New SL Viewer 2.7.1, “With Improved Search and Real-Time Shadows

With all the hype about SL8B, it was easy to miss the news of the latest version of the official viewer being released. What do the Lindens have to say about it?

In the latest version of SL Viewer (2.7.1) released today, we’re introducing the new Search beta as the standard search technology that helps you find interesting people, places, events, items for sale, and other things to make your inworld experience more fun, collaborative, and meaningful.

They talked about “Enhanced Classified Listings,” “sorting features” that enabled residents flexibility in search for example searching for someone by either their user name or display name, and “featured land listings” for “quick links to available properties.” They’ve also “added a few subtle, but helpful, usability enhancements ... based on resident feedback.” They did remind readers that, “SL Viewer Search is still in beta and we continue to smash bugs, tweak relevance, add features, and optimize it for international Residents.”

They mentioned one other improvement:

You might have noticed the cool log-in screen images with shadows that give them greater dimensionally and lifelike feeling. Now, you can have them too. This version of the SL Viewer introduces dynamic lighting for multiple local lighting sources, as well as high quality real-time shadows from the sun or moon. And, it’s easy to enable. In the SL Viewer’s Advanced mode, choose Me > Preferences, go to the Graphics tab, click the Advanced button, and just check Lighting and Shadows.

But of course, “If your graphics card can’t support this option, then it won’t be available.”

Yours truly can’t use Viewer 2, at least not the latest versions. Checking the forums, threads such as “Viewer 2.7.1 Search page never loads” and “Crashing after update,” suggests other residents are having trouble logging in as well.

So what do you the readers have to say? How much improved are Search and Shadows?

To view the official blog post, Click Here.