From the ashes… the Phoenix has risen.
My name is Jessica Lyon. My goal during my time with the Emerald Project, was always to give the users what they want. That goal has never and will never change. I’m very happy to announce, it continues…
A few days ago, I assembled a team of developers to work on a new viewer. Some who were originally Emerald developers, some who were not. All are respected reputable residents in the SecondLife Community. The goal was simple, to provide users with what they want and do it transparently.
I’m am very proud to announce the launch of the Phoenix Viewer. This project, has started off simple, with it’s initial release of a safe clone of the Emerald viewer. Users want Emerald features, you shall have them. We have big plans to expand to the Snowstorm project as well. We have already applied for the TPVD, to which we have no doubt we will be accepted in a timely fashion. We have already started making in world groups for support, (Phoenix Viewer Support), beta testing etc. There is much more to do… however…
This Viewer is ready for use by you, right now!
For this project, I insist on, and everyone on this team insists on 100% public transparency in EVERYTHING we do. We have already established a public IRC Dev chat, public repo and are working on much much more.
Our developers are; (in alphabetical order), Dakun Flux, Dimentox Travanti, Jessica Lyon, Kitty Barnett, LordGregGreg Back, Techwolf Lupindo, Tonya Souther, Vortex Saito, Wickman Gibbs, with more to come.
Our Lead Developers are: Dimentox Travanti, LordGregGreg Back, Techwolf Lupindo, Tonya Souther.
Ed Merryman will be leading our support team: Aleia Sapphire, bee Baroque, Damian Zhaoying, Ed Merryman, Marybeth Oceanlane, Mindy Spiritor, Nisa Maverick, PixelProphet Lane, Toy LaFollette, Vortex Saito, Whirly Fizzle, Wolfspirit Magic.
Our website is still in progress, however we have up the required links. http://phoenixviewer.com .
More information here http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/wiki
Downloads. http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/wiki/Betadownloads .
Public repo http://www.phoenixviewer.com:3000/projects/phoenixviewer/repository
I am very pleased and excited about this project, and I hope that you will be too.
Sincerely,
Jessica Lyon and the Phoenix Viewer Development Team.
Jessica Lyon's Blog 
YAY!!! thank you so much!
Is there a way to contact the tech support for Emergence? I tried to download it and received an error message. Thanks. Jane Fetiocci
lol compile it yourself
Do you have the same problem with initializing message ?
But well good news to hear that and good luck for the new team.
The Phoenix never die.
@Jane Fetiocci:
Emergence was pretty much a pre-release for Phoenix, it is gone because it is now called Phoenix, completely safe and trustworthy.
The sole dev who cloned the safe Emerald and dubbed it Emergence is now a key dev on the Phoenix team. Enough said.
Good to hear. Will download and try it out. Already on Emergence.
This is very encouraging news, Jessica. I wish you every success with this.. making the viewer Emerald should have been, I hope.
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At the moment, the Phoenix homepage file is named “Untitled Document”… folks who bookmark might be confused later when they can’t find it in their list. Can someone on your team change that today? Thanks! (you can delete this comment, I just didn’t know how else to contact you)
God I love you!!!!!!!!
Glad you decided to go on and I wish you all all the luck in the world, I am gonna download it now!!!!
I think this is some of the best news to come from the whole #Emeraldgate fiasco. I wish you all the best of luck and will be watching this project closely.
“Good luck. We’re all counting on you.” – Airplane
Surely you didn’t just quote Airplane.
Best news I could hope to hear. Brilliant.
Congratulations! This is the happy end that everyone was hoping for.
Best wishes and good luck for your new project!
Hi Jessica 🙂
Really glad to hear you are thinking of expanding to the Snowstorm project. I really think this is the way you and your *responsible* devs should be looking to focus.
Viewer 2.x is the future, that’s an unavoidable fact whether people like it or not. So lets get some great code and ideas contributed towards it via Snowstorm to ensure that as many SL users as possible get a great viewer brought together from the collective minds of *all* devs – both LL and external.
I’m (perhaps one of the few!) who quite likes Viewer 2.x (although I’m using Kirsten’s variant). However, there are certainly features of (ex)Emerald that I miss. What I really want to see is a viewer that uses the 2.x interface and features sensibly, giving people the ability to tailor it to their needs as much as possible, along with some great functionality items. I really think you guys could help make this happen.
I appreciate that some people just want the old look and feel and I guess this is where you will be focussing with Phoenix? I think such people are a little too resistant to change, but I won’t deny them the right to have that look and feel if they want! I just hope you are also able to contribute your expertise to those who want the new look and feel.
Anyway – good luck with your endeavours and please do all you can to make sure the ‘rogue’ element doesn’t creep back in again 🙂
Here’s hoping they *don’t* go with the Viewer 2 interface…unless they continue to manage a Viewer 1 interface client.
V2 is the worst UI I have seen in years.
Suella
I hate to sound like an apoligist for a reactionary element, but the simple facts are that the V2 codebase does not run well on older and less top end PCs, plus it’s functionality is quite honestly badly designed. You must be…ooh…the third or fourth persona I’ve seen who actually likes V2.
Not everyone is flush enough or geeky enough to have a brand new or even less than 12 month old PC.
If you are saying that SL is only for Geeks, I’ll take issue with you. One of the best parts of Emerald (and I’m sure it will continue in Pnoenix, since it was in Emergence too) was that it was useable by folks with less than top-end PCs and maybe less than perfect faculties.
I apologise for my typos. I was in the wrong queue when they handed out fingers.
WWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTG, Congrats and a big thank you!
