New Linux enhanced viewer: The Cool SL Viewer

Mac and Windows versions are ready too. The Windows version comes now with a new automated installer that hopefully makes it easier for many to use it .

Here are yet three new releases of the Cool SL Viewer (available now for Linux from http://sldev.free.fr/)...

Cool SL Viewer v1.19.0.5 release 48 (stable, legacy renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.21.6.0 release 16 (stable, Windlight renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.22.9.0 release 1 (experimental)

They implement RestrainedLife v1.16b (with the @getdebug_*/@setdebug_* commands fixed and the llGetAgentLanguage() function no more used for RestrainedLife identification since Marine said she will abandon it too) as well as two new patches (a file selector crash fix and the addition of a "Save" button in the new/received notecards floater).

Enjoy !

heyas;

henri, would you consider a toggle for megaprim size limits? it's actually rather handy to have the object hit a 'wall' at its maximum growth size, so i dont keep stretching and having it snap back.


great job; man how ive missed the good ol' interface! and being able to squish the im window down so far! wohoo! (though i do have to say, the groups/friends list split in there was kinda nice :X )

thanks!

The max prim size is hardcoded in llmath/xform.h. No big thing to limit it to 10m again, but then it would be the same in Opensim's that support bigger prim sizes.

An idea would be to set the max value to 10 in floater_tools.xml for Scale X, Y and Z, but not sure if this would stop the prim from being stretched further, likely not.

Considering it, yes, implementing it, probably not. The main reason is that it would be a low priority change as far as I am concerned (see below). Another reason is that the true problem is with SL not allowing bigger prims... "They" said they would allow it after they implement a way for residents to return objects overlapping their parcel. Let's hope "they" will implement it soon.

I guess it's a matter of taste and/or habits, because it's not an annoyance at all for me when I build.

It would be a little more complicated than that for a proper implementation. A new setting would have to be defined and the value in this setting would be used both in place of the constant in xform.h and to override the max scale values from floater_tools.xml. It would be dirty since you would have to use code from newview/ in the llmath library... Another reason why I will probably not implement it.


Well, the Cool SL Viewer also uses the "old" (I prefer legacy, it sounds nicer interface for the friends and groups lists (with the added benefit over the legacy interface that the groups list remembers its size and position).
The advantages are many: you can resize the lists independently from each other, have them displayed together, have them each in their own place on the screen, have them stretched following the right axis (vertically) while taking as little room as possible on the screen (the new UI can't do that unless you sacrifice half of the screen surface...)...

Here are yet two new releases of the Cool SL Viewer (available now for Linux from http://sldev.free.fr/)...

Cool SL Viewer v1.19.0.5 release 49 (stable, legacy renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.22.10.0 release 1 (experimental)

Enjoy !

Three more releases are available for Linux from http://sldev.free.fr/ :

Cool SL Viewer v1.19.0.5 release 50 (stable, legacy renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.21.6.0 release 17 ((stable, Windlight renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.22.10.0 release 2 (experimental)

They allow to build flexible sculpties. BEWARE: flexible sculpties introduce a *lot* of lag on the viewer side: use sparsely !
Such prims can be seen in other viewers as well, but they introduce even more lag in them since they don't have the optimized code provided by the patch.
Note that I may not keep this feature in future releases, depending on its impact on lag, and especially if a more elegant solution is not found (for now the viewer is transferring the sculpty texture data between the GPU and the CPU for every frame of animation).

Yet more releases are available for Linux from http://sldev.free.fr/ :

Cool SL Viewer v1.19.0.5 release 51 (stable, legacy renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.21.6.0 release 18 (stable, Windlight renderer)
Cool SL Viewer v1.22.10.0 release 3 (experimental)

They implement a compatibility patch (for v1.19.0.5 with future SL servers), allow to increase the network bandwidth beyond the 1500Kbps limit, and have got an updated OpenSim grids list (with per-grid login screens and an editable grids list (in grids.xml) for v1.2x viewers).

Enjoy !

big glitch:
the main grid is missing in the grids.xml file... which, in combination with the "--login" parameter, leads to my avi suddenly hanging out on an infohub on beta grid.
not funny.

The main SecondLife grid is automatically added as the first grid in the list, this is why it is not in the grids.xml file and does not need to be there. The viewer remembers the last grid it was connected to, so when auto-logging, it will do so on the last visited grid, which is the normal and expected behaviour.

