Catznip

Just a rushed post since the Emerald drama peaked and people seem to be passing the blog around…

I’ll do another post later today with progress/updates/etc .

The latest links are:

Windows (Installer) – Catznip-2.1.1f.msi
Windows (ZIP) – Catznip-2.1.1f.zip
Mac – Catznip_2_1_1_6.dmg

(Source – SVN patch: Catznip-2.1.1f.patch)

This should have been released on Sunday already but things got bad enough that I just had to rush to ER.

LL has done a few new code drops since (with one or two fixes that suspiciously look a lot like some of my patchwork… no peeking, Lindens!) so it’s out of date (it also predates the 2.1.0 alpha – so it lacks voice morphing) already but I’m feeling rather depressed right now for much of anything .

Also be aware that 2.1 sends a semi-random MAC address to the login server so if you happen to be unlucky (like me) you might get the impression that your puter was hardware banned while it’s actually not (see https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/opensource-dev/2010-June/002293.html). Just reboot and everything will be fine again.

It was suggested that I add a login page since most people won’t be refreshing the blog (or even look at it past their initial download) but I haven’t gotten around to that yet . At the moment the viewer will try to display it though, so I should be able to use it to announce the next update one way or another.

There’s also an installer this time around… it’s my first time fighting with MSI/WiX to make one of those so it’s rather bland at the moment, but it does the bare minimum of what it’s supposed to.

Installer download: Catznip-2.1.0b.msi
ZIP download: Catznip-2.1.0b.zip
Patch (git): Catznip-2.1.0b-git.patch

If someone wants to actually use the patch to apply it then please give me a nudge in-world… my base SL version is a viewer-external + Snowglobe hybrid so I’m not certain if a diff is of any use that way, but a full source drop wouldn’t really be either so I definitely welcome suggestions there.

(Sorry for a non-peppy sounding release announcement but just not in a very good place right now for various reasons )

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Release announcement I had ready for past Sunday:

I’m having surgery tomorrow (not quite as serious as it sounds ) and with the most recent source drops (and LL releasing 2.1 as an alpha) this seemed like as good as time as any for an intermediate release.

Since there is an official 2.1 now it also saves highlighting what changes/improvements/features/bugs are LL’s and which ones are mine. One seeming exception would be that LL’s 2.1 release doesn’t seem to contain the lighting and shadows update code drop from Friday (texture projection was merged in, actual preferences in the Graphics tab, bug fixed, a very noticable FPS improvement when L&S is enabled and other rendering related changes).

(It’s also a merge of the current Snowglobe branch so “double click teleporting” and “ground sit anywhere” features are present but actually came for free from Snowglobe)

There’s also an updated RLVa-1.2.0 but most of the work there has been to make sure that @add/remoutfit will play nice with multi-wearables. Shared inventory wearing currently default to “add” for wearables (mostly because noone seems to have a good idea of how to designate whether a folder or item under #RLV should “Wear Add” or “Wear Replace”) and is something I would *really* appreciate feedback on.

I also have to be honest and admit to having been a very lazy kitty for the most part :p. And when I did do some coding, it was mostly “vanilla” things.

This release is – unfortunately – not quite as polished as I would like, but at this point it’s probably better to just release and get some more feedback rather than

Changes specific to Catznip-2.1.0:
- changed: multi-wearables – default “Replace” instead of “Add” (LL actually accepted my patch for that, yay! thankies Nyx )
- added: multi-wearables – “Wear On” submenu to allow ordering from the context menu (easy enough to figure out but see http://blogs.secondlife.com/message/214278#214278 for a practical “what is it and how to use it”)
- fixed: search no longer reloads the default page whenever the search floater is opened (fix for http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-1819)
- changed: re-added the ability to specify X/Y/Z location on the world map
- changed: re-added right-click “Profile” to the mini-map context menu
- changed: optionally log “XXX is online/offline” notifications to the chat history (enabled by default, see  CatznipLogFriendStatus)
- changed: “XXX is online/offline” notifications have the name as a SLURL (which provides you with an easy way to either open their profile, or right-click to get extra options such as IM’ing)
- added: allow drag-rearranging of IM tab buttons (left-click and hold an IM tab and then just drag it left or right)
- added: “Add Contact” option to various context menus (let you create a calling card for someone)
- fixed: frequent (for me anyway) crashes when using the world map