Thumbs up! Woot!
Wonderful news, congratulations to the whole team! Love the logo, very very cool. Now if I can just get to the download site amidst the rush 😉
Well done Jessica – this should mean an improved viewer that everyone can support. All the best with this.
Hi Jessica…The links do not appear to be working 😦
This link works..however…
http://www.phoenixviewer.com/
….some of the links above are not working…. to the beta etc.
….but apart from that very encouraging and I watch with interest.
I’m up and running!! Kudos — thank god you didn’t name it JADE – Just Another Damn Emerald 🙂
Congratulations Jessica, and all the team. Best of luck with it.
Want to restore trust?
Use Real Names. The whole team. Along with transparency, I am sure that a huge percentage of the community wants to see accountability. That’s something Real Names can help with. It would help get things off on the right foot.
Good Luck! Glad to see the bird.
Transparency = Good
Real Names = Bad
I’m sure most developers get IM’d far to often than necessary. Let’s not drag all of that over into their RL contact information as well.
Sorry, I cant agree. Most successful Open Source projects go by real names. I can dredge up 20+ years of history if you’d like. There’s some lingering trust issues, and so this is ever more relevant in this case.
Take the case of pushing to use FireFox within some company. Some IT manager is going to ask “ok, so who wrote it?”. They want some sense of accountability. Same with Phoenix. There are going to be decision makers who want to see real live names, or they will say “no, nyet, nein”.
Very true; however I’m speaking in terms of non-corporate entities.
I just know the “standard level” of user in Second Life tends to need lots of help with lots of things and they do like to ask a lot of questions (which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong).
But I would rather the development team be able to focus on development instead of logging into SL, IMs fully capped and spammed to Hell with ncs…all asking the same three questions. Then, logging out to see their Gmail is full of emails asking the same three questions. Then logging into their facebook account to see 1000 new friend requests…and messages from users asking the same three questions.
It’s nice to have a support staff, don’t get me wrong. But (generally), a “new” user is going to go to whomever they feel will have the correct answer for the question in the least amount of time possible; Development.
Lingering trust issues, I can understand. However your any issues of trust should be directed towards the little piggies who caused said distrust: Skills, ph0x, Fractured, Discrete. These are the well known griefers who have done nothing but cause drama in Second Life for a great many years now.
I’ve never seen or heard of any trust issues come up about Jessica, LGG or Dimentox. But then, to each their own. 🙂
I totally agree with Daniel Smith, for me as user it sounds just ridicoulus and totally distrustful that developers of a software that access to my personal REAL informations (as number of ID and credit card) is presented under SecondLife names. A SL name says nothing to me, and in case I really need support I don’t care about the possibility to IM those avatars, I want that real persons as developers take the real responsability about their work. Also because for sure they hope this development could become a corporate entity, I seriously doubt that they work on this viewer for hobby. I personally wont install a software developed by “SL avatars”. Remember that behind the illusion of a imaginary life, SL is the most unreliable world I ever known.
Bravo! 🙂
Please publish the sourcecode corresponding to the binaries before someone says you’re violating the GPL license.
Anyway…
way to go!
Pingback: Und wie der Phönix aus der Asche… « Bart in SL
btw… before you get too far with the Phoenix name.. this was a problem for Firefox:
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox
Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Originally titled Phoenix, it was renamed because of trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird free database software project
If it’s an issue where you need to do a name change, easier now than later 😉
Then they better try and find another name for the legendary bird pffft
Well, I suggested at one point that they name it Ouroboros, seeing as this is not so much a rise from the ashes as another change in an eternal cycle.
That’s a good point Daniel. I’ve passed on your comment to someone I know in the team.
I think it is great that you are going to pick up and carry on. I do have to admit though i am a bit hesitant to try it. I am not trying to beat a dead horse here and not that i don’t trust Jessica either. But since this is at first based of off Emerald code and is a clone really, how can those of us that do not compile and know what to look for in code, be sure that all of the things that Phox and others installed at not in it? Like i said, i am not saying Jessica is not trustworthy, but in light of things that happened, i just want to be as sure as possible of what i am using on the grid is not doing things against LL policy.
The bad code was in a file named emkdu.dll. It was contained in the root folder that the client (Emerald) installed at.
If you’re concerned still, go to the Phoenixs’ root directory and delete their (copy of LL’s own file) llkdu.dll.
Then copy the llkdu.dll file that LL provides with their viewer into the Phoenix viewer.
For those who don’t understand code or how to read it, you’ll have to wait for someone to try and dumb it down for the rest of the class. I am incapable of dumbing things down in a way that doesn’t sound insulting to people.
Ok i do understand about the emkdu and the fact that llkdu is LLs own version. I know what happened with in the code of the emkdu and it’s removal ultimately solves that issue. But what about any other code, say like, the Channel spoofing? I am not saying things like that are in this “version” but really is there a way for those of us who do not read code to tell if these or some other nasty things, that might have been added as “revenge” , are not in there. Or at least some kind of solid assurance. I am not trying to rain on the parade here, frankly I was supporter of the Emerald project for a long time, and will with this too. If i can be reasonably, no not LL type of “reasonably”, sure it is in no way malicious, intentionally or not.
i tried to copy the llkdu file from a ll viewer and paste it in the Phoenix viewer.. but it wont work.. in the about thing it keeps showing the openjpeg file
So to recap, Emerald were forbidden the use of either kdu.dll out of concerns they were closed source and in breach of the GPL, a standard which all other third party viewers are presumably exempt from? It seems to me “Anonymous” that if there were any end user concerns over any developer’s use of the kdu that these should include Linden Lab’s ability to employ its closed source nature as a breach of the GPL subjectively to clients they might have a problem with. Also, this is licensed code, and its inclusion as part of any release it was not licensed for is in breach of the agreement between Kakadu and the licensee.
