What’s wrong with SecondLife Viewer 2.0?

Kitty Barnett, over at the Catznip blog, posted a question a little while back, asking for, in concrete terms, what people don’t like in 2.0.

As an aside: every now and then I’ll poke someone I know to ask what little things they didn’t/don’t like about 2.0 or what feature(s) they’re missing from 1.23 but surprisingly very few ever seem to really have usuable feedback so since I can’t release I’ll open the door for suggestions on what to do while I/we wait for a stable 2.1 to release

So I sat down and thought about this some…

The biggest thing that I really find distressing about 2.0 is the sidebar. I hated them when web browsers did them, and I hate them in 2.0. It’s just not enough space for many of the panels they try to cram into it. And it only lets you look at one thing at a time, which for much of that information is just completely unacceptable. I’m not opposed to having it in the viewer, I just want it optional, like say, Firefox and it’s sidebar.

And by optional, I mean, everything in the sidebar can also be viewed as separate windows… not a floating window that contains what’s in the sidebar, but actual separate windows for each type of thing it encapsulates. I want multiple profile windows open at once, for instance.

I’m also not too fond of not being able to dock local chat in with my IMs. And the local chat text entry box is way too small (though that wouldn’t matter if I could dock chat with my IM window).

Still, as irritating as I find the sidebar, I’d use 2.0 for Shared Media in spite of it, if it weren’t for the the features from third party viewers that I’ve come to rely on, the biggest being “always rez in land group,” followed up by lesser things like double-click-to-top and client side radar (that can feed in world objects). And less so, ground-sit anywhere, no tp-progress screens (though really I’d like to have this only be for in-sim tps) and shadows.

Without “always rez in the land group” as an option, I’m not gonna be using a viewer for real work. That one is non-negotiable. The other stuff is mostly about helping the viewer get out of your way and fade into the background.

PS Summer correctly points out that temporary textures are pretty critical to building. And bulk temporary textures would be a huge win for sculpty makers like her.

Kitty followed up in SecondLife on Fri Jun 25 2010:

[6:22:26] Kitty Barnett waves.. just wanted to say thankies for your comment :) the sidebar is kind of a huge thing to get rid off though so nothing I can take on and maintain in addition to everything else :| I’ve tried some things like specifying which tabs should auto-hide when the mouse isn’t over it, etc but that doesn’t involve doing a complete UI rewrite :|
[6:22:27] Kitty Barnett: double-click tp and “ground sit anywhere” are Snowglobe features now so any viewer based off of snowglobe will always have it btw :)

And I replied:

[9:24:09] Winter Seale: Hi hi =) Yeah, the sidebar is a huge huge task, and I’m sure will be the focus of many a third party viewer mod (Kirstin’s is already going down that road), so I don’t blame you at all for not tackling that. If you added rez-as-land-group though, I’d love you forever. =)
[9:32:33] Winter Seale: oh lol, and Summer reminds me, Temp Textures are critical too, and if you were to add Temp Texture support to batch upload then she would love you forver too, lol.

Pics from inworld

One of my biggest wishlist items would be the ability for scripts to have some control over the screenshot controls.  Obviously this has lots of security implications, but it’d still be a nice thing to have scriptable.  I developed something that for me, is the next best thing.  Like all those SL blogging services, I setup a little email gateway that takes pics from in world and puts it on a webserver.  It’s still sitting at around the proof of concept stage, but I do intend to add a gallery view to it at some point.  For now, you can see the most recent picture from my feed below:

Winter’s Labnotes– What I’m doing in Second Life

So I’ve started tweeting in detail what I’m doing in SL, as far as scripting and product development go.  (I’m not much of a life blogger, so don’t expect to hear too much about my personal life.  Complicated as it is, I’m just not the type to share it with the world.)

You can see it here: Twitter- winterseale #labnotes

Anyway, it’s part of my larger goal of trying to make scripting in the virtual world more transparent, like non-sculpty building has always been.  And maybe so I look a bit less like I’m just sitting around quietly for hours on end. =p  I went and picked up Twitter Wall, which was a bit pricey but did exactly what I wanted.  So now I have my latest labnotes on on a prim in my devel platform.

The plan for the future is to build out a clockpunk/steampunk type laboratory to keep all the stuff I’m working on there.  So that’s kinda where the labnotes name comes from.  It’ll all be semi-public and part of the sim that people visiting our store can explore.  I’ll post a slurl once something’s ready.

Editing Animations on OSX

I use QAvimator to make animations (well really, I make poses, animations, thus far, are beyond me).  I also use OSX as my primary platform.  If you visit the QAvimator site you’ll see that you can only download a PPC only version (from 2007).  I compiled up a Universal version at the end of 2008 and put it online.  I posted it to their forums, offering it as a replacement for the out of date, PPC only version they’re currently linking too (and I haven’t been the only one).  Anyway, I thought I should mention it here, it case anyone else needs it.

New Joint Product: Luminous Infinity (and freebie!)

