The Imprudence Project has a release new candidate viewer for Second Life available. Imprudence 1.1 RC1 (unlike Linden Lab, the Imprudence Project counts starting from one, not from zero) features a number of substantial improvements over 1.0, including openAL and Gstreamer support for general sound, as well as audio and video streaming.
This release candidate also features updates to the user-interface, arithmetic expressions in the build floater's texture and object tabs, quick-filtering for the inventory and more. Unfortunately there is no version for the Mac as the Imprudence Project is starving for a Mac developer to handle that side of the code. Due to licensing issues, Imprudence cannot ship with voice components, but you can add them yourself very easily. Full release notes are after the jump.
Notice: Potentially Disruptive UI Changes
This version contains many changes to the UI, including changes to the names and locations of buttons and menu items. You should expect the UI (especially the pie menus) to feel awkward at first, while your brain and muscle memory adjust to the changes. We think you will find the new layouts to be more usable in the long run, once the initial re-learning period passes. Stick with it! :)
In particular, please be aware of the following:
- There have been major reorganization of all pie menus!
- Some Advanced menu items have been moved to other locations:
- "Advanced > Rebake Textures" is now "Edit > Refresh Appearance".
- "Advanced > Disable Camera Constraints" is now in the "Input/Camera" section of Preferences.
- "Advanced > High Resolution Snapshots" is now in the Snapshot window.
- "View > Show HUD Attachments" is now "Advanced > Rendering > Features > HUD Attachments".
- Some rarely-used menu items have been removed:
- "Advanced > Compress Snapshots to disk"
- Some shortcuts have changed:
- Added Ctrl-B (View > Web Browser)
- Added Ctrl-D (World > Create Landmark Here)
- Removed Shift-Alt-H (View > Show HUD Attachments, which has been moved; see above)
- The "Invite" and "Leave" buttons in the Groups window have switched positions (to move "Leave" further away from "Activate").
See the Changes section below for details, plus other UI and non-UI changes in this version.
Known Issues
- There is no Mac version! We need a volunteer Mac developer to help with this!
- All platforms still lack voice chat. (But you can add it back with a simple trick...)
- The sub-menus inside the "Advanced > Rendering" menu (i.e. Types, Features, Info Displays, and Render Tests) sometimes get hidden behind the Advanced menu when they open. This is scheduled to be fixed in a future version; in the meantime, you can work around it by clicking the tear-off stript at the top of the Rendering menu, moving it to the left side of the screen, and then opening the desired sub-menu.
Changes
This version of Imprudence includes the following changes (as compared to Imprudence 1.0.0).
Feature Highlights
- Windows and Linux versions now support sound effects and streaming audio and video with OpenAL and Gstreamer! Thanks to Tofu Linden for his OpenAL patch, Unknown Linden(s) for their Gstreamer work, and McCabe and Jacek for pounding on it with hammers!
- New "Quick Filter" list in the Inventory window. Thanks for adding that, Jacek!
- New "Worn Items" tab in the Inventory window (VWR-2199). Thanks for the patch, Vadim Bigbear!
- New math expressions support in the Build window's Object and Texture tabs (VWR-675). Thanks for the patch, Aimee Trescothick! See the Build Math Expressions page for details and examples for using this cool feature!
Menus
- Reorganized and improved the pie menus a lot (details below). Thanks, McCabe!
- Replaced "Go" with "Inventory" in the pie menu for your avatar mesh.
- Moved "Create" to "More > Build" in the pie menu for objects, and moved "Buy" up to the top level. "Take" is now always "Take".
- The pie menu for your own attachments is now more consistent with the pie menu for your avatar mesh. This helps users with prim-based avatars / lots of body-covering attachments. (Attachment-specific options are under "More >".)
- Renamed "Report Abuse..." label to "Abuse..." so it doesn't overrun the pie menu.
- "Mute" option moved from 6 o'clock to avoid accidental clicks.
- Added "Create Landmark" to the pie menu for the ground (IMP-38). Thanks for the patch, Armin Weatherwax!
- Added "Report Abuse" to the pie menu for avatars besides yourself (VWR-8179). Thanks for the patch, Asuka Neely!
- Moved some commonly-used "Advanced" options to more prominent locations (details below) (IMP-18). Thanks for doing that, McCabe!
- Moved "Rebake Textures" to "Edit > Refresh Appearance".
- Moved "Disable Camera Constraints" to be in the "Input/Camera" section of Preferences.