Linden Labs don’t appear concerned about it any longer now that Emerald is out of the picture and appear content for the time being to let ALL their Third Party Compliant Viewers the use of this non-GPL compliant software. So “Yay” for faster loading textures across the grid and “Yay” for all of us, the Good Guys whose previous observance of The Rules may be rested since the Wicked Witch is now well and truly dead. At least until someone else comes along that we have a problem with.
I proudly use Emerald (where allowed to) and I proudly use Phoenix. I don’t need any variant of the kdu.dll to do it and I openly scoff at anyone who would decry its use based on criteria they suspend when it comes to their own personal benefit.
There’s something else that bears a mention too Anonymous. Of the Phoenix installs I have put on my system to date, all of them were provided to me from a trusted source (ie: the Phoenix site) and not a single one has deployed either the emkdu or the llkdu and the ONLY person who has instructed me on its inclusion is you.
Might it be proper to ask what your interest in all this is and where you are getting your Phoenix installs from?
My god !
You made my day happy !!!!!!!!!!!!
Jessica, i love you so much !!!!!
And you made the day happy for a bunch of people !!!!!
Kewl! Will Emergence being folding into Phoenix? (One less project to keep track of. 😉 )
Jessica —
Will the new viewer have multi-grid and hypergrid support?
(For example, hypergrid landmarks, ability to log into your choice of grid at startup.)
Also, will you fix the 4,096 bug? Currently, you can’t jump more than 4096 regions in any direction with any SL viewer — and many OpenSim grids stretch across larger distances. In addition, private grids can be located anywhere at all, and jumping from one private grid to another today requires that you know its coordinates, so that you can make an intermediate jump (or jumps) to get to it.
Thanks!
— Maria Korolov
Editor, Hypergrid Business
Saw something like this coming. I knew people shouldn’t have been freaking out…
This is excellent news, and I’m glad that you didn’t let the follies of the few ruin the project.
awesome! Downloading!
Hurray!!
Yay LGG! xD
Well, yay for a new viewer anyway. 😛
One feature I’d love to see in the new viewer is a nice Pastrami sammich!
Can we have that please????
Thanks,
Swift
Been to your Phoenix Download link foe Windows and partway through fails.
Tried 3 times.
I downloaded the files, but it says the set up files are corrupted. whys that?
Sigma, that’s what I got.
Try redownloading. I got a broken archive first time round as well – perhaps the servers are overloaded.
I downloaded it w/out any problems, however some RL friends of mine downloaded it and Norton popped up it’s ugly head and said it had a virus..they tried 3 times and on different computers. I scanned mine w/ AVG Free and it came up with nothing..including MS Essentials as well. I’m glad they are putting something out there for us to use!
Congratulations on the resurrecting this project. Many of us love emerald features that the other viewers did not provide. I’ll be downloading this to give it a run and hope you get the TPV approval soon.
Yes, I am a happy camper! 😀 😀 😀
Funny thing is, I had said I wasn’t going to install Emergence, because it was a one-shot release that wasn’t going to be updated. Ever. Then it turns out the program WAS going to be updated… so late last night, just before heading to bed, I installed it, but didn’t log onto SL with it yet (so I could quickly as possible turn on local chat logging after I got logged in…) (which would have to be done after I logged in under my usual viewer, to catch up on all the accumulated announcements and stuff, first…)
And now, today, Phoenix Viewer comes out. Heh! I’ve just downloaded it and will install it as soon as I post this. I guess Emergence just got rendered irrelevant on my machine before I even got to use it! (Giggles)
Anyway, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!
is there a way to get a Phoenix viewer tagline for the SL forums?
just used it for the first time and love it. its faster than emerald and has all the bells and whistles, except the tag color… big whoop.
keep up the excellent work.
Way to go, i thought there was a hidden message in the emerald log in screen.
Great, i’ve downloaded and installed it, ran it, spent 5 mins configuring it, then it crashed.. i opened it again, spent another 5 minutes re-configuring it as it didn’t save all my options previously and it… crashed again… i’ve uninstalled it and i’ll be sticking to my previous choice until something more stable eventuates.
Let’s hope that previous choise isn’t Emerald, LL will have that blocked here in the next 2 weeks.
Unless it was the “recent” release of Emerald that ph0x made. You know the one that circumvents LL’s policies completely and is almost a guarenteed banhammer if they catch you using it?
No, it’s actually Emergence and i’ve found that build to me more stable then any of the previous Emeralds and Pheonix.
Really good news for everyone. I wish you all success.
I knew someone would pick up the ball and run with it. Obviously you have a road ahead to rebuild trust with some users, but this is a very good start. Best of luck to you all.
Now this is good news. I protested on behalf of emerald for months against various trolls, but the actions of others could not be condoned. And seeing some of the names on this list… esp Dimetox.
You guys need anything including another webhead for getting the website done, let me know.
Can I see I really love you? Oh yes I do. Ty so much.!!!!
This is great news, and I look forward to using Phoenix! I like seeing trustworthy folks like you, Kitty, LGG, and others working on this viewer. However, after the Emerald debacle, I am in ‘trust, but verify’ mode.
I’ve hit the wiki and source repository links and they both seem to land back at the Phoenix splash page. I’d like to grab the source myself and poke at it, and attempt to build it, but I can’t grab the source.
