Catznip 3.2.0 R3 and R4
After much screaming, arguments, thinly veiled threats and finally tricking the Kitty while sleep deprived, we have finally settled on a numbering scheme for Catznip. R for release and then a number incrementally higher then the previous (I kid you not). So anyway, to celebrate we have not one but two releases side by side. Essentially cleaning up the 3.2.0 Beta we released recently, adding couple of new features and a slew of fixes.
IMPORTANT ! R3 and R4 are functionally identical in all regards with the exception that R4 includes the first round of opengl fixes from Linden Lab. R3 is provided as a fall back for those who have problems. R4 should be noticeably faster.
The Group floater now has a drop down menu allowing you to quickly select your active title for the current group, including the option to have a group active with no title displayed.
Almost all floating panels can now be ‘rolled up’ to just show the title bar, nice quick way to clean up the window clutter. Simple, but very effective.
Last but not least, a couple of additions which come as a direct result of user feedback here and on the SLU forums.
You can now open the picks floater from the ‘Me’ menu and by right clicking on your avatar. Seems the Lab neglected to add an obvious way to open the picks floater and creating a pick via a landmark was convoluted at best (See WEB-4303). Thanks Inhandra.
After some debate a wear option for inventory folders has been added and you can now set yourself Away or Busy a bit quicker on the ‘Me’ menu. Thanks Isara.
Have a gander at the Release Notes while you Download.
Intentions, Design and Features
Catznip as a project is not intended as a clearing house for other TPV patches, it’s about taking a fresh look at things and doing them better.
There is zero point in turning out a viewer that’s more or less the same as Firestorm / etc. (a fair selection of Kitty’s work ends up included in FS anyway). Literally, the only patch that has come from a 3rd party in Catznip is Qarl’s prim alignment tool.
We’re doing this because we are passionate about Second Life, passionate about usability and have the skills to shape things our own way. More importantly, we also enjoy doing this kind of thing, you know, for fun.
A lot of Catznip’s features are subtle and easily missed. For example, did you know you can right click and offer someone a TP from just about everywhere, right clicking on a landmark in a notecard and you can go right there (rather than click, copy to inventory, open inventory, find, open, press teleport).
There are dozens and dozens of tiny, often unique, sexy usability features like this with very practical roots. In this case; we do a lot of shopping as a group.
We’re really happy to very seriously look at feature ideas, but they have to be in the context of a clearly defined need, ‘why’ rather than ‘because’.
(Based on a SLU forum response to feature ideas and wishes for Catznip.)
Catznip 3.2.0 Beta
After much hard work, tinkering and screaming fits we are very proud to offer up Catznip 3.2.0 Beta. This is a major release featuring all the new UI goodness from Linden Lab and the usual Catznip refinements you have come to expect. A lot of work has gone into improving framerates this release and we’re pretty confident this will be the fastest Second Life Viewer 3 to date.
The viewer 3 chat floater has been updated to add optional multi-line input support and can now be docked with the IM floater similar to Viewer 1.
Viewer 2 placed the IM & object notification chiclets to the bottom right of the screen and the Lab moved them back up to the top right with Viewer 3. Seems someone (looks at Kitty really hard) liked them so much in the bottom right that she just had to add the option to put them back down.
Snapshots to HD can now be saved to a specific location with custom filenames. Handy for professionals and habitual snappers alike.
Spell checker includes a couple of minor enhancements adding support for supplementary dictionaries. (If all goes well, this should eventually be the spell checker included with the official Linden Lab client. See Inara Pey’s blog; Viewer 3.x to get a speling cheker‘).
RLVa has been updated to work with the new UI and had a couple of bugs fixed.
There have been a handful of essential context menu enhancements; my favorite being right click a folder in your inventory and you can now open that folder in a new window, right click on someones name tag and you can teleport and copy their display-name.
Oh .. and we got rid of the huge BLOCK button on dialog menus, shessh, was way way to easy to just go around accidentally muting everyone who owned something that gave up a menu! (Don’t worry, you can still block by right clicking on the chiclet).
Check out the full release notes and downloads for both Windows and Linux.
Linux Catznip .. Testers Needed!
I’ve just uploaded the results of yesterdays furtive ninjaesque shenanigans, It’s Catznip, it runs on Linux, and it’s on the download page. It might work, it might explode.
I really have no clue so please if a few Linux peeps could poke it and then poke me with a yay or nay I would be very happy. Obviously if it works the pokes can be replaced with muffins. Blueberry ones.
Also, don’t forget to join the in world Catznip Viewer Group. It’s fun.