EOTB: Linden Labs "Update on Recent Improvements"

At the close of February, Linden Labs posted on their blog a list of improvements they felt they made on the Grid recently, "We have recently released fixes that improve the user experience and performance. Here's a quick progress update on some of the projects we've been working on."

First on their list was the CHUI Beta Viewer, or Communications Hub User Interface. This project had several goals, such as bringing "all communication functions and conversation text into a single window," keeping IMs from being lost, and being able to view chat transcripts.

For more  information, DrFran Babcock reviewed the CHUI Viewer, and her article can be read here. There's also a thread available in the official forums.

Also on the list was Region Crossing, "We have made several improvements to region crossing that allow a smoother transition between regions, instead of the jerky transition some users experienced in the past." The Lab stated this feature was installed on the Grid on Jan 25, and claims "the number of reported teleport failures has dropped by 91%."

An announcement by RacerX Gullwing about this month's upcoming Cross-Sim Giant Snail Race mentioned the region crossing improvements. RacerX stated when an avatar is on a sim, information comes in not just about the region it's on but also the four adjacent ones. So when one enters a new sim, the information's already partially downloaded. RacerX felt this feature would save quite a few headaches for the cross-sim races.

Also, there was "a new version of Marketplace" released on Feb 5, "which adds new emails and provides the ability to opt out of each type of email. This will allow Merchants and Shoppers to be better informed about Marketplace activity," in addition to improving the reliability of email deliveries. Finally, an improvement aimed at Macintosh users: the Cocoa Project Viewer. It now has updates "to streamline development and improve viewer performance." It is available for download in the SL Wiki "Alternate Viewers" page. This viewer is not available for PCs.

The Lab promised further improvements soon, including a viewer made for content creators in mind.