November 26th, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
After many months of development, we’re extremely pleased to say that Imprudence 1.2 is finally available!
If you’re new to Imprudence, you should know that the purpose of the project is to improve the viewer’s usability: to clean up the UI, add new tools that make the viewer more useful, and make a more satisfying viewer experience. Part of that process involves making changes to the UI, which can cause some temporary confusion if you’re expecting the UI to be the same as the UI of other viewers. So be aware: the UI is not entirely the same! Give it time, and we’re sure it will grow on you. If you can’t find something in the UI, just ask in the forums.
Imprudence 1.2 adds many new features, fixes, and improvements to the viewer experience. Here are a just few of the new features and improvements since Imprudence 1.1:
- Backup your builds, your scripts, and your avatar’s shape. If you created it, you have the right to back it up or move it to a different grid. (See Content Backup for more info).
- Double-click Teleport and Autopilot. We’ve taken the popular double-click teleport feature and improved upon it. The default behavior can now be set in Preferences > Input & Camera. We’ve also added an ignorable confirmation dialog to reduce the chance of accidental teleportations.
- Improved minimap with built-in radar. The minimap now has enhanced zooming and panning, a built-in avatar radar to see who is nearby, plus optional chat notices when avatars enter or leave chat range or the sim. (Enable minimap notify in Preferences > General.)
- Improved OpenSim support. We’ve added a list of popular grids to connect to, as well as a grid manager so you can add your own. You can also enjoy many building benefits when using OpenSim, such as the ability to build and edit prims larger than 10m on a side!
- Restrained Life support. Thanks to RLVa by Kitty Barnett, Imprudence now supports the Restrained Life API for BDSM items and scripted gadgets.
- Windlight toolbar. We’ve added a new tab along the bottom of the screen for quick access to your Windlight presets and certain graphics options. We’ve also added a variety of Windlight presets from Ana Lutetia, CodeBastard Redgrave, and Torley Linden!
- Numerous other features that improve the viewer experience, such as double-click to wear attachments in Inventory, optional vertical IM tabs (in Preferences > Communication), unread IM count, search inventory by creator or description, better profile window layout, select default chat channel, Link/Unlink in the Build window, sim avatar counts on the World Map, and many more.
For full details about all the changes and improvements we’ve made, please refer to our extensive (and rather intimidating) Release Notes!
Now without further ado, the goodies (you should download these even if you have downloaded 1.2.0 before):
We want to hear about your experiences with Imprudence — both positive and negative! Please post your feedback in the forums or comment here on the blog. Thank you! <3
Enjoy!
November 17th, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
The Imprudence 1.2 development cycle has taken a lot longer than we had hoped, but it’s finally coming to completion. With some luck, we hope to release the final version of 1.2 tonight or tomorrow!
The most recent delay was due to our efforts to ensure that we’re giving proper credit and respecting the licenses of all the various software libraries that we use and distribute with the viewer. We may be imprudent about changing the viewer UI, but we take our obligations under these licenses quite seriously.
This has been a tedious and wearisome process, as there are 50 or more libraries used by Imprudence, considering all operating systems. For each one, we have had to read and understand our obligations, verify that we are fulfilling them, and in many cases correct errors or omissions. Here are some examples of the obligations we have had to check:
- Nearly all of the libraries require that we publish its copyright and license notices, although the details vary from library to library. It generally takes 5-10 minutes per library to find the information and verify that we are giving proper credit, or to fix or add an incorrect or missing notice.
- As well as distributing the libraries with the finished Imprudence installers for our users’ convenience, we also package them up individually for use by developers who want to compile Imprudence themselves. Since those packages count as distribution, we also have to make sure we’re including proper credit in each of those packages, which is another chore in itself, adding another tedious 5 or so minutes per library. (That’s not mentioning the 20-30 minutes it took to create each package in the first place. Oof.)
