standing on a white floor. (I try to make all my floors dark because of this.) But the correct solution to the problem to either make a two-color font that gives each letter a faint outline in a darker color, or drop-shadow the letters by slapping a second copy behind them at a slight offset and in a darker but mostly transparent color. There's no need to fill all the intervening space with smokey dimness. That's dumb.

I ALSO hate the pop-up tool-like notes that hound my cursor incessently unless I park it over sky or bare ground. Looks like they've cut some corners, but the damn thing is STILL there. If I need that extra info (and I DON'T 99.9% of the time) then let me ask for it. It should not be forced upon me.


In other news... The bug fixes are GREAT! Good job!

Actually, you can. Some builds have an uncanny knack for trapping you, as you unwittingly fly into some concave section or alcove which you couldn't see, because - of course - it hadn't rezzed yet.


This is why, whenever you make a significant change to the user interface that some people don't like, you should always
MAKE. IT. OPTIONAL.

I'm going to keep saying that in the maximum font size until someone at LL gets the message. People hated 1.5 zoom and people hate smoky chat. Make it optional.

I like the background thing! And I think its cool how it changes shape!
I often turn on Chat History just because I can't see text on the background where I currently am.

But I also do think it should be option for those who don't like it. But don't take it away completely please!

As long as I can see my Bingo numbers being called AND still click on my Bingo card, it's all good.

If I'm seeing and remembering correctly the current popup text annoyances are translucent while the new ones are opaque. I don't like them anyway but if they must exist translucent is better than opaque.

I really hate it that they are wasting manpower that they claim is scarce on stupid cosmetic crap like rounding the corners on square things.

The rounded corner bar graph while the program loads is just stupid looking.

The chat history window is completely opaque so that is not much of a solution to keeping from obsuring things with the smoked background chat text. The non-adustable font in it is too small for me to read comfortably even with my reading glasses on. Plus if you ever look back in it a ways and fail to get all the way to the very bottom you don't see new text coming in.

I get "trapped" inside fully rezzed buildings while flying on a regular basis. Just fly into them rapidly with a flight aid like the carbon rod and you will go through the walls a fair percentage of the time, especially if you keep ramming into it over and over just for fun. It's not much of a problem if the room is big enough because you can them ram your way out again.

The color of the chat text foreground is adjustable, so if one is in a place where the world behind it makes ithe text hard to read, the foreground text color can be changed to provide contrast. The smokey color background would not be too useful for anyone who has their chat text set to a dark color.

For all I know the background color may be an option along with the foreground colors in the preferences chat/im tab in the new version. I left very quickly to escape the intolerable smoky chat and escape from the rubberbanding while trying to build and the many many second delays (working on or reaching minutes at times) while saving scripts and waiting for the updated code to actually change the objects behavior.

For those who like smokey chat, if it does get removed, I would suggest wearing a pair of dark sunglasses way down on your nose and tilting your head back and forth.

The smokey background has been made optional in the new version of 1.5.8 preview which should be up sometime later today. Right now the transparency of the background is hardcoded, but in 1.6 you will have complete control over the color and transparency of the background by changing one of the *.ini files. I don't know what the UI (user interface) controls for that option will look like if any, although disabling it will probably remain as a checkbox in chat Preferences.

As to the collisionless avatar, although it is useful for some it ruins some content for others and it isn't a feature we want long-term, so we're going to leave the fix in and will try to fix the problems for which it is a workaround.

Edit -- corrected a typo and reworded a sentence.

The new version of 1.5.8 preview is up. The release notes have changed a little bit as usual for preview builds. I'll leave it up all weekend.

Also, email to [email]object_id@lsl.colo.lindenlab.com[/email] is working so those who are interested should be able to test out the llGetNextEmail() stuff between objects. Outside emails can get in, and emails can be sent from object to object, however the objects will not be able to email out of the Preview grid (the main reason for this is that we often bring content into Preview from the main grid to test things out and we don't want bogus emails going out confusing people's systems).

Edit -- added clarification of Preview email behavior.

BTW, the planned release date for 1.5.8 is Tuesday morning, December 14.

There is a Santa Claus!


It is true that if object appearance times were greatly improved, and something was seriously done about push guns, there'd be very little need for collisionless avatars.

The installer is still incompatible with Linux, giving a "Error! Can't initialize plug-ins directory. Please try again later." message.

Getting jammed in a wall is a derivitive of packet loss if im not mistaken, its a connection issue.