Changelog for RLVa-1.2.0g:
- fixed: possible crash in rlvGetItemNameFromObjID() (thankies Chloe)
- fixed: failed assertion on @detach=y in RlvAttachmentLocks::removeAttachmentLock() – checkefor non-root should be root
- fixed: @findfolder:<critera>=<channel> shouldn’t return “give to #RLV”/~ folders (thankies Marine and Tidurian)
- merge: tested @touchXXX=n, @allowidle=n and @interact=n (experimental commands)
- fixed: “Replace Outfit” removes currently worn items when @addoutfit=n or @addattach=n (but not @remoutfit/attach) restricted
- fixed: additional @shownames=n restrictions
- changed: modified @add/remoutfit[:<option>]=n to support multi-wearables
- changed: reenabled “Wear” when @remoutfit=n restricted if less than MAX_CLOTHING_PER_TYPE wearables are currently worn on that type
- fixed: don’t allow drop-add’ing items to COF when @addoutfit=n restricted
- fixed: gestures are missing from predicates (and subsequently treated as non-wearable / non-removable items)
- fixed: LLAgentWearables::setWearableOutfit() ends up adding the same wearable multiple times when @remoutfit=n restricted and undresses when @addoutfit=n restricted
- fixed: fix-up of LL code in LLAgentWearables::pushWearable() + RLV_ASSERT to easily catch multi-wearable bugs such as the one above
- fixed: edge case where @addoutfit=n is received post-linking but pre-wearing [see LLAppearanceMgr::updateAgentWearables()]
- changed: RLV’ified VWR-19699 (it got accepted!!! *bounces*)
- changed: “Take Off / Clothing” self context submenu takes off the first removable wearable it can find on the specified layer rather than just attempting to remove the top layer
- fixed: various GCC warnings (thankies Satomi)

For those just tuning in, features specific to the first release are/were:
- added “native full-screen” as a replacement for LL’s broken (and now deprecated) full-screen functionality in SL-2.0 (re-enabled Alt-Enter shortcut to toggle to/from full-screen)
- fixed: “Plain text chat history” reverts to FALSE on “Clear Cache”
- changed: enabled “Paste as Link” by default (along with various fix-ups such as allowing inventory links to be copy/paste’ed)
- fixed: show “ConfirmItemDeleteHasLinks” notification even when “InventoryLinking” is set to TRUE
- added: LLObjectBridge::performActionBatch() attaches multiple selected attachments at once (fixes http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-5063)
- fixed: <enter>’ing a selection of multiple objects results in “Attachment pending for this spot”
- added: LLWearableBridge::performActionBatch() wears multiple wearables at once
- fixed: enable “Build” on the land context menu only if the user has build permissions for the parcel
- fixed: enable “Build” on the object context menu only if the user has build permissions for the parcel the object resides on
- fixed : various inventory sidebar button panel fixes (doesn’t properly handle a selection of more than 1 item; doesn’t provide a “Take Off” option if the selection is worn; doesn’t provide an action for notecards, textures and scripts; doesn’t refresh when switching inventory filters)
- fixed : race condition between multiple instances of LLWearableHoldingPattern
- fixed : “Some clothing comes off when putting on other pieces of clothing”
 -> http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-18780
 -> http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-18828
- fixed : COF wearable links become out of sync with what’s actually worn (various ways)
- fixed: “Worn items in Viewer 2 and Viewer 1.x aren’t synchronized” (http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17594)

*waves*

I’m still evaluating SL-2.0.2 (or what – aside from some sneaky secretsy things – will be SL-2.1), but still can’t convince myself that the benefits of (finally) doing another release outweigh the downside of how unstable it is *sighs*. Which presents me with a problem since all my patches (and RLVa) have moved on with the 2.1 codebase so just doing another 2.0 release would take a non-trivial amount of time.

The “perceived inventory loss” issue is by far the most significant one, but also – to a lesser extent – that the multi-wearable and multi-attachment features both rely on 1.40 which won’t make the main grid for another two weeks (the former needs it to retain ordering information across relogs and the latter just won’t work without 1.40). A lot of touch-ups are still needed as well (I hope they can get to that with less than a month to go before it has to be released ) resulting in some things not working, half-working, or working but crash-prone.

I’ll keep following new LL code drops and cross my fingers that the next one will fix the worst issues…

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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 .

Just to be honest: if it’s something that irks me too then it has a much higher chance of getting considered; if it’s something I’ve never even used then it has a very low chance of getting considered. That’s not fair at all, I know :p. Keep in mind that the time to actually write a patch is almost negliable compared to the time it’ll take to maintain and retest with every new viewer iteration though.

*waves*

I’ve been somewhat of a lazy kitty for the past 2.5 weeks (it’s all my broken internet’s fault!…. well…. largely ) so sowwies about that .

The past 5 days where I haven’t been lazy were filled with keeping track of all the new code that has been coming out of LL, most notably Nyx’ multi-wearables project (yay!), so aside from just rebasing patches, bugfixes and multi-wearables feature additions there isn’t anything new and exciting.

One thing to note about “2.0.2″ (which I’d guess is really just a scaled down 2.1 for public release) is that it’s rather “buggy” (taking off clothing doesn’t work properly, the inventory menu is missing, etc) so while I do have a new release I’ll just keep it “internal” for the next few days to on the one hand make sure that *my* changes still work as expected, and on the other hand try and touch up some viewer features that are currently undergoing changes (the disappearance of the inventory menu means you can’t currently upload anything for instance) and then release something that will hopefully be generally usuable.

Meanwhile if there’s any bug or annoyance in the current build now would be a good time to yell to me about it .