- Moved "High Resolution Snapshots" to the Snapshot window.
- Added menu item and shortcut to open the built-in web browser ("View > Web Browser", Ctrl-B). Thanks, McCabe!
- Removed "Advanced > Compress Snapshot to disk", since it's useless. Thanks, McCabe!
- Added shortcut (Ctrl-D) to create a new landmark. Also, a message, "You created a landmark at _____", will appear in chat history when creating a landmark. Thanks, McCabe!
- Moved "View > Show HUD Attachments" to "Advanced > Rendering > Features > HUD Attachments", and removed its keyboard shortcut.
Inventory
- Added "Restore to World" to right click menu on Objects in inventory (if the sim supports it) (IMP-36). Thanks, Unknown Linden! (This action returns the object to the location in-world where it was before being taken / returned to your inventory.)
- Added "Discard" buttons for incoming landmarks, and notecards that you created (IMP-30). Thanks for the patches, Henri Beauchamp, and thanks to Balp Allen for pointing them out!
Building
- High-up prims no longer fall to 256m height when moved outworld (VWR-9352). Thanks for the patch, Aimee Trescothick!
- Fixed Local ruler mode being oriented incorrectly for linked objects (VWR-1582). Thanks, Jacek!
- Added "Tools > Select Only Copyable Objects" menu item. Thanks, McCabe!
Map / Minimap
- Friends now appear yellow on the minimap (VWR-3336). Thanks for the patch, Aimee Trescothick!
- You can now double-click in the minimap to teleport to that location (IMP-34). Thanks for the patch, Armin Weatherwax!
- The Map window now supports teleports up to a height of 4096m (VWR-7331). Thanks for the patch, Peter Lameth!
- Minimap and Map glyph colors can now be set in colors.xml. Thanks, McCabe!
Other UI
- Added syntax highlighting for C-style comments ("/* ... */") in LSL scripts (SVC-2631). Thanks for the patch, Felix Duesenburg!
- Added Home page functionality in the web browser ("Home", "Set As Home"). Thanks, McCabe!
- Clicking "Set As Home" informs you of a successful homepage change.
- Switched the positions of the "Invite" and "Leave" buttons in the Groups panel, so the "Leave" button isn't right next to the "Activate" button. Thanks, McCabe!
- The "Offer Teleport" button in the IM window has been moved to the left, next to "Profile". Thanks, McCabe!
- Added "Drag and drop inventory item here to send" text to the IM window. That functionality was already present in the SL viewer, but almost no one knew about it! Thanks, McCabe!
- Added an "Ignore" button to friendship requests (VWR-4826). Thanks, McCabe!
- The "invite to group" window now displays the group name in the title. Thanks, McCabe!
Misc
- Fixed the right/bottom edit arrows on HUDs not working (VWR-5518). Thanks for describing the fix, Zi Ree!
- Fixed avatars being darker than prims; this matches the changes in SL 1.22 (VWR-8012). Thanks to CG Linden for pointing to the fix!
- Lip sync for voice chat is enabled by default ("Advanced > Character > Enable Lip Sync"). Thanks, McCabe!
- The colors.xml files (for setting skin colors) now has helpful comments describing each entry, to help skin creators. Thanks, McCabe!
- Beacons no longer stay enabled between sessions, to help users who accidently enable them. Thanks, McCabe!
- The wind sound is now disabled by default, and doesn't waste CPU time generating white noise when it's off. You can re-enable wind by changing the "MuteWind" debug setting to FALSE. Thanks, McCabe!
- Added TGA as an available image format for saving snapshots. Thanks, McCabe!
- llLoadUrl scripts now opens in either the built-in browser or your external browser, depending on your preference. Thanks, McCabe!
- The URL highlighter now includes closing parentheses ")" as part of the link (VWR-8773). Thanks, Qarl Linden!
- Windows: Running straight from the .exe uses "settings_imprudence.xml" file. Thanks, McCabe!
- Windows: Crash dump files are named with "Imprudence" instead of "Second Life". Thanks yet again, McCabe, you busy beaver!
As always, you should consider the risks before installing third-party binaries on your system. This is a release candidate, so project members are looking for feedback on any additional issues that may crop up.
Imprudence viewer 1.1.0(RC1) is available for Linux (33MB), and Windows (20MB), or go to the project's download page where you can also get the source code. As we noted above, there is no Mac version available.
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