Can you verify that it’s not just my end with the issue, and if so, please fix this as soon as possible?
Thanks, and I wish you lots of success. I look forward to using Phoenix.
Thank you! I Love the new logo and viewer name BTW! -Sni
Jessica, there’s a typo in the Phoenix Viewer installer: at ‘Select Start Menu Folder,’ the folder name is misspelled (‘PhoeinxViewer’).
Just 30 minutes until I can go home and d/l this … 30 minutes … 30 minutes … okay, I need a transporter and a time machine.
luck you I still have an hour….*watches the clock slowly tick down the minutes*
Great news! Downloading it now 🙂
Congratulations! And a job well done. I’ve downloaded it and am in heaven. BIG thank you to you and the entire Pheonix team!! 😀
Totally knew this was coming. Even told a few other people it would. . . Even guessed the name correctly, lol
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IS Phoenix going to be for Intel Macs only? What about those of us with PPCs who have been stranded by the loss of Emerald? Please, pretty please. Cherries, sugar, and whipped cream on top!!
Link to repo just points to the main page, as do all the other links.
This seems to be the repo url http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/
Might want to fix that 😛
This GREAT news, and I wish you the best of luck. Can’t wait to get home and download the beta.
Pingback: Out of Emerald’s Ashes… Phoenix Viewer « Nalates' Things & Stuff Blog
Congratulations on the reorganization and revival of the team, Jessica. Your leadership speaks volumes.
— Kalel Venkman
Pingback: The Phoenix Arises – Emerald by a different name « Becca's Blog
I am dissapointed that at this time that I can not use Phoenix on my non Intel mac.
A very fitting name, and once I can get home, I am downloading it. Jessica, I trust you and LGG, and I know that you will make an awesome viewer, one that will put all others to shame……*gives you and Phoenix 2 thumbs up*
Awesome! Good Luck to you and your new venture. I trust that lessons have been learned. I await further updates eagerly.
Sorry, having random crashes, and media player is erratic when viewing.
When you have a bug forum i will upload details.
AWESOME!!! Got it, installed it, using it. Will let you know if there are problems on linux. [ducks]
As for Viewer2 UI: PLEASE NO! I beg on bended knee.
Simply …. thank you.
It doesn’t work. Keeps giving me an error. If this is currently a “Clone” of Emerald, then why doesn’t said viewer give me this error?
The error is this:
The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000001d). Click on OK to terminate the application.
I tried viewer 2 on an alt……i regret trying it, those stupid additional system folders are going to drive me nuts……*thinks she is slightly OCD*
Thank you for posting Phoenix viewer! It is good to have the features back.
However, I have a concern and this seems to be the only place I can post it. For the last several months, when using Emerald, I was having odd and unrequested attachments showing up — unwanted hair bases, in particular — and difficulty rezzing as an apparent result. I could delete them in Viewer 2, but I am wondering whether there was something else put in by the hackers that wasn’t just about emkdu.dll.
I say this because it happened to me today, after using Phoenix. It may be that this is totally unrelated to Phoenix, but the coincidence is great enough, and the subterfuge related to the hackers on the Emerald team enough of a concern, that I thought I should call it to your attention somewhere.
I wish you all the best with Phoenix for years to come! Thanks again!
The answer to your question might be in that phrase ‘in Viewer 2’
I know one of the major reasons I quit trying Viewer 2 was that it didn’t play nicely with other viewers- both Emerald and the old LL 1.x viewer. The problem was something in the caching and how it stored your last appearance. When switching from one to another, I’d show up with some strange mixture of accessories and dress layers, depending on what I’d been wearing when I started the various viewers.
In the meantime, best of luck to Jessica and the team, and hopefully one of these days I’ll be trying the Phoenix for myself!
yeah, but does it have jiggling boobs? 0.0
Yes.
That’s brilliant news. Thank you Jessica.
Now if you could please provide a working link to the active source code repository, which contains all the code you guys are _really_ working on, that would be more than appreciated. I guess it’s also in your interest to be fully transparent to avoid the mess which has haunted Emerald from the start. Thank you!
Glad to see this! Been pushing for something like this a bit since before the Emergence release..
One favor though, please don’t get stuck in an endless beta cycle like Emerald did for months. Users don’t mind testing a little, but a polished release now and then would be nice 🙂
If you move into the V2 code, I truly hope you’ll keep the UI as it is in Emergence as much as possible.
Thank you all for your efforts and Good luck! Looking forward seeing what comes next.
I am happy to see that something good comes from all the evil from the past times. Still I would hope that your involvment in Snowstorm will get more attention than working on yet another fork of a fast outdating 1.x viewer.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate v2, but the way things are going, soon key features of SL will only work in viewers based on 2.x. LL makes it very clear (between the lines) that all new features that come out of the pipeline will be tailored to fit 2.x and not 1.x
It seems allready impossible to implement media on a prim in 1.x viewers and outfits. Maybe display names may be backported, but I think the near future will bring a feature that will never work on a 1.x viewer, so better start porting good stuff from the old emerald/new phoenix to v2 code base soon.
Like I said, I hate v2, but instead of ignoring it, it would be better to try and change it. And that way we all know without a doubt the viewer is:
a) the best viewer available
b) clean as a whistle.
Put you money on snowstorm. People like you can change that monstrocity they call a viewer and turn it into something beautiful. Be a dual phoenix!
Fantastic news!! Keep up the great work and know that a LOT of residents are behind you on this one!!
Congratulations Jessica! So glad to se LGG there. I’m using his Emergnce now.
I am pleased the features we’ve grown to love have survived in this form.