Just as I was writing the “announcement” for the RLVa blog an IM arrived indicating that someone who’d snuck a sneak preview received an error at log-on and then remained a cloud and unable to wear anything; and additionally a crash when trying to open the “Restrictions” floater… Oops .

The “failure to rez” / “Couldn’t put on outfit” turned out to be an oversight in my patch for “Worn items in Viewer 2 and Viewer 1.x aren’t synchronized” if someone has never used 2.0 before.

I haven’t been able to reproduce the “Restrictions” floater crash, but since she was nice enough to provide the minidump I was at least able to reorder things in that function to hopefully prevent it from occuring…

So after yesterday’s false start… Catznip-2.0.0e is all set .

I was going to have this up sometime Saturday or Sunday already but unfortunately a hard disk on one puter started sputtering so I wanted to keep that puter turned off until I had a chance to go buy a new one. The HD has gone off to bit heaven in the meanwhile (luckily without too much data loss) and I’ve sat through most of the “Please reboot to finish the installation” screens .

Worse is that while my internet has been flaky for a while now, it decided to completely fail over the weekend: the cable modem looses its connection a (few) dozen times a day, when I do have internet it comes in short little spurts and SL (when I can log on) reports 20% packet loss . *sighs*

My ISP sent a technician on Monday and the cable infrastructure company sent one today and their conclusion is that the problem is with the bit of cable between the distribution point and the cable modem. Unfortunately since that runs on “private property” that bit of cable is considered to be “private” as well so all today’s technician left was an estimate for the cost to fix it: a mere 720€! (600€ of which is supposed to be for 3 hours of labour, about 100€ in administrative fees and 20€ in actual supplies)… Needless to say I’ll be looking at alternatives but it doesn’t look good in the very short run .

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Now that I’m done setting the scene (aka “whining” :p) I’ve decided that I might as well release what I have of RLVa + 2.0 fixes since I’m unlikely to get much else done in the next week or so. I’ll be writing an RLVa-specific post on that blog so I’ll skip over that here.

As far as the TPV policy is concerned: the viewer itself is compliant. It doesn’t mess with importing, exporting, permissions or anything else “risque” and it’s been rebranded to remove the impression that the viewer might be Linden Lab supplied so that just about covers it I think .

The blog itself still needs some work though so while the actual viewer is compliant (which is most important for people downloading it) there’s still things for *me* to polish up on the site (and an installer wouldn’t hurt either).

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You can read the changelog for all the boring details but aside from RLVa the most notable changes are:

• full-screen: while I didn’t fix the viewer’s issues with full-screen, I did add a different way of having the viewer go full-screen. It no longer blanks out the other monitors (assuming you have more than one), it no longer does context/resolution switches when switching to/from Second Life from/to another application (which frequently made the viewer very unstable).
  If you didn’t like or used full screen in the past because of some of those issues, then do try it again now. Even if you keep SL maximized on a secondary monitor then it might still benefit you (you’ll get rid of the caption bar if nothing else)
• appearance: there are quite a few bugs related to appearance in 2.0. Most notable is the fact that when you switch back and forth between 2.0 and 1.23 then the next time you switch back to 2.0 it’ll undo whatever you might have changed into it. That’s fixed for the overwhelming part (the only remaining issue is that if you only change attachments then you might still have the newly added or detached one reverted)
• inventory links: they’re incredibly useful but very limited in the official viewer. There’s a “Copy” / “Paste as Link” option in the official viewer but you have to mark yourself as “god-like” to get to it which seems rather silly so that’s now there by default. Additionally you can copy links as well as you would any other inventory item, or do “Copy” on a selection of “no copy” items and then be able to just “Paste as Link” elsewhere
• inventory sidebar panel: at the bottom right you normally have a button that says “Wear”… I change that to work as expected. So if you select worn items it’ll let you “Take Off”, or if you select a bunch of notecards then it’ll say “Open”, etc. Not something anyone is going to go crazy about but I had to fix something there anyway
• some minor UI fixes here and there (“Use plain text chat hisotry” would revert to FALSE when you pick “Clear Cache”; Build now enables/disables depending on whether you have build permissions on that parcel, …)

Nothing earth-shattering (and nearly all of them were necessary to plug up some RLVa cheats) in this first release, but then I’ve mostly been focusing on RLVa. Once that’s finished there are definitely a few things I want to change/fix/revert because they’ve been annoying me to no end for the past two months :p.

*waves*

I fiiiiiiiiinally stopped procrastinating and went ahead and created the blog for the Catznip viewer . Most of everything is a “placeholder” right now, but I’ll try and get myself to slowly fill in the blanks over the next few days (certainly needs to be done by May 1st).

I’d much prefer not having to go through the trouble of setting up another blog and writing a whole bunch of introductionary pages noone is ever going to read, but it didn’t really feel right to mix the RLVa blog with Catznip (if only because other viewers link to the RLVa blog in one way or another).

Additionally the TPV policy will come into effect in just over a week as well and even though I don’t expect anyone to really use Catznip all the t’s must be crossed and all the i’s dotted.

Finally it gives me a place to talk about boring “vanilla” things I did to the viewer as well .