Summer rendered up a breathtakingly beautiful set of prim clothing. The whole set is color change, switching from gold to silver and back. From the really great sculpted boots to the gorgeous prim top and matching belt. The top can reveal your breasts and when doing so, can show sculpted prim nipples (made for our nipple clamps originally) if you choose.

The whole set can be swapped between glinting warm gold or cool soft silver, either per-piece via menus or for the whole set using a chat command.

What’s more it comes with delicate arm, wrist and ankle cuffs scripted for LockMeister and LockGuard, and a pretty jeweled collar in decorative and scripted (Open Collar) versions. And because we wear our clothes ourselves, when you’re wearing the boots (which can’t be worn with the ankle cuffs), you’ll find that the boots are also coded for LockGuard and LockMeister.

And while you’re visiting make sure you get one of the free belly jewels that match the rest of the set. They’ve got a fun little poofer and nicely accent your look.

Get it today from the naughty section of Summer Sim.

New Joint Product: Nipple Clamps

Click the pic to see a close up of me and Summer chained together.

Summer and I have put together a fantastic set of nipple clamps. As you can see they look great, and have everything you’d expect from a nice scripted clamped nipples. This is what Summer wrote for our README:

Modeled after real clamps with photoreal textures and shadowing, these clamps were lovingly (and fearfully) crafted to be something for every day use.

There are a ton of options, so please read the notecard carefully (although they are all extremely simple and fast to use):

It comes with a couple of things beyond just the Nipple Clamps:

• Black and White handles. These are copy/trans so feel free to hand them out to anyone you might want to drag you around.
• A Leash Anywhere script that you can put in your own handle, or in posts or other things you want to be able to easily be chained to.

Just click your Nipple Clamps to bring up a menu.

• Options…
  • Only you can see your options.
  • Turn Off and Turn On access to your clamp. While access is off, only you will get a menu clicking on it.
  • Lighten and Darken the color of your nipples. By default it’s very very light, so darkening is probably a good idea.
  • Hide and Show Nipples, which will hide and show the nipples and the clamps, for those times you want to be a little more discreet.
  • Hide and Show Clamps, which will hide and show just the clamps.
• Chain…
  • If you’re wearing a LockMeister compatible handle, such as ours, or you’ve dropped our Leash Anywhere script into your own handle then the first option will be to be “Take Leash” which will attach it to your leash handle.
  • Next will be “Attach To…” which will let you leash to a nearby object with a Leash Anywhere script, or other Seale Sisters clamped nipples, clits or other products.
  • And finally there’ll be all the remaining nearby objects that have scripts in them. This let’s you be leashed to, for instance, objects with Xcite’s ChainAnywhere scripts or OpenCollar’s Leash Post script. This list can be quite long… use Next –> and <– Prev to move through it.
  • Our chain currently limits you to straying no more then five meters from what you’re chained to.
• Clamp, Soothe, Jiggle, etc
  These are some built in emotes that you and others can use.

Buy yourself a set at Summer Sim.

New Product: Poseball Capture Scripts (w/RLV)

Our beautiful model is Akane Astonia. <3

After much too much time, I’ve finally released by addon for poseballs, bondage equipment or anything else you sit on. It’s a little force-sitter script. Yes, there are some things like this out there already but this one is superior in a number of ways.

• This one is copy/notrans, which means with this single purchase you can setup all your stuff. The only other script based solution is nocopy/trans.
• This is a script, not a prim you plop down next your bondage equipment. Why does this matter? When your equipment has more then one thing for you to sit on, non-script solutions can’t help you.
• Money back, satisfaction guarantee– so it’s risk free to try and you know I’ll do what it takes to make things work for you.

You can pick one up today off of Xstreet SL or from the naughty spot on Summer Sim.

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New joint product: Seale Sisters Clit Clamp

So me and my online-sis Summer did our first joint project together.  She rendered a very good looking clit and a very mean looking clamp and I wrote a bunch of scripts to put it all together.  The result is, to the best of knowledge, the first clit clamp of its kind in SL.  We’re really excited both by how well the product came out and to be doing our first joint project together.  We expect to have many more. =) 

Come on over to Summer’s unbelievably cool Summer Sim and get one for yourself or your friends. =p  While you’re there, join our Hippogroup to learn about future stuff in this product line. =)

Or, if you’d rather, you can get it off of Xstreet SL née SLX.

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Project Ideas

Running around SL often I’ll hear a complaint or see something that tickles my fancy and that’s when I jot it down in my ideas folder.  I’ve got a bunch and I’d thought I’d share.  Kinda forces me to flesh them out a bit anyway, since to put them up here I hafta write about them such that someone else knows what the heck I’m talking about. =p

These are still very very rough… I’ll be revisiting them to make them more coherent as time goes on.

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Winter at Sunrise

 

Winter at Sunrise, originally uploaded by Winter Seale.

[Edit: Hehe, now it's parta my theme =) ]

I took this pic when I was redoing my profile pic. I’m really happy with how it came out and thought I’d share. =)  If I’m gonna be critical, I could have picked a shirt that didn’t match my flesh tone quite so closely.

This is also from my “rotate all your photos to make them look more dynamic” collection. =p

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