Jira » Ciaran Laval

CHUI Observations Another Example Of Collaboration

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Mar 022013

The CHUI issues are now coming to light thanks to Linden Lab implementing CHUI in the beta viewer, there are a couple of good Jira’s on CHUI:

The first issue deals with an issue whereby when you tear a chat window off from Chui, typing into the torn off window results in the main communications window having a lot of wasted space, this is definitely true. The screen space is indeed wasted in this scenario.

The second issue is a list of a general observations and is a very good Jira. There are a number of issues here, and presented in a good fashion.

On top of that there are a couple of threads in the forum on Chui:

Both threads show pro’s and cons of the CHUI features and there’s some good input there, again we see good collaboration.

I Would Cocoa If The Project Viewer Worked

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Mar 022013

In their recent blog post on improvements to Second Life, Linden Lab point to an interesting new viewer for Mac users, the Cocoa Project Viewer. However, as Mikki Miles points out in a post on the official forums, the current release of this project viewer does not work.

However, if you’ve used the project viewer before, then there is hope, because in yet another example of how collaboration is a good thing, Siona Qinan posts a workaround:

I found a fix on another forum (a post from “Eris” on a forum that covers Second Life and the whole Universe). Apparently the arguments.txt file is bad – replacing it with one from an earlier build did the trick for me.

Right click, “Show Package Contents”, open Resources folder and replace the argument.txt file.

Unfortunately I don’t have an earlier build, but for those who do have an earlier build, here’s a way of using the new cocoa viewer release.

Enough With The Jira

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Feb 242013

Jira WEB-467 : Cannot search sim in maps.secondlife.com, I have this issue, I can confirm I have this issue, I can even add extra comments suggesting it’s a landing point height issue and ask other reporters whether their landing point is above 700 metres ….. well no I can’t add that information, no I can’t comment, no I can’t add a bloody thing.

Enough with this, if this is how Linden Lab want to play it, more power to their elbow, I’m through with it. I’ve had enough with this lack of co-operation with Linden Lab, it’s tiresome, frustrating and not good for my blood pressure and I’ve certainly had enough of trying to get Linden Lab to see sense over this, good luck with their useless, nerfed, ineffective, bug reporting procedure.

Will No One Rid Us Of This Troublesome Jira?

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 8 Responses »

Feb 152013

Gadget Portal started a thread in the official forums: New Jira System – Not Fixing Problems. In the post Gadget highlights the problem of not being able to comment on an existing Jira, an old one relating to group chat. As Gadget couldn’t comment, he raised a new Jira on the same issue, which was then closed as it’s a duplicate of the older issue, on which he can’t comment!

I’m sorry, I’m going to have to be blunt here, but this is yet another example of why the new Jira is a steaming pile of cack. Within the comments in that forum thread, besides me pointing out the new Jira is a pile of cack, we see posts from others who are so unimpressed with the new Jira that they are reluctant to report bugs. Let’s look at that again, people are so unhappy with how the new Jira works, they are reluctant to report the damn bugs. This is not a surprise because I had an issue today that sent my blood pressure rising merely at the thought I’d have to engage with this awful Jira system, fortunately I was able to sort the issue without having to go through the pain and agony of the Jira.

Is this really want Linden Lab want? A bug reporting system that people are reluctant to use despite being fully aware of how to use said system? I’m not going to pretend that the old Jira system was great, because it wasn’t. The new Jira system has one big advantage over the old one, it’s far easier to report a bug now because they’ve taken away lots of options on which category to file a bug under. However, the disadvantages are massive. Reporters are no longer informed when an issue is resolved being a massive disadvantage.

Is Niran Really Going To Call It A Day On His Viewer?

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 4 Responses »

Feb 072013

I’ve never used Niran’s viewer, I can remember looking at it before and realising my PC didn’t really meet the recommended specs. I’ve read good things about it and I hear it’s good for photography and Machinima, hence why it’s a viewer that performs on a higher spec kit, some of the screenshots I’ve seen are beautiful, although it should be noted that beautiful screenshots can be achieved on other viewers too.

There’s nothing wrong with a viewer aimed at higher specs, the same as there’s nothing wrong with a viewer aimed at lower specs, indeed this is part ofthe beauty of third party viewer development. The current recommended specs for Niran’s viewer are:

CPU: Quad Core (3.000 mhz upwards)

GPU: NVidia Geforce GTX 460 and higher

RAM: 6GB

OS: Windows 7 64bit Edition

However it seems that Niran is thinking of jacking it all in because of an issue related to a Jira post by the looks of it. Niran’s post: How to effectively destroy Niran and the linked Jira Open-162 tell a tale of woe of someone who went to a lot of time and effort to analyse, report and propose fixes for an issue, only to be shrugged off in a very blunt manner.

Marketplace Unveils New Email Preferences

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Feb 072013

CommerceTeam Linden has revealed in a forum post that new email preferences are available on The Second Life Marketplace, some long overdue ones relating to reviews being posted included, but other positive changes have been unveiled too. There’s also evidence that you shouldn’t stop believing in the Jira because issues dating back to 2010, indeed one almost to the day in 2010 have been addressed. The Jira sucks quite a lot more these days, but if your blood pressure can take it, keep filing those Jiras. Quite frankly after a day like I’ve had at work, my blood pressure really isn’t taking well to the new Jira, so it’s best that I take deep breaths and stay away from it.

