Thursday, January 13, 2011

Grrrr / Every Time I install SecondLife V2.x on my Windows Box it TRASH's My 1.x TPV setting's and other Extremely Annoying Flaws

Well this particular issue, has just about driven me over the brink, with  my disgust for V2. And I can not place the  blame fully on anyone. It all started with the new Display names protocol for handling SL user name's. Seems they are handled a bit differently then the legacy 1.x series JayR.Cela vs. JayR_Cela  a flaw that seems to stem from the now defunct SnowGlode project, and the screwball Display Names fiasco now plaguing us with ludicrous and idiotic forms of self flattery, and inane childlike expressionism.

 An Inside source that worked on this portion of the project mentioned to me, he foresaw the potential problem's with regard to longtime residents, that have huge friends lists with extensive logged IM and Chat conversations, developed over the years. I don't know about you, but i have well over 250 long time associates accumulated from over the past 5 and 1/2 years that I like to remain in contact with from time to time. It may be several months that go by before we have conversations regarding various issues again. And it has alway's been a wonderful feature to simply be able to at least recall our last conversation within a readily available chat logg, when i receive or place an IM with them. Even if the last time we had communication was 6 months prior, I was always able to pick up from where we last left off. Because the implementation of Display Names introduced a new protocol in the way logg files are handled, and despite my inside source's constant objections. the  LL powers that be, decided to not include any form of backward compatibly with the old format. Sheesh !!!!

Scenario / I have 3 computers all set up as dual boot Windows / Linux machines, all with separate hard drives.

 hd0 is partitioned as follows: WinXP C:\MBR & Win Swap File 4.0 Gig ~D:\ is SLLogg and Cache files folders for various SL viewers, (I regularly test for evaluation purposes) 15 Gig ~ E:\is used for all my Program file installation folders and other things 300 or greater Gig F:\ is used for backup purposes.

hd1a is my second physical HD with  4.0 gig used as the Linux Swap partition ~ hd1b contains my main Linux OS partition. I keep all my various Logg and Cache files located on the Windows D:\ drive

This does not matter because Linux will read NTFS files quite well, once you mount the drive, and wha-laa!  I can log into my SL  Linux client, mount the D:\ NTFS partition volume containing my SLCache and SLLogg file's from within Linux. and everything is still there. And my SLLogg's from previous conversation are still intact. with any 1.x series viewer.  However this does not seem to be the case when using the SL V2 client, Linux nor Windows, try as I might / no matter what setting I choose. I still come up blank when trying to access previous IM conversations. It does not matter V2 refuse's to read my SLLogg data. It see's them during setup, I can point to them, tell V2, HEY !! thats where my SLLogg files are located. But because of some jerk, brain dead decision, made by someone during the development of the Display Names feature. ( Some of this I can blame on Windows, and its wretched, tangled way of dealing with certain aspects of the overall Operating System's configuration methods ) But the same problem exists on Linux and Mac's also.

 In other words I can easily see that all my logg files from the past 5 years still reside on my D:\ Drive  I point V2 this  this  directory, and it is a complete and useless waste of time. SL 2.3 + will not find them.

The New Phoenix viewer also suffers from the same flaw....
unless you un-check "Append Date to Log Filename" option in the setup menu. Then every thing works as it is supposed too. My inside  source implies that the TPV's are at fault for not properly implementing the code. I say HOG WASH !!!! The Phoenix crew fixed a serious flaw ! To me this is a complete show stopper for the possibility of ever even considering to implement SL V2 into my daily routine.

Not only this annoyance, and I blame this on the TPV's and just shear laziness on their part. Each time I install a V2.x viewer onto a Windows machine, it promptly goes on its merry way overwriting all of my installed TPV settings. ( This is not the case when using Linux )

And another thing that bugs the crap out of me, why and the heck, can't I mute certain group IM Group chats in V2. Supposedly this much touted feature was announce with much bru-haa-laa in V2.3 - we are now at 2.4 / 2.5 Beta / SnowStorm 2.6 and the feature still remains broken. It works just fine in Phoenix, thank you very much :_)

I'm finished complaining about the convoluted, piece of crap Viewer2 User Interface design, I said this from day 1, and I will repeat it once again. It looks as if it was designed by a class of "Intro to Computer UI Design 101" High School students"

Viewer2 has only 2 saving graces #1 the ability to make outfits ( already been back-ported into several 1.x TPV's ) and #2 Media on a Prim ( which is still flaky at best ) When will the Lab finally wake up and just dump QuickTime, use Flash / like everyone else in the sane world does, or implement HTML5

I've had it up to hear with this piece of Junk !! Crap or get off the Pot  LL, and stop wasting peoples time !!

JayR Cela :((

2 comments:

Hitomi Tiponi said...

I've never had a problem with chat logs - but then I'm not a Linux user either.

JayR Cela said...

Hi there Hitomi / according to one of the Devs within the SnowStorm team, It does not matter what OS you are using, because the underlying name base format has been changed from User_Name to User.Name or vice-a-versa / don't remember now LOL :_) / he also said that he was very much against this decision not to include the legacy format compatibility during discussions about the implementation of the Display Names introduction.

Also my problem persist's on both Windows & Linux versions of V2.x since V2.3 Beta.

JayR :_)