Note that you can specify the grid to which you want to connect in the command line. For the main SL grid, use: --grid SecondLife (case sensitive).
For grids with a space in the name, it can be a bit tricky (since --grid expects a single parameter as the grid name and the space is a parameter separator). Under Linux, you can do it by quoting (with single quotes) the grid name, and preceding any space in the grid name with a backslash. For example, for the SL beta grid: --grid 'SecondLife\ Beta'

might not be completely true... i have several desktop icons for SL, each has its own distinctive settings file and different parameters, and i never used any of the autologin icons for any other grid than main, but the last CoolRelease autologs me to beta. only after adding the main grid in grids.xml as the first grid in list they work again as expected...

Again, for the last time: you do *not* need (and must not) add the main grid to the grids.xml file. Simply start the viewer normally (without auto-logging) and select the main grid, and it will be remembered for next times. The best thing is however to add the proper --grid parameter to your icons like I explained in my last message.

i'll do that.
still wondering how the viewer remembers that across the different settings files.
my "normal" icon uses a different settings file than the one with autologin...

It stores the grid you logged in in that specific settings file. So you could create different shortcuts for different grids. The same the --grid switch achieves without need to logon to a specific grid first.

All new Windows versions are almost uploaded too

ok, for now i took the main grid out of the grids.xml file again, and instead i have "--grid SecondLife" in gridargs.dat.

I'd rather change _one_ file per computer, by putting a patch in my rpm file and installing the new package, than changing 40 desktop icons :/

i actually checked that... and until the latest coolrelease there was no "stored grid choice" in the settings, and therefor autologin brought the avi to the first grid in grinds.xml... and that's SL beta.

I have this in my settings:

For 1.22:
<key>CustomServer</key>
<map>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>Specifies IP address or hostname of grid to which you connect</string>
<key>Type</key>
<string>String</string>
<key>Value</key>
<string>SecondLife</string>
</map>

For 1.21:
<key>ServerChoice</key>
<map>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>[DO NOT MODIFY] Controls which grid you connect to</string>
<key>Type</key>
<string>S32</string>
<key>Value</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</map>

A new stable release of the Cool SL Viewer is available now for Linux on http://sldev.free.fr/

Cool SL Viewer v1.22.11.0 release 1

Enjoy !

I'm not getting any music with the new version? Anyone else having this problem?

From another thread it looks like this is a problem with the Linden code, not the diff files, but I'm not sure how widespread it is.

v1.22 uses OpenAL sound "driver" (more like a wrapper, actually) by default, but it is not working very well so far (lower quality sounds, missing UI sounds and/or music, depending on your setup). Better disabling it (I will disable it by default in the next release): edit the "secondlife" wrapper script and uncomment "export LL_BAD_OPENAL_DRIVER=x", i.e., edit to get:

## - Avoids using any OpenAL audio driver.
export LL_BAD_OPENAL_DRIVER=x
## - Avoids using any FMOD audio driver.
#export LL_BAD_FMOD_DRIVER=x

I just did those edits, to compare openAL and fmod, and i'm getting way better sound quality from openAL than from fmod on my hardware...

Likewise here.

I've done this and it works. Thank you.

Just a simple question,
Is there a way to use the normal UI and not the old style? (I use linux)
I tried playing with some things but it just crashes, so maybe it's hardcoded in the client? or I'm just doing it wrong

I love all the patches from the Cool Viewer, so I'd like to keep using it.

One of the very reasons why the Cool SL Viewer exists is precisely because the UI became worst and worst after v1.18.2 was released: the "communicate" window represents a large drop in both usability and functionality (particularly because the friends and the groups list cannot be displayed separately and eat up a lot of space on the screen), the toolbar lost useful buttons (such as the "Friends" and "Groups" ones), the media controls eat up one third of the input chat bar, even when no media, no voice and no music are in use, the new "fly buttons" and icons are distracting and hard to use (two clicks and mouse moves where one click only was needed before), the status bar and mini-map icons are unreadable on high resolution screens, etc, etc, etc...

On the contrary, the Cool SL Viewer got a *stable* UI (the same UI over all its versions), which puts the emphasis on usability and functionality, while minimizing the space eaten up by the various UI elements on the screen.

This said, since everyone got their own idea about what the ideal UI is, the Cool SL Viewer offers you no less than five configurable settings to revert a few of the UI characteristics to the "new UI" of the official viewer (see the "Cool features" tab of the preferences menu).