Arrehn

Firestorm is out of beta, and our release is available for download. This release marks a very important milestone for us. Thanks to everyone who's been supportive over the last 15 months and shared a part of our success. As many of you know, it's not easy to create a successful, lasting viewer, grow a team, grow an extended community, and be accepted by the diverse virtual world communities.

We hope Firestorm improves your virtual world enjoyment, and encourages you to contribute something of your own.

All the details are here:

Phoenix Viewer - Home

If you like Firestorm, please mention it to others who may not know about third party viewers for Second Life.

-Arrehn

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Lord

Yay ! I just went by your site earlier today to see if it was out yet LOL

Inhandra

I'm pleasantly surprised to see you've incorporated SH-2240 according to the changelog wiki. I'll have to peek.

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Inhandra

This... is not what I expected.

I expected the FUI. Bugger. A disappointment, I has it.
Interestingly, the toggle for web profiles doesn't display the profiles in the proper window size and shape. This is going to sabotage its use, as people are going to see this and have a wtf moment. Also, editing/showing one's own profile doesn't use the web version, which means you cannot edit your own interest tabs.

Well, it's progress I suppose.. but I'll wait. :/

Connor Galatea

I love it and its interface...and seems very stable for me, so far

Tonya Souther

We haven't begun to spend the time needed to integrate the FUI changes into the Firestorm UI. There's some basic philosophy we'll need to think through first.

There is no proper size and shape for a web window. The user can resize it at any time - and that assumes they use the in-viewer browser instead of using an external browser like the overwhelming majority of SL users do.

It does if you select the option to use web profiles by default in Preferences->General, top right corner.

Your viewer, your choice...but the response we've gotten so far has been overwhelmingly favorable.

Jeni Roussel

This looks great so far. Thanks so much.

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Cindy Claveau

I love it so far - especially the faster performance in relation to beta. I need to start over though, because enough things have been changed that I have to update myself.

Here's the oddest thing of all: I spent a lot of time and energy bemoaning the sidebar in V2. Then I kinda got used to it in Kirsten's and eventually came to use it in Firestorm beta. Now that it's not visible in the default setup, I kinda miss it

I'll figure out how to get it back. If it's possible.

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Dubbleyew

I like it, but is there any way to get rid of the contacts button you guys added? I've actually gotten more used to using the people tab, as crazy as that sounds.

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Kira Zobel

How do I get my chat history?

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Innula Zenovka

Choose the V3 UI option, Cindy. That brings it back -- the viewer says it's 3.2.2 but that refer to Firestorm's internal numbering system, since it's clearly not LL's V3.2.2 UI.

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tomomi

Love the texture refresh on the pie menu

(the fastened performances too, worth the wait )

Tonya Souther

Uhm, don't select it? If you don't select it, it's like it's not there...

Which chat history? If you're referring to the button that lets you see past IM chat logs in a window, that's not there yet.

Ran Garrigus

Anyone know how much of the Shining Fixes render pipeline work Firestorm is taking on board? I continue to dream of actually getting FXAA with deferred rendering, but so far nothing based on Shining Fixes uses it for me. Exodus Viewer's separate implementation of FXAA works, but I'd use Firestorm (or Niran's, or most anyone else's) all the time if FXAA worked properly.

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NiranV Dean

FXAA doesnt work for you in Deferred? :O showstopper! , kill the betrayer who did this!

FXAA works fine for me in Deferred so i guess it might be a Hardware problem ...or a random ...like we already encountered in all situations since SL exists hehe

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Inhandra

I'll check it out again when the FUI is up and at'em, then. I really love the FUI, it's what V2 really should have been all along.

There is a standard, default size. It will pop up the same size and shape consistently between official and other tpvs that still use it, and I'm very familiar with this because of the amount of time I spent on shining-fixes official before I was able to swap to something else. I'll enclose a screenshot for comparison, without ANY resizing or moving of the profile. (*Granted, yes, the images are of a TPV, but you WILL see that behavior in official also.)

It does retain a shape I specify, however, and that's good, but it means I have to resize it for any in-viewer webpages. Official seems to maintain TWO window sizes, depending on if its a profile or a webpage. Obviously this won't matter if someone uses the outside viewer, but it's helpful for fullscreen, and I've already witnessed someone rant and bitch because they weren't able to play some flash game through Firestorm but could in Phoenix (which, I had no idea the in-viewer browser could load flash at all at the time). Incidentally, that was enough of a showstopper for them that they didn't want to use it as a main viewer, but I understand they flip flop between the two now depending on if they think they are going to be bored enough to want to play the game, and/or the need to view mesh.

