FLEXIBLE INFLEXIBILITY

The moment I logged into the latest version of Second Life today, Relee Baysklef the scripting squirrel put a flying cape in my hands.  The client upgrade that went live today is ver. 1.10, a number that's surprising, and to many Residents, vexing, since it's an incremental step backward from the previous version, 1.9.  Most of them expected that this version would be 1.91 or another number that got them ever closer to 2.0-- when, presumably, long-promised additions to the client would finally kick in.  (Say, Havok 2 physics, or the ability to stream web pages into the world.)  By rolling the version number back, it seemed to many that Linden Lab was hedging their bets on when those changes would arrive.  It's a little like if in Lost when they'd finally let the bunker's mysterious ticker count down from 108 minutes to zero, instead of the island exploding or the hand of God appearing or whatever, the counter just reset-- to 208.

In any event, 1.10 does come with the ability to make linked objects flexible, translating in this case to superheroes able to fly more, well, superheroically.  A very cool addition that should lead to some amazing new Resident content.

On the other side of the ledger, judging by the release notes, 1.10 has but a single improvement to the user interface, and unless you're a builder, a fairly obscure one.  This is odd, because in my experience, both in-world and talking about Second Life at conventions and such, the most frequent complaint I hear is over the interface.  Indeed, Torley recently posted a full list of questions that get sent to the Live Help line, and among the top twenty problems, a full half involve the user interface, either directly, or indirectly as an issue that'd be greatly ameliorated by an improved UI.  Things to be fixed in future versions, one hopes-- in 1.11, maybe.  Meantime, Residents frustrated with the UI will at least be able to alert Live Help with a majestic cape fluttering behind them.

Update, 2:29AM:  In Comments, Torley points out some other fixes to the UI that weren't mentioned in the release notes.  Also, I e-mailed Philip Linden seeking his response to these points, and will post his reply in NWN.

Comments

[JW]

Thanx for spoiling Lost. :-(

[Hamlet Au]

I didn't, that was just a hypothetical. :)

[Torley Linden]

I haven't seen Lost, but I keep getting told "This is a show you'd like!"

Something I should mention: there's actually way more User Interface enhancements than the ones mentioned in the Release Notes. I think it has something to do with them being "little things that make a YUGE difference". ^^

Lots of lil' tweaks, in other words.

Here are some examples, besides Click Actions mentioned in there:

* Relogging in a different place if you get stuck somewhere is way easier! On the login screen, there's a Start Location box. If you don't see it, go to PREFERENCES > GENERAL and check "Show Start Location on Login Screen". (No more need to do the "secondlife://" workaround like in previous versions.)

* ABOUT LAND > OPTIONS tab has been rearranged and reworded to be more clear, reducing the likelihood of unintentionally leaving "Edit Land" on.

* FIND > LAND SALES now lets you sort between PG and Mature regions.

* FIND > EVENTS now shows "In-Progress and Upcoming" events.

* Numerous useability tweaks, like more obvious no-build and no-script icons on land, and white arrows in inventory are less intrusive.

And no I don't write Release Notes but I enjoy things like this.

ALSO another one--teleporting to a place is now easier because the Teleport button gets highlighted by default. So, you can type in the name of a region and press Enter twice, and TP there--all without having to move your mouse and click the button (which you needed to previously).

[Relee Baysklef]

Ahh, the version number is deceptive.

It's not a decimal, it's a version number.

1.9 + 0.1 = 2 it's true, but that's not how version numbers go.

This is actually Second Life version 1.10.0, because it's still core number 1, but release number 10, and the version of the release is 0 'cause it's initial. When some bugs pop up and get fixed, it'll become 1.10.1

^.^

It won't be Second Life Version 2.0.0 untill they advance the program so much that it's truely a sequel and not just an improvement on the original design.

P.S. I'm glad you liked the cape!

[Icon Serpentine]

I don't know about many residents, but I've been none-too-happy with the recent updates. The wobbly prims are... wobbly. We're still stuck with an alpha linux client, an unsupported physics engine, could use better texture compression... etc.

Many of the UI enhancements too, are extremely poor and look awful and confusing. Especially the assignable left-click -- who the heck dreamed that one up? Way to break a well-ingrained paradigm for no good reason!

Anyway, there's more on my blog but it's mostly ranting. Seems more like 1.10.0 is more fluff than meat and potatoes.

UI is important. I doubt LL conducts any field studies of their interface.

Well, let's at least make good use of our new fluff. The client-side lighting is quite nice... :)

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Well, let's be fair - there's lights and flexprims, but there's also llHTTPRequest, and I count the assignable click as a plus - makes things like teleporters or vendors much easier to idiot-proof.