Cool VL Viewer forum

I was wondering if it would be possible to add a few features from Emerald, regarding button placement?

1) Would it be possible to add a Radar button? I find this feature to be great when you're in a crowd and get an IM, making it quick and easy to find someone.
2) On Emerald, there is a button added on the bottom right with multiple pulldowns for Drawdistance, Bandwidth etc. I really like this as being on a slower DSL connection, jiggling the bandwidth slider back and forth helps things rez considerably faster. This little popup is good as it doesn't block out large parts of the screen like the Preferences window does.

The last feature I'd love to see added from Emerald to Cool SL Viewer is the ability to completely turn off your 'Show Look' at from being seen. I know you have it so you can turn off 20M + but completely being able to turn it off would be fantastic. It's the worst thing ever added to SL since it can be a huge drama thing with some people knowing you actually looked at them and I'd like nothing more than to be left out of that. God forbid you used them as a cam anchor while looking around. The horror!

Overall Henri, your viewer is fantastic. I get considerably better framerates with your viewer than any other. Well over twice what I'd get with Emerald, so if those few features were added, I'd never have to think about using another viewer again. Thank you

I already replied to this question in the forums: my opinion is that adding a 12th button to the toolbar might only increase the clutter and make some old timers rightfully pester about that new button which took the place of another they used to access via their "muscle memory" (i.e. without even looking where they click since their "muscles know" where the button normally is)... But you can quickly toggle the radar on and off via its shortcut key (CTRL ALT SHIFT R)...

Absolutely not... Your best bet is to let the slider for the bandwidth to the maximum accepted by the grid or your own Internet connection, whichever is the lowest. The bandwidth is then automatically throttled when/if needed via cooperation between the sim server and the viewer (there is no need to adjust it manually). Note that while a 8Mbps bandwidth setting is fine with SL, some OpenSim grids are not happy with too high a bandwidth and might require smaller ones to work properly (2Mbps or even 512Kbps: use whatever the grid admins tell you to use in their FAQ or HOWTO). This is because such "amateur" grids usually don't use QOS for their connections to Internet, and may end up with extreme queuing of packets and lag as a result. In any case, you don't need either to adjust manually the bandwidth when rezzing on such grids: just use the recommended value and stick with it.

As for the draw distance, it is available as a spinner in the camera controls, but the Cool SL Viewer is also capable to dynamically adjust the draw distance after login and TPs (simply activate the "Speed rezzing" setting), which makes adjusting it manually pretty useless too.

It's not good since it adds unnecessary clutter to the screen and makes the chat bar input line smaller...

The reasons why I won't implement total disabling are:

• If you disable "look at" messaging altogether, you avatar head stills and it looks like a robot in others' viewer (and they can then deduce you are trying to hide where you are looking at via such a feature).
• It is highly desirable to be able to interact with the avatars around you also via the mean of your avatar's focus: I often use this, camming on my partner's avatar so that my avatar looks at theirs. The choice of 20m as the limit (when that feature is enabled) was done purposely so that it corresponds to the chat distance, which is the normal intercation distance for avatars.
• I do not condom features that can be abused as a mean of spying others.

WHen your avatar is within 20m of theirs, people expect that you might interact with them and this is why I adopted this limit: I never had anyone complaining that I was looking at them from 20m or less away...

Thank you. The reason why the Cool SL Viewer is so much faster than Emerald is precisely because only the useful and reasonable features are implemented, and in a way that doesn't slow down everything (sims included). I code responsibly and always carefully consider the pros and cons of each new feature before releasing it... Some people may find it frustrating and prefer using "feature rich" (and thus laggy) viewers, but I prefer to keep the same policy as I always followed for the Cool SL Viewer, thus giving a different choice to people who value speed, responsibility, and respect of others.