Everyone has their priorities.

It also didn't edit the profile through the web, however, and that IS still an issue. It's possible the skin was bugged to not do that, but that isn't MY fault. When I did it, "edit profile" button went through the old interface, but so did "my profile" button.

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Adeon Writer

Any timeline on when Phoenix will be updated?

Ran Garrigus

NiranV,

Yeah, no AA of any type when I turn on deferred. Exodus Viewer's implementation of FXAA, which I gather is separate from Runitai's, works a treat, though. But proper FXAA wedded to the Firestorm UI and features I'm most familiar with would be perfect. I hate having to start up a second viewer just for photography.

Nika Talaj

Congrats to the Ph/FS folks! I mostly skipped the FS beta, will definitely try out this one.

I've fallen behind in my SL reading, can anyone point me to something that will tell me what exactly FUI is? I've been using the latest LL viewer on and off, so I'm pretty sure I've seen it, but is there a description of the term? Tia!

(For some reason SLU search can't find fui, maybe 3 chars is too short?)

Inhandra

The FUI is the UI on official 3.2 and later, where there is no bottom bar and you can put whatever buttons you want on the right, bottom, or left (or top, on Niran's). There is no sliding sidebar pane, everything appears in a floater.

Deej Kasshiki

FUI (flexible user interface) is the informal term people have given LL v3 for its ability to allow the user to configure many UI items like the placement of the button bar at either the left, right or side of the screen, which buttons are included in the button bar, whether to display the navigation and favorites bar, etc.

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Adeon Writer

Isn't the point of Firestorm to resemble 1.x, though? If Firestorm used FUI I'd have a bit of trouble understanding what makes it different from the other 3.x's.

Wasn't Firestorm's hybrid GUI the whole point?

I love the FUI too, but most of Firestorm's users on the other hand want it to look as
much like 1.x as possible.

Inhandra

While I have no doubt that's true now, it won't be in the future. New users are not coming in to V1s unless they have friends doing the unfortunate thing of putting them on a dying codebase. The amount of V1 users will dwindle over time, while the amount of V3 users will grow, assuming SL doesn't fold.

If they want the viewer to be geared only for them, that's fine, but it should be stated as such. Contrary, it has been looking as though they are trying to appeal to *everyone,* otherwise they'd suggest we advertise it to people still using V1s. Offering a V3 mode makes one expect it will look and feel like V3 but with goodies under the hood, and while it's maintained closeness while in that mode, there's still odd discrepancies here and there where they've given favor to the V1 crowd (as expected).

Cindy Claveau

The main point of Firestorm, I think, was the customizability. I don't how if one could say with certainty that "most" of the users want a 1.x clone - it may be true, but you can't assert such a thing without some data.

Personally, I love its customizability. I figured out how to get the sidebar back, removed a couple of the unused buttons from the bottom toolbar and I feel like it's the viewer I want to use for the foreseeable future. Not because it looks/feels like V1, but because I can put things where I want them and make it comfortable for my SL experience. Plus, I can see mesh

My current complaint has to do with the way they've changed the environment settings panes. I much prefer the old way, used by Kirsten's and FS beta (maybe by the official viewer too, but I don't know about it).

Tonya Souther

Firestorm is configurable to appeal to V3 users as well as V1/Phoenix users. That's the whole point. There are lots of things that Viewer 2 does that just plain suck. Ask Bronxelf about chat windows. FUI doesn't fix many of those, concentrating on eye candy instead of real, concrete, user interface improvements.

I'm sure we'll incorporate FUI into Firestorm, but we need to give it careful thought so the whole works together, rather than being a bunch of slapped-together kludges without a coherent design.

As it happens, Inhandra, the reports we get from real users indicate that even the ones who come in on V3 and then try Firestorm discover the user interface is much easier to deal with. The Lab's user interface won't take over the world until it fails to suck. It's not there yet. Not even close.

Ran, the goal is to adopt the shining fixes in their entirety once they're complete and don't break things. As it stands now, they're not there yet, which is why Firestorm 3.2.2 only has a selected set of the shining fixes.