Second Life Viewer

Hi guys & gals. As you have probably noticed by now (erm,  sorry for the delay in posting), there is no Tuesday deploy this week  because the main project didn't survive 6 days without an update. There  are some exciting things in store for the ... [More] RC channels, though. Details  below:LeTigre 2010-10-13, 9:00am: The current project ("tcmalloc," named after the main feature) will receive a small update with some bug fixes.BlueSteel 2010-10-13, 10:00am: A new project will be deployed here, Andrew Linden's "Maint  Server." As the name suggests, it is largely a maintenance release with  some bug fixes. He covered some details of it in the Beta Server Office  Hours (transcript).Magnum (NEW!) This is the third and final (for the foreseeable future, anyway,)  Release Candidate (RC) channel. It will consist mostly, if not entirely,  of islands as the mainland is split between the other two.2010-10-13, after 5:00pm: 1,500 regions will be added to Magnum2010-10-14, after 5:00pm: 1,500 regions will be added to MagnumRC Channel Additions and Removals: A few people have been asked to be added or removed from RC  channels. The Support and Release teams now have a shared listing to  track these requests, so you can make your request to either of us. For  now, send me an IM if you would like your region added or removed from  an RC (note: you must be the region owner). Depending on the amount of requests this process might change.Please bring your questions & comments to the forum. [Less]

This morning, we had a small release that we believe will make a big impact on the quality and consistancy of Search. We have moved from a crawl system to a feed system. In our previous crawl mode, the GSAs handled discovery and indexing inworld data ... [More] with its own schedule and rules. With the new feed system, we generate and push content to the GSAs for indexing and have more control over when it is updated.Please see our release notes!Expect that ranking will be changing, and will settle by end of day. We have also published an update to the Search FAQ. [Less]

No matter how much changes here, some things are still around. Among them, classic clouds.Do you turn classic clouds on or off (or switch depending on context), and why?Also relevant: if you didn't know you could turn them off — maybe you're a new ... [More] Resident — you should try and decide for yourself!After my last post on skyboxes, classic clouds is a natural followup topic: the ground, water, and clouds are so much of what you see in Second Life, so changing their appearance (or entirely removing them from view) can have a massive effect on your inworld experience. Think about the real-world and how even hearing rain results in, uh, a certain urge.I show you how classic clouds affect performance here: And there's...More on the "Classic clouds" help page [Less]

As we mentioned in our last blog post,  the Customer Support team continues to drive a series of changes to the  way in which Linden Lab delivers support to our Resident community.  We  are examining our support offering from top to bottom, using the ... [More] data  from our new support system, your survey data, blog feedback, and  industry standard practices to help shape our approach.Some  of our changes will be apparent to you, like the look and feel of the  new case and live chat systems and our coming self-service tools. Others  will be structural and won't be immediately apparent, like our internal  support tools, but their benefits will reveal themselves over time as  they enable us to address your issues more quickly.As we approach these changes, we have a number of high-level goals in mind:Leverage industry best practices, and our own hard-earned lessons, to create a comprehensive customer service offering.Respond to high-urgency, business-critical requests more quickly.Better address product and service issues before they become a support interaction.Provide all Residents with better self-service tools to help solve issues immediately.Changes to Support for Basic ResidentsAs  part of these changes, we are examining the types of support we offer  Residents of all levels, in an effort to provide better, more responsive  service to the most business-critical issues.  Starting on Wednesday,  October 13th, we will simplify and reduce the types of cases that Basic  Residents can file and direct them to our self-service tools on your account page, or search the Knowledge Base or Second Life Answers for solutions.  As a Basic Resident, you can still file cases about  most account issues, billing issues, marketplace issues, and some  technical issues.Improving Support for Premium and Concierge ResidentsAs  we increasingly direct Basic Residents to self-service tools, we are  exploring ways that we can better service and support our Premium and  Concierge Residents.  These Residents –who are often landowners,  merchants, and inworld business owners– will continue to be able to file  the full range of cases, have access support via live chat, and in the  case of Concierge Residents, have access to phone support.  As we begin  to see the impact of the changes we have underway, we expect our  response times across all of these channels to improve.This  announcement is one of many to come soon as we work hard to provide  faster, more effective customer service. We look forward to hearing your  feedback as these changes roll out. [Less]

Ah, skyboxes, a special part of Second Life culture alongside other product types like animation overrides and terrain extenders. Not only can our avatars defy gravity, our buildings can, too. That's right, you can rez (create) something in the air ... [More] and it'll just stick there. Somewhat self-explanatory skyboxes have been with us since near the beginning of Second Life, and if you're new, you're bound to run across them sooner or later, even if you don't realize it (by checking your height coordinate).But what do you need to know, and how are skyboxes relevant to you? And hey, how do you get up there, anyway? Whether you're looking to make your castle in the clouds or purely want to explore that extravagant third dimension, there's more help in...The Guide o' SkyboxesAs always, let me know what's missing from this guide that could make it awesomer, or go ahead and edit the wiki help page (learn how). Your suggestions will help spread cultural knowledge that future generations of Residents shall benefit from! [Less]

