Everything You Need To Know About Second Life Viewer 2.0 (Beta)
Today, in a much anticipated announcement, Linden Lab launched the Beta version of their new Second Life viewer. It will undoubtedly completely revolutionize the way we view and use Second Life, not to mention the first user experience. There a heaps of changes and new features (small and large) included in this version and lots of additional features and changes in the works.
To get started you need to download the new Viewer 2 (Beta).
New Interface Introduction
The first thing you are going to notice is how it looks cosmetically. The look of this new viewer is so smooth and clean. A major upgrade. Next you will notice a completely different user interface (UI). This new UI is so much more intuitive than an other viewer before it. It is made of up what Linden is calling the top bar, the bottom bar and the side bar.
While new users will find this new UI very intrinsic and much less overwhelming then before, it will take quite some time for experienced users to get used to, as it is radically different.
Most of these features are the same, or at least familiar, but have been relocated so that they can now be found more easily.
The new UI looks and functions very much like a browser. It includes a browser-like navigation bar with forward and back buttons (history) and easily accepts SLURLs.
My favorite new features that are now easily available on the UI are the teleport history which can be accessed several ways, and the ability to bookmark a location (landmark) with one click. You can then even customize that landmark and add information about the location to the landmarks.
Appearance and Outfits
Another one of my favorite new features is something that designers have been asking for since as long as I have been in SL. Under Appearance, users and designers now have two more sections. One gives you the ability to add a tattoo layer. The other allows you to make parts of your avatar invisible.
Perhaps the best new feature for the resident fashionistas of SL who love to mix and match their clothing wardrobes is the ability to create new outfits using links for no copy items. Links do not break any permissions, they are simply shortcuts that point to an original no copy item. This has long been a problem of mine and I’m so glad to see it included in this new viewer! Also helpful is the addition of the Wearing tab which shows the items you are currently wearing. Many of us have been used to this from other third party viewers, but its great to see it added here as well.
Shared Media
While all of these features are great, and there is a whole slew more of them… there is something bigger. Perhaps bigger than the launch of the viewer itself, is the launch of Second Life Shared Media (SLSM). SLSM is 100% a game changer for Second Life. It will allow you to display fully interactive, shared web content on any surface of a prim in Second Life including Flash, Javascript, and embedded movies.
Many people are already using it to play games, watch YouTube movies, collaborate on Goggle Docs, check email, display web pages, and the list goes on it. The applications of SLSM are only just being explored and will most definitely will change the way we use SL for education, collaboration, social media, augmented reality, etc. This video gives more details about SLSM including how to set it up yourself:
Other Features
There are so many new and updated features I could never cover them all in one post (at least not one you would read). Luckily Torley has posted several video tutorials to help you learn about them all. These features include:
- New Interface
- Menus
- Context Menu Replaces Pie Menu
- Move and View Controls
- Navigation
- Appearance and Outfits
- Sidebar (including the new web integrated Home tab)
- Search (now powered by Google Search Appliance technology)
- Preferences
- Notifications and Conversations
- Inventory
- Giving Inventory
- Automatic Camera Zoom
Coming Soon
In addition to all of today’s new debuts, we know there are a lot more new features in the works! In the near future Linden Lab has said that they will still be unveiling some more game changing features like Mesh Support, the addition of C# as a scripting language, additional tools to better integrate social media, and more! In fact, Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon appeared on building43 this morning to discuss the launch, what the company has been up to, and where it’s going.
As you can tell its been a BIG day for Linden Lab, Second Life, and all of us! I would love to know some of your thoughts on the new viewer and today’s big news. What do you love or hate?
I love all the changes. It’s like everything I dreamed of for SL for so long is coming true. It still has some bugs, but its the best Beta we ever had!
I can’t stand the changes to chat. It lines up all those boxes and the only way to get rid of them is to close them out completely. Group chat is the worst, every few seconds why I am working on something, a new message pops up until they have practically lined my screen. I hate it.
I also miss the pie menus. Those were signature SL. Now they are gone.
It looks nice though, I guess.
Shared media is the lab’s biggest mistake to date. It’s going to used for griefing and spam. As far as I can tell, you can have as many as these media prims as you want. We are going to have ad farms full of them. People selling banner ad space. Disgusting.
Why do you need to play a game or fill out a form in SL anyway? You have to be on your computer to run SL, so what’s the big deal?
I also noticed there is no mesh. Least they got something right.