- Some libraries (in particular, those licensed under the GPL or LGPL) also require that we also offer the source code if we distribute them in compiled form. So, we have had to locate and host a copy of the source code for each of those libraries alongside the compiled packages. (You can find the sources here. We are still in the process of collecting all the necessary source packages, but should be done soon.)
On average, it takes about 20 minutes per library to verify and possibly fix all the details. Multiply that by 50 libraries (it comes out to nearly 17 hours), and consider the dullness of the chore, and you’ll begin to understand how much fun it was not. But as tedious and thankless a task as it is, it’s important to ensure that the library developers are given proper credit for their work (not to mention our legal obligation to do so).
Despite all that effort, we may have made a mistake or two. (Indeed, we’ve found at least one serious mistake of this kind in Linden Lab’s own library distributions. We will be privately contacting them soon so that they can fix it.) If you find an error in the way we’ve dealt with the licenses for any of the software we distribute, please don’t hesitate to contact me so that we can put things to right as soon as possible.
October 31st, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
Imprudence 1.2 has a feature borrowed from the Emerald viewer: double-click teleport, i.e. double-clicking somewhere in the 3D view will instantly teleport your avatar to that location. There are also pie menu entries, “Go Here”, which do the same thing as the double-click teleport.
However, some users have commented that the double-click is too easy to accidently trigger, and can interfere with double-clicking on scripted objects. We have added a confirmation dialog to prevent accidental teleports, but that isn’t an ideal solution, because confirmation dialogs can be annoying and disruptive too.
We’ll be adding an option to allow users to choose whether they want the double-click behavior, but we’re still deciding whether it should be enabled or disabled by default. Mostly this depends on whether more people find double-click useful or annoying.
So, here’s a chance to have your say: Should double-click teleport be enabled or disabled by default?
Head to the forums to vote, or leave a comment here on the blog!
October 10th, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
The Windows installers for Imprudence 1.2.0 beta 2 have been updated. There was an issue with the old installers having an out-of-date settings.xml file, which made radar notifications (when people enter chat range / enter the sim) not work. If you downloaded the Windows version before today, we recommend that you download and run the new installer:
The Linux and Mac versions are not affected.
October 9th, 2009 by McCabe Maxsted
Imprudence 1.2.0 beta 2 is now available! Hooray! This is mostly a bug fix release, but there are a few feature improvements too. Hopefully it will fix most of the issues posted in the forums. If you’re new to Imprudence, read the previous blog post for the major features found in 1.2.0. For the full list of the changes in beta 2, check out the release notes.
Note: The pie menu has changed somewhat. See the release notes for details.
This is still a beta release, so expect some issues, particularly when logging in/logging out. As always, please post any issues you have in the forums.
Downloads:
Update: there was an error in the original Windows installers that caused them to use the old beta 1 settings file. Fixed versions have been uploaded.
September 28th, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
We’re super stoked to announce the release of the Imprudence 1.2 beta. This new version has tons of great stuff that we know you guys will love!
- The Object Backup feature allows content creators to import and export objects they’ve created to their hard drive. You can save backup copies for safekeeping, or even migrate your products to another grid! Woot! Thanks to the folks at the Meerkat Viewer for developing this great feature!
- The Grid Manager allows you to customize the list of grids you can connect to, plus it comes pre-loaded with a variety of popular grids already. This is just the first step in our ongoing commitment to enhanced interoperability with OpenSim grids. Thanks to the Hippo Viewer and Meerkat folks for developing this.
- Optional Restrained Life support allows Imprudence to work with a variety of BDSM items and scripted gadgets. Our gratitude to Kitty Barnett for her excellent work on RLVa.
- The new Minimap Radar shows you a list of all the nearby avatars within a customizable range. Try selecting a name on the list to make their minimap icon big and red!
- A selection of great Emerald Viewer features: Phantom mode, search inventory by creator name, double-click someplace to teleport there, and a bunch more!