CommerceTeam Linden is a Linden of few words, but does provide a link to the right place to get the skinny on the lowdown, namely, the release notes. The new changes include:

An email to the recipient when a redelivery of an item they should have received occurs.
An email to the merchant when a redelivery of an item in their store occurs.
An email of any change to revenue distributions on a listing are made: addition and removal.
An email to the recipient of a revenue distribution when a sale occurs.
An email when an item is unlisted or blocked as a result of a flag.
An email when a review is added, removed, commented on or flagged and removed (all to the merchant).

Jira Requires Some Changes

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 6 Responses »

Jan 272013

I’ve just reluctantly filed a Jira issue on something fairly trivial, but something that’s not working correctly for me. I say reluctantly because I still find the changes to the Jira in September, extremely disappointing. I actually pondered whether to both filing a report because the whole process is now so disappointing. The only real improvement I see is that it’s now easier to report an issue because they’re mostly filed under the Bug report project but beyond that, it’s an unsatisfactory experience.

One area where it is partcularly disappointing is that you no longer even get feedback on your report that the issue has been fixed, to quote the September blog post:

“Once a Bug reaches the “Accepted” or “Closed” status, it will not be updated. You can watch the Release Notes to see when and if a fix has been released for your issue.”

I’m sorry, but that’s a really poor approach to something which is a two way street, people take time out to report an issue, they should certainly be alerted that a fix has been released from their initial report, to not do so is really poor form and is one of the issues that caused me to ponder whether or not I should bother reporting the current issue I’ve observed.

2013 – Hopes, Wishes And Forthcoming Improvements

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 5 Responses »

Dec 312012

Usually at this time of year, someone will post some predictions for the forthcoming year, although that seems to be light on the ground this year, it’s always a bit of fun to see those predictions and see what transpires. However predictions aren’t for me, instead I’ll post some hopes and wishes and look at what may happen.

On The Horizon

On the horizon we have some useful looking improvements coming to us from Linden Lab. Project shining leads the way and is already well under production. This includes server side baking via project sunshine, which will be a pain point for some as older viewers such as Phoenix aren’t coming along for the ride but it should mean improvements to how textures load and improved performance. This is also alongside the new http-Library project which is already being used in the beta viewer.

This comes on the back of Linden Lab improving hardware during 2012, as stated on the blog post about 2012: “in 2012 we made the single largest capital investment in new server hardware upgrades in the history of Linden Lab”

So we should see the results of these hardware and software improvements during the coming months. We should also see the emergence of the open source efforts to improve graphics rendering performance such as the use of normal and specular maps during 2013.

Then we should see more work done on the good building practices wiki pages, which is turning into a bloody good resource.

Second Life expanding to Steam is still on the horizon. Changes have been made to the beta viewer, including a create account option, so it seems to be getting closer.

2012 Reviewed – July To September

Second Life, Virtual Worlds No Responses »

Dec 262012

July

Nalates Urriah informed us of a new informal user group, the content creation improvement user group. The user group still appears on the wiki, but is not listed under the official user groups. The meetings were chaired by Geenz Spadz, Siddean Munro and Oz Linden. More on some of the aims of this group would come with an August announcement.

AvaCon announced that due to changes in terms and conditions from Linden Lab they had declined to organise the Second Life Community Convention. Fleep Tuque posted a personal opinion on the matter in which she suggested the organisers had been chewed out for not producing an event like Blizzcon. There were similarities to this year’s Blizzcon, that didn’t take place either!

The Linden Endownment For Arts announced that they were going to commence round three of grants. These allow arts themed ventures to use twenty regions that have been donated by Linden Lab for five to six months.

Linden Lab announced that the first set of advanced creator tools had been launched, these were Teleport Agent and Temporary Attachment.

Relay For Life’s themed lap weekend was on Saturday July 14th with a host of participants and entertainers assisting. Overall this year’s relay for life in Second Life raised USD$375,385.

Jira Changes Are Hurting Collaboration

Second Life, Virtual Worlds 2 Responses »

Dec 212012

One thing not mentioned in Linden Lab’s look back at 2012 was the change to the Jira. Now it would be easy to rant and rave about why this was a poor decision, but I’ll try to be objective and try to understand what Linden Lab are trying to achieve here.

The one issue I can see with the old way the Jira worked is the amount of noise, with the new Jira there has certainly been a reduction in noise, because except in cases such as the CHUI Project, where people can comment on other people’s Jira’s, we largely end up with Jira’s where only a select few residents, the reporter and Lindens can read and comment on.

Less people commenting will in some cases make it easier to identify the issue, but it also hits collaboration, where people with good feedback, are unable to provide it in the original report. Reading someone else’s comments, can help focus your own comments in important areas.

I recently created a Jira, it got imported to a project that I couldn’t see, so in effect, even as the reporter, I couldn’t see it. This was fixed, but then I couldn’t comment on it. The only way I could update my report was by editing my own report. Now by this stage I could see other Jira’s in this project, so I was able to reference another report, the reporter on the other report then referenced my Jira to update their own report. We had collaboartion between two reporters.

Now to be fair to Linden Lab here, they explained to me that there was an issue with editing permissions in this project, this was very politely explained to me by a Linden and I appreciate that they took the time to inform me about the issue.

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