SLSM opens doors. Brands will now how options to customize how they want to present themselves. Web pages, flash movies, forms. There will always be spam, yes, but should we get rid of the web, television, radio, email then too?
That’s the point. SL is becoming all commerical. That’s why phillip left. M has his eyes on the money and it’s going to take over everything open and free about SL. This is just the beginning.
I think there is potential for misuse of this feature (SLSM), but I believe the potential good outweighs the bad. A lot of it will have to do with how the Lindens manage this features. Regardless, I think that its usage reach more than just a commercial use for brands, the educational and artistic uses are going to be just as great. In the next few weeks, I hope to take a greater look at some of the potential uses and how they will impact SL. As far as Philip, he was always the visionary, and while I think he handed over the reins to make knowing that it would be a drastic change, I think he knew that for SL to really succeed in becoming everything we want it to be, it has to go mainstream (at least a little) and these features are the start of that. That doesn’t me we can’t have everything you imagine. I think there is room for both. In fact, I think the real reason Philip left is to create something so futuristic, so awesome, so amazing that he needed to leave to focus on creating it. I fully expect that he will return with something game changing in a different way, and bring back some of his special magic, back into the virtual world.
You are being too narrow minded. Think of what someone like AM Radio could do with several screens of looping video?
[...] Life Viewer 2 Beta Linden Lab launched Second Life Viewer 2 Beta. Everything you need to know: http://j.mp/SLViewer2 (via @GiannaBorgnine) [...]
I was very disappointed not to see mesh support as part of SL 2. I hope it hasn’t been put on a back burner like so many other projects that ended up never coming out because they couldn’t get them right. *sigh*
Q said that there was no mesh so I didn’t expect it, but I was frustrated to see that not only did we not get something new, but we lost something we need now that inspect is broke. This is something they HAVE to fix before leaves Beta. It’s important to give credit to everyone that made every single prim not just the metadata for the root prim. Please report this as I have. It’s so important!
mesh support is on its way!
ryan, do you have a link to the jira about the “inspect” issue?
I don’t think you can make jiras about a Beta viewer. I’ve just been posting on the forums.
You can. Here is the one for Inspect. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-16978
Thanks for the great overview. I was wondering if you could share your thoughts/tips regarding the placement of event listings in the new viewer.
As in, how do I find one, how does a new user know how to find “what to do?” and how should one optimize the event listing now that events are not accessible via the search box without first searching?
This is one of those things that I would like to see updated before this viewer leaves Beta. I think they may have done away with featuring the traditional event listings for two reasons. One because the event listings are “broke” for lack of a better word since there is so much spam and ads among the quality events. Two because I think that they expect to tie in a lot of social media tools in the near future and that is a great way to promote events.
Despite this, new users need events and classes. They won’t know how to find things like experienced users do, and to be quite frank, though I often find things, they are randomly all over the place and I’ve just learned how to sort through the chaos to find them, but even I would appreciate more streamlined information for events as well.
Here’s what I know… the Destination Guide is a big part of both the Home tab on the side bar and on the web site. The Lindens think, and correctly so, in order to keep users in SL, they must find compelling things to see, hence the guide. I would agree, seeing some of these amazing places is really important, but often you may only find a small number of users there, if any. Events really introduce you to the communities that are in Second Life that I think keep us all coming back more so then any location.
My suggestion is that somehow events need to become part of this guide. I would love to see select events or event partners become regularly “featured.” Your Musimmersion is an incredible experience..indescribable to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It would be perfect as a featured event. Maybe it even lists multiple upcoming performance dates. Metanomics might also fit well here. Certain classes. Large scale events like Burning Life. All of these would work well as featured events.
I would like also like to see an Event tab added to the Find panel (next to Search, Destination Guide, and Classifieds).
As for now, all you can really do is choose good keywords, and maybe consider taking out a classified under “special interest” as well that might show up better in search. Keep promoting your events outside of SL as well as in. I know that doesn’t really answer your question, but the true answer is you can’t effectively do this as it is now.
Has anyone figured out how to deselect a prim? It’s driving me CRAZY!
It is buggy, but in the meantime you can hold shift and click it, or click on the sky (don’t ask my why that works).
Thanks Gianna, I wrote a short post about events but you have some great ideas in here.
Personally I dislike viewer two because it wont even work for me it just lags and crashes and messes my computer up, I can handle viewer one with high graphics so I don’t think it is that :S.
[...] Lab added requested features such as sculpted prims, voice, Second Life viewer 2.0, and users [...]