On Sunday May 11th, the Firestorm team released Firestorm 4.6.5.40833. Given this release comes just two months after the 4.6.1 release, it does not have a huge raft of new shiny. What it does offer is a nice package of new features and updates, together with a fair few bug fixes from both the Lab and the Firestorm team.

As always, the complete list of changes, together with attributions, can be found in the release notes, and I refer readers to that document for specifics on all contributors, FIRE JIRA links, etc. The following is intended as an overview of some of the more major / interesting changes, updates and fixes to be found in the release.

The Before We Begin Notes

Downloading – a reminder : while the Firestorm download server performed perfectly for the 4.6.1 release, please remember it is the only server handling downloads. So in the unlikely event you encounter delays or a slow download, please be patient / consider re-trying a little later

: while the Firestorm download server performed perfectly for the 4.6.1 release, please remember it is the only server handling downloads. So in the unlikely event you encounter delays or a slow download, please be patient / consider re-trying a little later Version blocking : Jessica informs me that there are no plans to block any older Firestorm versions following this release

: Jessica informs me that there are plans to block older Firestorm versions following this release Installation: as always, a completely clean install of the viewer is recommended.

Lab Updates

This release sees Firestorm reach parity with LL’s 3.7.4 code-base, and add a number of fixes and updates from the Lab, including (but not limited to):

Vivox 4.6.x updates

Advanced Lighting Model can no longer be enabled for Mac OSX 10.6.8 as Mac OSX 10.6.8 is no longer supported by Linden lab (The ability to enable ALM on 10.6.8 was removed because it caused rendering glitches when enabled)

as Mac OSX 10.6.8 is no longer supported by Linden lab (The ability to enable ALM on 10.6.8 was removed because it caused rendering glitches when enabled) Fix for huge amounts of memory being used & viewer crashing when opening large chat histories from the conversation log



Fix for BUG-5537, introduced as a result of changes made to the avatar_lad.xml for Fitted Mesh. These changes caused a non-rigged mesh attachment object worn on the chest attachment point shape to look fine in the wearer’s view whereas anyone else it would appear as if the wearer’s chest was showing through the clothing item

Fix for crash when editing certain rigged meshes at high altitude

Fix for crash when uploading corrupt .DAE file (BUG-4961)

(BUG-4961) Fix for BUG-997 ,terrain texture changes caused by changing texture elevation ranges or terraforming can not be seen until after relog or teleporting out and back to the region

Fix for a suspected thread race crasher in the FmodEx library .

A Note on Interest List Updates

The recent LL viewer-side interest list updates are not a part of the Firestorm 4.6.5 release. As noted elsewhere in this blog, the interest list code is a non-trivial merge due to the extent of changes included alongside of the core interest list updates. It’ll therefore take a little longer for this work to appear in Firestorm.

Building and Scripting Updates

Firestorm 4.6.5 see the Build options in Preferences revised, with two Build sub-tabs (Build 1 and Build 2) under Preferences > Firestorm.

Build 1 (above) contains the options for setting defaults for all newly created prims (size, settings, texture, permissions and pivot point) and the LSL pre-processor options.

The Build 2 sub-tab contains the six check-boxes (Save Scripts Edited from Inventory to Mono, Save Textures from Inventory to Disk as PNG Instead of TGA by Default, etc, which had been in the previous Build sub-tab). It also contains four new options.

The new options are:

Limit select distance (meters) – disallows selection of objects beyond the specified selection distance from your avatar

– disallows selection of objects beyond the specified selection distance from your avatar Limit drag distance (meters) – when enabled, this limits the translation distance of objects in a single operation of the translate tool (metres from start point)

– when enabled, this limits the translation distance of objects in a single operation of the translate tool (metres from start point) Constrain rotations to multiples of X degrees, when not using ‘snap to grid’ – all rotations via the rotation tool are constrained to multiples of this unit (degrees)

– all rotations via the rotation tool are constrained to multiples of this unit (degrees) Preview animations on own avatar during upload – when enabled, you can preview animations during the upload process on your own avatar instead of on the avatar dummy in the upload window.

Firestorm 4.6.5 also includes the following build related items:

An option to prevent avatar from turning to selected object when editing (Preferences > Move & View > Firestorm > Turn Avatar Towards a Selected Object)



A fix so that when previewing an animation for uploading it (in paused mode), moving the track of the slider will now correctly change the displayed frame of the animation.

