Catznip & OpenDyslexic
One of the many new features in Catznip R7 was the ability to set different fonts for different sections of the UI independently (Preferences (CTRL+P) > Catznip > UI, there’s a selection of fonts for use as the main user interface, monospace and chat/notecards). Adding OpenDyslexic support was the primary motivation for this feature.
OpenDyslexic is a new open sourced font created to increase readability for readers with dyslexia. The typeface includes regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles. It is being updated continually and improved based on input from dyslexic users.
Personally, this font is awesome and makes a real difference to the readability of dense blocks of text. I know many of our users find it equally beneficial. We’re very happy to have Catznip join the ranks of a growing selection of apps and devices that now feature this font.
Speeding up SL with a RAMDisk
If you’re running Windows, have more than 8GB of memory and a multi core CPU you can give SL a bit of a boost by placing the Cache into a ram drive. This can also extend the life of your hardware if your computer uses a SSD.
Just finished putting up a tutorial showing how to do this using the free persistent RAMDisk software from Dataram. There are a couple of caveats but on the whole it does seriously boost rezzing times in locations you have previously visited.
I plan to do something similar for Linux in the near future.
Serverside Baking & RLVa
As some of you might be aware Linden Lab are on the verge of rolling out a huge backend update that changes the way your avatar bakes. This is promised to fix the long standing bake fail problems and will be awesome.
RLVa has been updated to allow adding/removing clothing layers to work as normal and will be in Catznip and Firestorm in time for the release from Linden Lab.
Any delays or perceptions of problems relating to RLVa are really non-existent and simply down to us taking a bit of a breather from the months of work we piled into getting Catznip R7 out the door. The changes were trivial, have been done, there is no panic, no drama and no sign of chicken little.
Catznip R7 Ubuntu 12.10 Update
Catznip R7 has been updated to resolve the fontconfig issue that prevented all Second Life viewers from running on Ubuntu 12.10, this update only applies to 12.10 users and provides no additionally functionality.
Existing Linux users who are happily running Catznip on a different distribution / version do not do need to do anything.
For everyone on Ubuntu 12.10, have at thee!