I’m glad to see LordGregGreg has returned, since you and he seem to have proved your trustworthiness.
I’m a bit sad Qarl Fizz seems to not be on the new team. He could be quite an asset as far as maintaining and improving the rendering engine is concerned.
As for “real names” I see no value in that. People can always lie about that, and knowing a real name doesn’t give any indication of whether the person is trustworthy or not. A stranger with a name is still a stranger.
What I *DO* see value in is publishing archives of source code /with/ the corresponding binary so those of us (like me) who find Mercurial a PITA can easily download the version you built from, and diff it against the previous build to see if anything nasty has been added. I want to emphasize that “*THE VERSION YOU BUILT FROM*” part. The recent shenanigans leaves me with no faith in viewers where the version in the source repository is typically 2 or 3 releases behind the binary released. The only value in a source repository is holding the source you actually use for your builds. I don’t want to see a sanitized version, I want to see what supposedly produced the binary (and make sure they match)!
If you need to see an example of this in action, go to http://code.google.com/p/emeraldviewer/source/list (the Phox-only admined version of Emerald’s source) or http://hg.emeraldviewer.net/index.cgi/emerald-snowglobe/ (the source repository the whole team supposedly admined) and try to find a version 2600 (Phox’s release after he took over the server), or for that matter, 2587 (the last beta before the shenanigans started). Remember that while most users may have no clue about this stuff, there are occasionally people that can at least figure out how to compile the client themselves, and are watching you. If you want to stay on the TPVD you’ll need to make sure there’s nothing nasty for them to find this time.
Remaining concerns are:
* phoenixviewer.com and http://www.modularsystems.sl still appear to resolve to the same IP (174.137.125.37), and we all know about the problems with certain peoples’ access to that server, which makes any files on it suspect
* the use of ‘custom’ library binaries (emkdu.dll anyone?)… I would much rather this binary bundle be downloaded from the same place Linden Labs serves theirs from, and consist only of the binaries used in the latest LL viewer (which we can diff to see if they match), since it’s easy to hide trojans in such things; I’m floored LL didn’t make this a requirement
As for Viewer 2 being inevitable, yes, people will likely have to switch to that code base eventually to minimize the pain in playing catch-up forever with LL, but no, the horrendous user interface does not have to be accepted. It could be patched out if enough developers hate it, and they seem to. Some of us actually *like* using text chat, Inspect, and profiles. Some of us also aren’t thrilled about something that wastes even more screen space than the classic user interface. The problem isn’t that we’re all old fogies that really wish we were still using abacuses and telegraphs, it’s that some of us actually like a viewer to work well for what we do. Resistance to certain changes does not imply resistance to /all/ change. Further, change for the sake of change is a waste of everyone’s time. Any change needs to be “better enough” to be worth the time and effort to learn the new way of doing things.
I’ve tested the IP issue with web services that provide nslookup. Looks like the problem is local to me. I was able to download Phoenix off of the IP most sites report (which is 74.54.241.66, not the same as Modular System’s) with no problem, so I no longer suspect the server.
I apologize for any FUD I may have caused.
I have also been told the source code repository and downloaded binaries issues will be handled responsibly this time.
Downloaded. so far excellent, though i would love some custom skins for it, something in red and gold to follow your phoenix motif would be awsome.
Keep your nose clean kids….know that we’re watching. And we trust you. GREAT JOB!
“This application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000001d) Click on OK to terminate the application”
I had this is same error in an older version of emerald, and was told it was due to the way emerald was complied made it incopatable with the athalonXP 1500 processor. .. If there’s any way to make a version of phoenix that works with older cpus, that would be great
Yes great news! Wish you went with the Emergence Viewer name instead! I really liked the name! Either way I am really happy to hear you are continuing to develop the viewer!! What versions of Emerald is Phoenix Viewer based on? I will support the Phoenix Viewer!!!
Well, I tried it… and there’s a bug. I suspect it has to do with the LSL bridge and it goes something like this:
[14:19:52] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:20:03] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:20:13] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:20:25] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:20:37] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:20:49] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
[14:21:02] Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.
Rather annoying… and since there’s no bug forums, I figured I’d just post it here. BTW, this was after I had installed it, logged on, logged off, and started again.
That is an asset server issue, not the viewer.
Just disable everything under bridge in settings, detache the bridge if you’re still wearing it, delete Emerald.. Ehh, whoops.. @.<" .. PHOENIX folder in your inventory.. Goto a place where you're able to rezz (!) and enable bridge + suboptions of choice.. The bridge should automaticaly be created and atache..
Hope it works!
Thanks… that did work. 🙂
Excellent!!!! I was a long time user of Emerald and I’ve downloaded Phoenix and using it now! Fast is just such a slow word for it. Considering I’m on mobile broadband at the moment (working away from home) I cannot believe that it is as fast as this on dial up. I can’t wait to install it on the PC at home and get even better results.
Thanks for listening to the users of Emerald and also for providing us with such an excellent alternative, in such a quick timescale. You’ve made a lot of people very happy!
I’m really glad you were able to get dev’s together to work on this project. Like a few others mentioned….I won’t be DL’ing right away (I’m weary like that) but hopefully things will go smoothly for you and I can start to use it in a few weeks.
I hope this will work for me eventually, I’m pretty excited about this new viewer too.