Communications Updates

There are a number of new options for communications with this release, together with a number of fixes. The new features include:

An option to allow voice to connect in multiple viewer instances simultaneously (Preferences > Sound and Media > Voice Settings), allowing you to run voice on multiple viewer instances, and without seeing the connection warning pop-up message (shown right)

An option to hear voice equally from everyone, rather than being dependent upon either avatar position or camera placement. This is a useful addition for meetings, etc., where attendees may be located at difference distances from your avatar / camera position, thus impacting voice quality when they are speaking.



A new option has been added to enable the full profile of an avatar to be opened when clicking on an inspect SLurl (Preferences > Firestorm > General > Open Avatar Profile Directly When Clicking on its Name).

Fixes related to communications options include:

Fix for wrong enabled state of the voice call button in IM floater if friend state changes



The voice call option disabled in legacy profile gear menu at least if friends are offline



A new IM session no longer closes an open IM session floater if using separate IM windows

Chat history scrolling now works correctly

Show username setting (Preferences > General > Usernames) is now persistent after a relog

Nearby Chat Tab no longer is missing frequently in the Conversations floater after log-in

The last conversation no longer shows the wrong name when the panel is full



Removing an alias name in contact sets now works correctly

Options to remove a display name and alias name to the contact sets panel in the people panel.

Mac Cocoa Updates

Firestorm 4.6.5 addresses the following Mac Cocoa issues:

Pasting the buffer’s contents on Mac no longer appends garbage at the end (FIRE-12042)

(FIRE-12042) FIRE-12053, FIRE-12444)

Fix for the “sticky keys” bug on Mac ( FIRE-11930

Fix for “Can’t use the view transparent shortcut anymore” (FIRE-12064) – via LL



Improved logic for detecting Intel Iris GPUs when running in Windows on a Mac via Bootcamp ( FIRE-11968

Updated Mac OS X copyright notices (FIRE-13080)

Other Updates of Note

FmodEx updated to 4.44.32

OpenSSL updated to version 1.0.1g

Typing values in Phototools for shadow soften now works correctly

Image quality sliders are visible again in the Disk, Email settings and Flickr Settings tabs of the Snapshot floater

Firestorm LSL Bridge no longer detaches when taking off all avatar attachments

CTRL+W now correctly closes the active child floater and not the main floater

New buttons in Preferences > Network & Cache Clear Inventory Cache – clears the inventory cache, rather than the full cache Clear Browser Cache – clears the internal web browser cache



About Land updates: Counters added to the Access List and Banned List in the Access tab Teleport button added to the Options tab

New combat features: Avatar mark options have been added to the Firestorm radar – right-click on a name in the radar panel > Mark > select colour

Name tag color is overridden with the mark colour set on the Mini-map Tracking markers in combat feature are now drawn only for people in view



RLVa updates: Radar alerts are now properly handled in chat history when chat headers are enabled (includes a RLVa @shownames=n fix and fixes)

@shownames restrictions can no longer be circumvented via avatar pie/context menu



Sound Explorer (World > Sound Explorer) fixes and improvements : Sound Explorer now correctly stops logging sounds if the audio source gets removed The sound owner now properly shows if the name is not in cache Improve performance of Sound Explorer floater and dump LLDynamicArray that will be removed by LL soon The correct name is now added to the blacklist

: Installer updates and improvement (both 32-bit and 64-bit), including Windows installs blocked up to Windows Vista SP1

The z component in gtp command (Preferences > Firestorm > CmdLine 2 > gtp) now optional; the current avatar height is used if omitted

Movelock, Flight Assistant and publishing radar tag are now account specific

Movelock now has a Preferences option to lock and unlock position after stopping or starting movement (Preferences > Move & View > Movement > Lock & Unlock Position After Starting or Stopping Movement



Removal of the Include Location option from the SL Share Facebook photo upload function to comply with Facebook’s requirements (via LL)



OpenSim Updates

Kitely entry in the Grid Manager updated ( updated ( FIRE-13222

not seeing surnames in name tags in OpenSim grids fixed ( Issue withfixed ( FIRE-13347

LSL Bridge refactored to better work with OpenSim

Fix for issue of being limited to 42 groups on an OpenSim grid (FIRE-12229)

Fix for “The notification called ‘NoVoiceConnect-GIAB’ was not found in notifications.xml” error on Avination grid ( FIRE-13130 ).

Feedback

As can be seen from this article, there are a lot of fixes included in this release, as well as some nice feature updates and additions, all of which make it worthwhile updating.

I’ve been using the 4.6.5 release since it first became available to testers and previewers, and have had no problems at all with it. As one might expect, performance is on a par with 4.6.1, and equal to other recent v3 viewer releases.

All told, and given it is just two months since Firestorm pushed out a really significant release in terms of features and fixes, Firestorm 4.6.5 should have a lot in it to keep most people happy.

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