Has the First Look viewer been replaced with the "Candidate" viewer?

Are First Look and Candidate the same thing? You'll have to excuse my ignorance of this. During my ...hmm...6 month hiatus, gambling was abolished and the First Look program seems to have been terminated. I was just wondering if Candidate viewer is the official replacement of the First Look viewer. Is this section of the forums relevant anymore?

They are similar. The Release Candidate version tends to represent an imminent update of the regular viewer. Usually the RCs do not have major features, it's just a bug test of the typical viewer updates. First Look clients usually try to highlight major new features that need testing in the masses rather than in the secluded Beta grid.

The release candidate isn't really a replacement. The reason we don't have a First Look client at the moment is because they've been trying to fix Windlight internally based on the bug reports created months ago.

A Release Candidate is really the stage between a beta and a released version. It's basically like saying "This is the version we want to release, please tell us if we should".

"First Look" is just a hip new name for an update that only effects the viewer, ie; it doesn't require any server-side changes. Whereas the beta-grid (or beta regions as it is now) are running new server-software, and may require a new viewer in order to access them, or to see all the features.

However, it gets really confusing if they start handing out Release Candidate First-Look viewers, but these would just be viewer-only updates that are almost ready for release and are just out for final testing

Well, now we have both.

The Release Candidate viewer is something that LL expects to make the main viewer in the near future. Right now, the big new feature in the RC is the new Search; there are a couple of smaller UI tweaks like double-clicking on a landmark in your inventory to teleport without popping up another window.

But we also have the Windlight First Look, which re-introduces the new Windlight graphics rendering code. Confusing matters a bit is that this First Look is based on the Release Candidate (1.18.5) rather than on the current main viewer (1.18.4). The Windlight code is NOT part of the Release Candidate process, and is not likely to be included in the next version of the main viewer. Presumably a Windlight viewer will be promoted to RC status at some future time, and become part of the main viewer shortly after that.

I'd say release candidates are for the regular releases with bug fixes, maybe the odd small feature or modification here and there, with the intention of getting more people to try it and check for more bugs or regressions. In theory, if any are reported, you fix them and release a new release candidate, and repeat until a rc doesn't have any more bug reports - at that point the rc becomes the next stable release. There should be a regular stream of release clients, interspersed with stable releases.

A First Look is more of a preview of a specific technology or major feature that LL have been working on. It will have bugs, some of them serious. If no major new projects are going on on the client, there won't be any First Looks.

Obviously, LL have both going at the moment, although it had been a while since the last First Look when you posted your question! I think the last one was Voice.

Other companies do the same sort of thing, although perhaps not at the same time! They will usually be called things like Beta, and Technology Preview, or similar.