When I try to run Phoenix, I get a box popping up that reads, “The application failed to initialize properly (0x000001d)”. I get it with Emergence too, as it happens. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Completely totally giddy and ecstatic! We couldn’t wait to pass this on to the people in the Nippon sim, since most of us were addicted to Emerald. THANK YOU!!!! ^.^
LOL
Dimentox is lead developer?!? Good luck with that, if hes gonna brick it down like he did with his uber laggy CS which together with HUD have over 100 scripts, then this viewer will not be worth a dime (see, even dime is related to his name since hes just money loving ho)
lmao that is exactly what came to my mind when I saw his name on the list.
Over time I got used to the Emerald Viewer quite a lot and really do not wish to miss it in future.
Considering that Dim is lead developer just makes me expect the Phoenix will face a hard time to fight its way out of the fire with all the lag that is to expect!
Right now I still read through the different Viewer-Blogs that fly around everywhere in the Web.
Phoenix is a nice idea but still not fully developed. Also, there have always been some problems and errors coming up when I started new with a viewer. Seeing almost 1/4 of the posts being first bug reports by people who are probably not even using all features that are offered makes me rather unsure about this.
I understand why people can become highly entusiastic about a new viewer but it will still have to proof its worth before being accepted by the masses after all.
(Like Viewer 2.0 had to proof its worth during the first weeks after the release and totally failed 🙂 )
I think the easiest way to summarize my reaction to this is:
😀
Jessica and team . we all owe you a great debt of gratitude! thank you for your continued work on making our lives online a better place. Ils
Will there be a 64 bit release soon? I would prefer to run it that way, my computer has issues with 32 bit applications sometimes, SL viewers being one of them….
Windows 7 here, in case you are curious
“Daniel Smith says:
September 3, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Sorry, I cant agree. Most successful Open Source projects go by real names. I can dredge up 20+ years of history if you’d like. There’s some lingering trust issues, and so this is ever more relevant in this case.
Take the case of pushing to use FireFox within some company. Some IT manager is going to ask “ok, so who wrote it?”. They want some sense of accountability. Same with Phoenix”
I am in total agreement here with Daniel. If you are proud of your team and their work, then I want to see the real life dev’s names somewhere. I want real world accountability. I used emerald until the whole data mining scandal. So what’s the big deal with the devs coming out and standing up for what they are working on? Not a thing if this is transparent and not just some sham from the Modular Systems/Emerald team. I am leery. I think if you need to keep them secret then we are only getting more of the same.
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Many many congratulations on the resurgence. I’ve been inworld for a while with the new build and it looks really good. Now to see what building from sources on my Mac gives me! 🙂
Best of luck all around, and remember: Illegitimi non carborundum (don’t let the bastards wear you down)
I’m kind of relieved, thank you! I’ve installed Phoenix on my Mac Pro (OS X 10.6.2), and it runs smoothly so far.
My best wishes that any nonsense like that won’t happen to the new team!
Grrrrr, I had pinned my hopes on Emergence… does this mean LGG will not be working on it in the future, and I need to switch again?
Bless you & a thousand thanks!! <3<3
The new website isn’t up and fully running yet. Does this viewer support the alpha layer tattoos?
This is about time, I’m glad in a way the good people like LGG and even you Jessica are on the team. I more amp to trust you all than I trusted Skills and Phox, and fractured too. However, I am not sure this viewer will be able to keep many that left Emerald for other viewers. I know I am using Kirsten because I don’t know if I want to trust a team again right yet. Hopefully this viewer won’t have any bad press unlike Emerald and will be updated regularly to include the new features like Display Names and more when they come out. And in that regard, Good luck and proceed at doing what the remaining emerald viewer users like and make a good viewer that doesn’t have the griefer spoofing and such added to it.
Awesome news. Installed the viewer and is having a great time with it so far.
Check out my new Phoenix Viewer Flickr set:
http://tiny.cc/m2o3e
Keep up the good work. 😀
I am THRILLED at this news!! I am not sure though if b/c I am on an older desktop the application isn’t working right…not worried though as soon as I can get my laptop up and running i will get this DLed right away. passing infor on to others who have used Emerald. Wishing you much success
Take of the :3000 port in the download link. It helped me to avoid the corrupt installation file.
It’s so good to be back in the familiar environment of Em^H^HPhoenix! 🙂
And just to repeat myself (in case it got buried in all of the comments above) ..
Do check on the use of the name “Phoenix”. Firefox had to give that one
up early on.
Thanks for continuing this project!
Thank you Jessica and the Phoenix team for supplying a viewer that can be trusted so quickly. I know essentially its a clone of the emerald but I am sure with the trustworthy Dev team you have now we can all move forward with a viewer the people WANT and not one we are stuck with from LL.
Way to go guys and you have my support 100%
Hiya,
Exciting *new* dev.-list you guys got 🙂 ..Looks like the BEST ingredients to start-off an even better client as it was before, yeahhh.. Let’s do it !!! //me.. *chearing*..
Wish you as much fun coding it as we have using it.. ^x^ ..!!!
@Aeschylus Shepherd: As you can see LGG joined this project too, there prolly won’t be a next Emergence.. Nice to see his favorite color is still.. RED.. @.<" ..!
@Wolfiet: Let's hope we get a 64bit version, Win7(x64) Ultimate here, maybe it's something with .NET3.5+, dunno if it's actualy needed but I got Ms. Visual C++ redist. 2005/2008 both x86/x64 installed side-by-side, running SL-clients 32 and 64 bits wo. any trouble, maybe you're missing some essential updates..
Mac download is throwing an error when I try to decompress it. I’m told the file is not recognized. Tried to download and open a couple of times.
Thanks
This is really awesome news, you guys rock big time! 😀
ps:would it be too much to ask for you guys to consider releasing selfcontained compiling suite, so people can download a single file (a zip or somthing) and then unzip, and compile it on their own machines ready to use, without needing to install nor set up anything?
