Tech Talk 13

[Karten]

What Tech Talk 13
Date Friday January 8, 2010
Time 9:00 pm VRT (6:00 pm EST, 3:00 pm PST)
Place AW@4d 129.5n 129.5w 0.475m 0
Topic AW 5.0 after one month plus whatever else comes up
Moderator chrispeg/Karten

[DMC2U]

Looking forward to it .... as I have to report on "New Features" at this months Gatekeeper meeting .. Can we possibly cover some of the "Cool" ones?

[Talisan]

There were a dozen or more people at the meeting at different times and the meeting lasted for about 2 hours with about 2 more hours of chat afterward which was not related to the Tech Talk directly. I am in the process of editing the recording to amplify some speakers and remove pregnant pauses. I am also removing all the unrelated chat at the end.

log 19Kb zipped: unedited(8:49PM - 11:19PM VRT)
mp3 83Mb :heavily edited from about 2.5hrs down to 1.5hrs.

News from Chrispeg and AWI
1. The AW 5.0 browser features are pretty much final and we are going into a 6 month(ish) stability phase. If users find bugs it would be appreciated if they report them with the greatest detail and circumstance as possible so the browser can be made stable for the next news item. It was stated that minor features may still be added to the browser but that the development phase is complete.

2. A new cross-platform browser is in the planning stages with some demos being presented to management. The new browser is intended to be used on Windows, Macs, Unix hybrids, and some handheld operating systems. Also, a new rendering engine is being considered, but has not received final approval at this time. Although the rendering engine being considered was not named, it was said that it is a well known one in the field. Also mentioned, this new browser would be rebuilt from the ground up with little or no existing code from the current browser being used.

3. It was announced that Andras, one of our beloved bot and utility authors, will soon be officially employed by AWI as part of the Activeworlds Development Team. While many may have already thought he was due to his developing the Linux port of the world server, it will now be official.

4. Chrispeg has been "considering" adding LUA scripting commands as well as enveloping some SDK commands into action box commands(or similar) to allow non-bot programmers the chance to build bots into the building environment.

Bugs Reported
1. When selecting objects, the object properties dialog window will sometimes close on its own. Multiple people mentioned this and some people have it happen more often than others. There seemed to be a correlation to the size of the world to the frequency of the issue. If you have also been having this problem, please report it on the bug forum and please explain the circumstances of the event as best as you can. If you notice any patterns in the occurence this could lead to the issue being solved.

Requested Features
1. To be able to toggle on/off avatar names in the aw_3d pane.
2. Notification of missed invite requests
3. Ability to save the chat.log in a different format, such as RTF, XML or HTML in order to preserve the color and format of chat text.

[AbsoLute Monarch]

Oh wow, there's quite a bit of news there :O Regarding point 2, I wonder how long it takes before it goes from planning to actual development.

Also, congrats to Andras

[Baro]

Holy crap #2 is a big bit of news.

[PehJota]

OMG... Now I'm really upset I missed it (yet moreso thrilled at the news)! :O *downloads mp3 as fast as possible*

This new browser (cross-platform AND a new renderer? wow...) and the addition of Andras to the development team both sound awesome. Two great steps forward for Active Worlds in my opinion.

I mean, this pretty much just made my night lol.

[Karten]

Regarding the new browser, do not look for it anytime soon.
This was brought up and confirmed that it will take a lot of time and intensive programing work before it is even ready for in house testing, let along beta testing.
We are talking minimum of 6 to 9 months to that point probably, and much longer before ready for general release.
Even so, this IS a huge step for AW.

[Talisan]

mp3 168Kb: Best 10 second clip of the entire meeting.

[PehJota]

Originally Posted by Karten

This was brought up and confirmed that it will take a lot of time and intensive programing work before it is even ready for in house testing, let along beta testing.
We are talking minimum of 6 to 9 months to that point probably, and much longer before ready for general release.
Even so, this IS a huge step for AW.

Yeah, I understand that. Actually to be honest I was surprised to hear that it would only take 6+ months to get to a beta stage. I mean, it is a lot of work, and the current browser is the result of 15+ years of development.

And lol Talisan, that was funny.

[SW Chris]

A lot of that fifteen years has been recoding old stuff though.

Talisan, brilliant. Thank you for taking over recording duties. My new job has made me a lot less dependable on fridays. :\