- The Windlight toolbar tab gives you easy access to to your sky settings, including a built-in selection of presets from Ana Lutetia, CodeBastard Redgrave, and Torley (thanks, guys!). Plus, click the arrow to expand it and adjust your draw distance on the fly!
- Tons and tons and tons of other cool features, fixes, and improvements! Check out the release notes for all the juicy details.
This is a beta release, though, so expect to see some bugs. We’ve got a list of issues we already know about; in particular, you should probably avoid using the Logout feature until we fix a peculiar bug related to that. If you encounter any other issues, please post about them in the forums so we can make sure to fix them!
Now for the goodies:
Enjoy!
September 28th, 2009 by McCabe Maxsted
With the 1.2 beta coming up, I’ve updated our How To Compile page. The Windows build instructions should be a bit more straightforward, and I’ve added some missing links, as well as instructions for building with Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, Microsoft’s free C++ compiler, which is now supported in develop.py (would love to know if Visual Studio 2008 works; anyone want to test and/or submit patches?). The downloads page is also up to date with links to the latest source.
As some of you might have noticed, there were a few annoyances when compiling Imprudence 1.1 on Windows. These should all be fixed in 1.2 (if not, lemme know on the forums, or better yet submit a patch to fix it). Cheers.
September 23rd, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
The end of September draws near, so we’re starting to wrap up the development cycle for Imprudence 1.2. The emphasis now is on testing and polishing everything to make sure it’s done right.
Unfortunately, the improved user account manager feature will not be part of 1.2, as it was not on track to be ready in time. Instead, we’ll ship 1.2 with a polished version of Meerkat’s grid manager (which works fine, but is not as nice to use as we would like), then include the user account manager in 1.3.
But there’s good news: we’re planning to put out a 1.2 release candidate this week. That will give you, our kind, loving, and beautiful users, a chance to try things out and give us feedback on anything that’s not working right (which hopefully won’t be much). Then we’ll fix up what we can, and have the 1.2 final released next Wednesday!
Now, I had better get back to work!
September 19th, 2009 by Jacek Antonelli
A quick recap from this past Tuesday’s ImpDev meetup:
- Jacek has been focusing on the login manager feature. She hit a mental block for a while, but has gotten past it and is making good progress. Still, she expects it to keep her busy until the end of the month, and possibly a bit longer. If it’s not ready in time, we’ll ship 1.2 with Meerkat’s grid manager interface as a temporary solution, but won’t delay the 1.2 release.
- McCabe has been making enhancements and fixing bugs in many areas, including the new Windlight quick-access toolbar tab and avatar scanner, as well as an improved layout for avatar profiles and other cool stuff!
- Things still seem on track for releasing 1.2 by the end of the month!
Full transcript on the wiki, as usual.
September 15th, 2009 by McCabe Maxsted
Want to change something?
In looking over our How You Can Contribute page, it occurred to me that we’ve never formalized our patch submission guidelines. To rectify this, I created a new page on the wiki for submitting patches.
There are three ways to submit a patch to Imprudence:
- (preferred!) Clone Imprudence on GitHub.com and push a branch containing your patch, then let us know about it either on the ImpDev mailing list or on the forums. This allows other developers to cherry pick your change and include it faster (see git tutorial).
- Attach your patch in our forums. If you’re solving a bug or implementing a feature, attach it to the appropriate post. Letting us know on ImpDev it exists will also help get it applied faster.
- Submit your patch directly to the ImpDev mailing list.
I understand not everyone’s keen on mailing lists, but posting on ImpDev is the best way to bring your patch to our attention (bonus points for having a git repository we can follow!). I’ve also included some guidelines for what we like to see in patches, mainly UI-related things.
If you’ve never generated a patch before, that’s okay. There’s a section on that, and I’m always available inworld to help, even if it’s just a one line xml fix.
We’ve got a bunch of cool stuff coming up in the next version of Imprudence. I hope to see some of your names in our release notes!