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Awesome! I’m glad that Ph0x arrogance didn’t stop you!
I hope you gain Linden Lab’s approval now that the malicious devs are out.
I hope that the outcome of Emerald was a lesson learned. please make some rules to prevent it to happen again, how it happened, why it happened, and what rules can prevent that to happen in another way.
uhm.. in Version 1.5.0(1), is it possible that only openjpeg can be used, even if you do copy a snowglobe llkdu.dll from your snowglobe installation into that phoenix root directory?
Congratulations and well done – you’re making a lot of folks really happy. Hope it’s smooth sailing from here on out.
sorry to be the voice of dissent, but this viewer is using the same flawed renderer that began life on snowglobe, and on my i7 imac that means textures never render fully. Kirstens is now the only viewer in town that can actually render textures properly. Over to you phoenix devs….
YAY!!! w00t!!
I loved Emerald and its really the only one I could use. I had tried others and with the exception of bug fixes and features so I couldn’t use them. Any viewer including Kirstens that uses 2.xx wont load my complete inventory and I’m just a cloud. I was about to leave sl until Emergence arrived. Now we have this so Ty ^_^
Thank you very much, folks!^^
It’s great to see LGG on the team – i was using Emergence until short time ago…
Thanks again for keeping the good parts on your new project – i really like my bells and whistles.
Just a sidenote: I’m an aviator in SL. Emergence _and_ Phoenix are so stable and fast, that i was able to hurry across the Blake Sea and around Nautilus and back on 100% throttle for the first times in 4 years 😉
Awesome work, guys!^^
Dakun,, Dimentox, Kitty, Techwolf, Tonya, Vortex, Wickman, and all the rest, especially Jessica and LordGregGreg… thank you. The power of open source and good, honest developers is vindicated.
With all that has gone on, why am I a little paranoid that phox was making commits to the repository as late as 8/30? Wasn’t this long after he got caught with his pants down collecting stats he shouldn’t have?
Can anyone say they have gone through the code with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing was committed or already in place that is his private little back door?
Windows 64-bit version please?
Thank you sooooooooo much!!!! I had Cool Viewer installed on my laptop as a backup and was really dreading having to make the switch when LL stopped us from logging in with Emerald…but now I don’t have to YAY!! Going to delete every Emerald file off my computer now and change my password. o.O Suckas can’t be trusted!
Good luck guys!! At least we know we can trust you! ❤
btw…dl and installed perfectly…no problems at all.
because the team had not time to post the list of features yet…yes, Phoenix supports alpha layers:)
Welcome back, guys…great news for me as a builder, good luck in licensing:) I soooooo love you!
Welcome back to the Grid Viewer Project already being passed around all the groups im in on the grid lol soooo im sure lots will be switching everyone i know already knows about it due to my notecard spam to them all >.>
I was just wondering… is anyone ever going to make a viewer that works on older computers? there are several computers in my household, and only one can get on with any decent graphic levels, and even then by “decent graphics” i mean that i can turn them up, but i can’t move around for crap.
My tower, which hasn’t had an upgrade since i was in high school… 7 years ago… could run SL just fine. This was about two years ago. at about that point, I had to swap to my oldest laptop. 1.2gHz processor, 1g ram, 64 meg vid card. About nine months later, I had to upgrade to the next laptop, 1.6 gHz processor, 2g ram, 128 meg vid card. about 6 months ago or so, i had to upgrade to the newest laptop, 2g processor, 3g ram, 256 meg vid card.
It’s starting to get to the point where, if i actually had money, I’d buy yet another laptop and be fine, but what with being on a fixed income, starting school (and having no job) and what not, in about 3 more months, i may have to drop SL all together, simply because I won’t be able to run any of the clients.
All I’m asking for is a TPV that doesn’t use every resource of my computer, so that, with the graphics even at Mid settings on all of them, I can move freely. I mean, i have great graphical capacity, I just ain’t got squat for DOING anything while it’s that high. And even with all the specs tanked out, it’s still jerky as all bloody Hades.
So, for the last time, please… A version of something with like… NO features beyond what the old clients had…
This is great news!! 😀 <—– HAPPY!!
Dear Sister Jessica Lyon and the Phoenix Viewer Development Team………. in true gratitude to your and your developers, and the NEW UPRISING PHOENIX viewer… I and my sister hereby offer you and Phoenix a super fireshow, all free. We..The CHangHigh Trinity Sisters have a very advanced live Fireshow of Light, Life and Love and we like to offer this to you and all your supporters…. as of where and when and how ..this can be talked later…but as a gift of loving living fire for Second Life and this virtual world we like to give you this……
With Light ,Life and Love.. sister Yman
Thank you 😀 I don’t want to go over to Viewer 2.0, and I didn’t know what viewer to turn to when Emerald gets blocked, now I do ^^
Good, good news… after all the drama and confusion of these days, something has risen… a dev team, a project, a viewer, a new challenge!
Phoenix downloaded, installed and ran… I can stop to wander as an exile… I have again a viewer that I like and I hope to trust. I agree with Spikeheel Starr: “I am in ‘trust, but verify’ mode. ”
I am seeing the first avis using the eternal red bird viewer around the grid… and I am passing info to others users.
My best wishes and good luck for your new project, Phoenix Team!
P.S. If you need for italian language support, let me know.
Although I stopped using Emerald a long time ago in favour of another viewer it disturbs me that from what I have found out for myself that the supposed core developers and associates of are seemingly a bunch of ex banned griefer’s who care none for SL, Emerald or the people that they have effectively conned.
