Last night a 1.6 preview grid was up from about 7 EST (?) to 10 EST.
Release notes (Cliff's Notes at bottom):
CODE
Second Life 1.6.0 build 3 March 1, 2005
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New Features
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- International Language Support: Users can now chat and communicate in their local languages, including Asian character sets. Additionally, European and alternate keyboards are correctly supported.
- Video streaming: In much the same way as streaming audio, both live and on-demand video can be streamed into Second Life and played back on any textured surface in-world. The Quicktime engine is used for streaming playback, allowing support for open standards like MPEG-4. Requires that QuickTime be installed. (See Note Below)
- Better frame rates through faster rendering of complex avatar attachments - Linked objects will share a single drawable instance. End Results: Attachments render faster, especially hair!
- Avatar Chat Bubbles: Optional ability to see chat shown as bubbles above avatar's heads.
- Searchable Inventory: Inventory window now includes search entry dialog box. Search within your inventory: Type a few characters and find anything fast. Includes popup filter options for searching by type of inventory item.
- Streaming inventory for faster startup of SL. Your inventory is no longer loaded at start of every login, it comes in as needed.
- Friends: New Friend relationship is added that is separate from calling cards. Calling cards have been changed to now make it possible to offer your calling card without requiring trade. Friends are the new calling card that requires a trade. Friends are managed through a new dialog accessible from the pull down menu under 'Edit | Friends...' or on the west pie menu after a context click on your own avatar.
- Steer your avatar more smoothly while walking by left-clicking on yourself and driving with your mouse
- Buy without sufficient funds redirects to Second Life's Buy Currency Web Page.
- Added the text "Searching..." to results window while searching to indicate that a search is in progress.
- Land Management Improvements:
* Ability to sell a piece of land with the objects that are on it. UI for this feature is on the "Objects" panel of the "About Land" floater. Includes: See who has objects on their parcel, and how many, and return them to owner.
* Ability to list objects on your land by their owners, and return all objects belonging to a specific person.
* Ability to track particle systems to their source objects and owners (From View->Beacons)
* Added 'No Fly' for estate owners. Select Estate Panel and check the box marked "Allow Fly"
* Private Island Deeding: Estate owners and group officers can now mark their parcels on their island as deedable.
- Scripting Language Improvements:
* Allow users to query the position and status of simulators by name on the grid using llRequestSimulatorData.
* Allow scripters to use llLoadURL to display a dialog box on an avatar's screen offering to load a web page using the residents default web browser.
* Allow creators to automatically put a user who sits on an object into mouse look using llForceMouseLook
* Allow content creators to dynamically set the price and sell type of an object using llSetForSale.
* Allow content creators to get the mass of another object or avatar using llGetObjectMass()
* Give content creators access to more real time information about the status of other agents using llGetAgentInfo.
* Make it easier for content creators to manipulate data by adding a faster mechanism for replacing data in lists using llListReplaceList
* Improved handling of object inventory; added INVENTORY_ALL for llGetInventoryName() and llGetInventoryNumber
* Script permissions errors now appear as viewer alerts
* Scripts with animation permissions will now time out and lose animation permissions if unable to find the agent for 1 second.
* Added ability to displace the center of mass from which the impulse from the motor is applied from using VEHICLE_LINEAR_MOTOR_OFFSET.
* Added another link constant, LINK_THIS. This will allow the scripter to specify the link the script is attached to only.
- Editing/Building improvements:
* Added the ability to edit sub-objects of linked sets in place, parent and child included.
* UI Change: Snap to Grid and Show grid combined.
* Drag handles allowing free dragging constrained to X/Y, X/Z, or Y/Z planes
* New snap to grid reference added: Object
* Color Picker now implemented in the client instead of calling out to local system version. It is now possible to drag and drop colors to the swatches in the color picker.
* Texture browser improved to work more like inventory view
* Added two new options in the Preferences that can disable automatic camera movement when editing appearance and editing objects respectively.
* Click anywhere in the world and drag the mouse to use the rectangle selection tool. This allows you to rectangle select a large number of objects while inside a building. Previously, you had to click on a piece of ground or sky to start a rectangle selection.
* "Ruler" based grid snapping when using translate and scale tools
- Improved server handling of groups; Backend changes, no functional changes.
- New landmarks will reflect position changes of a simulator if it is moved. Note: Landmarks made before 1.6 will not follow simulators that have moved.
- Added 'fade' transitions at login to world
Bug Fixes
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- Fixed camera jitters on entering and exiting edit mode.
- Estate rules: "banned users" now takes precedence over "allowed groups"
- Rotations of prims are now clamped to the nearest half degree
- Fix for llRequestAgentData where it failed under certain circumstances.
- Fix for item on curser lost when an update is received from an object being edited
- In script editor switched 'Undo Changes' with 'Help'.
- Mini position now correctly matches edit tools position
- Taking an object rezzed from trash now correctly goes to Objects.
Notes
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How to Use Quicktime:
* Apply a texture to an object from your inventory that will eventually be replaced with the media stream.
* From "About Land/Options" use the GUI to select the texture above.
* Enter the URL of your media stream
* Create objects you want to use as PLAY, STOP, PAUSE & LOOP (play forever)
* Attach the following script (or similar) to each.
default
{
touch_start ( integer total_number )
{
llParcelMediaCommand ( PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_LOOP );
}
}
Current supported llParcelMediaCommands are:
* PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_STOP - stop the media stream and go back to the first frame
* PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_PAUSE - pause the media stream (stop playing but stay on current frame)
* PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_PLAY - start the current media stream playing and stop when the end is reached
* PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_LOOP - start the current media stream playing, loop to the beginning when the end is reached and continue to play
Most of the QuickTime media formats are supported including
* QuickTime movies (.mov)
* Streamable stored QuickTime movies (.mov)
* Real time QuickTime streams (rtsp://)
* MPEG4 movies (.mp4, .mpeg4) (simple profile only)
* QuickTime VR scenes and objects (.mov)
* Flash movies (.swf) (only non-interative, version 5 and earlier)
* Many more - for a full list visit htpp://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/specifications.html
* Note: not all of these may play - a good rule of thumb is if it plays in the QuickTime Media player, it will play in Second Life.
Cliff's Notes: New character sets, video streaming, better FPS, avatar chat bubbles, searchable inventory, streaming inventory, new calling card system, some new building and scripting tools.
Screenies to come...