We are thrilled to announce that the SL Marketplace is the new destination for online shopping for all things Second Life. We invite Second Life Residents to visit the redesigned site, check out all the new features and start loading your shopping ... [More] carts with the amazing things only our creative community can deliver. The purchasing functionality on XStreetSL is being disabled as of today. So, if you’re shopping for avatar skins and fashion, home and furnishing needs, scripts and objects for getting your groove on, or almost anything else  you can think of....you’ll find it on the SL Marketplace.We’re just getting startedWhen we set out to reinvent XStreetSL, we looked to emulate the experience of other online shopping sites that provide a smooth and enjoyable  experience for the customer. Looking at XStreetSL, we realized we needed to revamp it completely and create a brand new site as well as develop a new process for building cool, new features in a more rapid way moving  forward. We are committed to giving both merchants and shoppers the  tools and functionality necessary to have a great experience on the new  site and we’ll be adding new features weekly. Today’s launch is just the  starting point; the new SL Marketplace is poised to become a more integral part of the overall Second Life experience for everyone.Notable features and what’s aheadNew features we love include the modern, clean look and feel, which makes the flow of the shopping experience better than it’s ever been before.  Also, customized online merchant stores allow shoppers to easily find  all the creations of their favorite designers. And the new shopping  cart! XStreetSL had limited capability when it came to loading up the shopping cart full of goodies, which is now totally streamlined. Over the next few weeks we will add the Favorites feature and we will migrate over the Favorites list from XStreetSL. We will also be adding an easy way for shoppers to find the purchases they have not reviewed.SL Merchants... the key to our successOur commerce team has worked very hard to make the SL Marketplace a professional and modern hub for Second Life sales, but the merchants who participated in the beta truly made this effort come together. While we were working hard evenings and weekends, the beta merchants were there to help test and provide feedback. We look forward to continuing this partnership as the SL Marketplace becomes more and more central to the Second Life experience.What will happen to XStreetSL?The XStreetSL Exchange will continue to operate independently of the new SL Marketplace through the end of November. This means merchants can continue to access history, sell L$ and cash out as they do now. The XStreetSL website will remain up for several months beyond the closure of the Exchange, and all non sales and exchange features (including history) will remain available during this time as well as the ability to redeliver items. When we close the XStreetSL Exchange, L$ and USD balances will be moved over to users’ Second Life accounts.We hope you enjoy using the new SL Marketplace and look forward to hearing what you think!Sincerely,Grant and the Commerce TeamQuick Links:SL Marketplace Help PagesDeutschFrançais日本語Português [Less]

The moles have just put the final touches on the Bay City Community Center, in the Daley Bay region.The "Bay City Alliance" group can now have meetings without worrying about being rained on!

Hi guys! It doesn't look like we're going to have any code to promote  to the Release channel this week, which means no big Tuesday deploy.Instead, we're going to update the code on BlueSteel with a new  version of what used to be there, because of ... [More] the re-roll, a minor  crasher, and SVC-6368. LeTigre will be rolled to a new project; something smaller, with a higher probability of success. The plan is thus:2010-10-06 08:00: Update BlueSteel with a new version of the same project (release notes coming)2010-10-06 09:00: Roll LeTigre to a new project (release notes coming)Bring your questions & comments to the forums. [Less]

As part of launching our new more open viewer development process, we changed the open source license for the new viewer code base from the GPL with an exception to allow use with certain other open source licenses (the "FLOSS Exception") to the ... [More] LGPL.  Some people have been asking about what this change means, and what our intentions are in making it.  In particular, the LGPL requires that the code first be compiled into a library and then may be used in an application.  Since the open source we make available does not directly provide for building this way, some people have speculated that the new license may actually be a barrier to other viewer developers.  I'll try to answer this as clearly as I can.At Linden Lab, our intent is to enable the development of third party viewers and the improvement of our own viewer through mutual sharing of the requisite common technology.  We think that LGPL is a better license to accomplish that sharing. Even though it was originally written to apply only to libraries, there is significant room for interpretation when using it.Our interpretation is this: modifying the build procedures provided in the source code to produce a library containing a subset of the licensed code is a minor programming exercise.  The result of linking that library (which may be either a static library or a shared one, and either is allowed) with whatever other code is used to build a viewer is again a minor problem. The results are essentially indistinguishable from those in which the developer just modified the build procedures in place to produce an executable application.  Essentially, the details of the linkage procedures used are a matter of packaging and have no end user effect.  In practical programming terms, a library is just a convenient package - the requirement in the LGPL is like requiring that a grocery store sell a product only if it is first placed into a shopping cart while inside the store.  Essentially a library is just that - a shopping cart full of individually compiled modules, so there's no real difference between using a library and just using the modules separately (one could build a library containing exactly one module, or build an application that had only one module and one library).It is our intent that developers be able to use the components that we have licensed under the LGPL to produce viewer applications, regardless of the linkage procedures used, so long as they make available any changes to those components as specified in the license. [Less]

Over the past few weeks, we've been spinning up the Snowstorm Team. As I outlined in my original post, our team is committed to enabling the rapid deployment of new features and functionality in the Second Life Viewer.The Snowstorm Team is working in ... [More] the open - this includes meetings, documentation, code, and design discussions. We're planning to use this blog as a place to explain our point of view, kick off design discussions, share progress, successes, failures, and challenges.In my office hour the other day we had a lively discussion about Viewer preferences and customization. Q felt he wanted to expand on and clarify that discussion so you'll see a post quickly following this one that does just that.Expect more posts in this vein and please participate in the discussion with comments afterward. [Less]