That aside, and from what I have read/seen and I know of these people personally, Jessica tried to save it and yea the you tube video’s I linked (if genuine) show me that Phox (lonely) and others couldn’t care less hence they are not worth my time. I hope that this takes over and that they are left with nothing.
I digress on wasting any more time on the above as it’s not the issue at hand. I wish you luck Jessica in this new project and hope for you and others sake it is 100% open and transparent
Phoenix was always gonna be my choice of name for whatever fell out the ass of Emerald and as it turned out, that was a big void to fill 😛 Congrats and good luck!
YES!!!!! Nice work, you guys. Thank you so much!!!!!!
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Thank you so much Jessica for all the work you do to provide the Community a new great Viewer. Its great that an Emerald alternative is now there.
I think we all are proud of you.
For those of you having trouble installing on a PC you may have to turn off you virus protection and firewall. Phoenix is not (yet) trusted by mine and was being deleted as soon as I tried to install. The only reason given is fewer that 10 users with my provider are using it (duh). I turned it off, installed, turned it back on again and LOVE the new viewer
Check your download pages… you may have been hacked with a virus.
I love it, especially as the phoenix is my personal choosen totem. That viewer is a must for me *laughs* Please keep going that good work, my best wishes!
If skills hak or any of that phishing scam artists alts are named as one of your devs or anything to do with your project I wouldnt touch it with a barge pole. Her, phox, fractured crystal were some of the most 3rd rate hackers I have ever had the fortune to laugh my a**-off at. Her work on such projects as gemini and onyx should be forgotten. I doubt whether she could continue it alone she isnt skilled enough and my concern is that with her on board you will run into exactly the same trouble as emerald. Can I take it that your transparency will also mean transparency in the blog where it matters?
after the emerald farce I was reluctant to even go with emergence, it will take quite some persuasion to download Phoenix
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I was firmly of the view that LL would have to shut me down before I’ll remove the old Emerald because I’d rather the whole LL team suck my taco before I’ll use Viewer 2. And then someone today told me to go check out your blog. Thank you and your team, Jessica. Phoenix is my saviour. I am whole again.
I just tested out Phoenix on my own small hosted OpenSim grid. Nice work on getting megaprim creation when on OpenSim. That was one of things(besides the scandals) about Emerald that really turned me off. And the Gemini skin is perfect for me(neutral and not in-your-face).
I’m not decided yet whether I want to have Phoenix as my main viewer of choice over Imprudence, but I’ll be watching with interest how it turns out.
Oh thank you so much! I downloaded the Phoenix viewer and it performed even better than the Emerald 2587 beta I had been using. And with all due respect to the Imprudence Viewer developers, there is no contest here the Phoenix Viewer is just awesome. Thank you Jessica and all of your partners in the project!
I wish a nice future to Phoenix, and I hope it will continue in development with the fantastic interface and functions what has Emerald. Nice to see in the team LorgGregGreg 🙂
ohhhh keying mistake, LorgGregGreg = LordGregGreg 😀
Great news! I tried Emergence, and this seems like a natural progression. Glad to see LGG is involved in this project as well. Now my biggest question is, will the bouncing jiggling boobs feature be working on this too? lol
I have tried both Emergence, and Phoenix…I think of the two, I prefer Emergence, more stable, lots less lag for me, anyway, and already getting familiar with it…if Phoenix is going to be the update for Emergence, then I will go back to it, but for now, I will stick to Emergence
I assume we have to wait for Snowstorm before the advanced outfit management from V2 is here? (as well as I think the editing capabilities of said outfits in KL S20) or could you keep the old UI for people who like it better, and still get the advanced Wardrobe/outfit management?
I find the viewer2 UI to be difficult to use because it is non-standard in it’s layout which makes it difficult as I am partly disabled in that I do not have full use of my hands, & does not match up with any other programs people use, the menu’s are also not easy to navigate.
I think LL introduced it because it involved little work for them as it is based on the old OnRez viewer, all they did was change the UI colour scheme to the dark & rather horrible colours of the LL viewers & add the side menu, they did nothing to improve it’s useability yet they seem hell-bent on having everyone use it, bad idea as it will mean a lot of people will forsake SL because of it.
I love love love it.. but was wondering who we can report little burps that we might find? I keep trying to turn off message logs and they keep resetting… i really don’t want logs of my sl… grin
Lovin’ it so far. Thank you!
I downloaded and compiled Phoenix for linux 64bit 16 hours ago… and I has been flawlessly running till now (I’m exhausted).
Congratulations to the the new developer team. Now I can laugh even louder about my banned emerald forum account and IP, about the disabled registering there, about my censored comments (always respectful) on the ModSys blog, and about how are Phox and Arabella being left alone.
I’m happy with the time I spent there, learning and helping when I could, and I’m looking forward to do the same here, knowing (and hoping) I will find more mature people wanting to act as we expect them to act, and not trying to close mouths when they’re saying the truth.
As some people do here, I will make my own wish: please provide a 64 bit linux build for those who can’t build it by themselves. There isn’t too much to tweak to have success right now.
I wish you all the best luck with the project (as well as with the name).
Go, Phoenix go!
I’m happy ab
phoenix has amazing potential i have spread word of it where ever i go if i can be of any help please let me know i cannot wait to see where it goes and what advances are made i was on it 27 minutes after launch and have been in love with it since phoenix devs. keep it up ! this is a work of art and it is a project that brings some of the greatest in sl together :)) unity if we dont have that we are bound to lose all freedom and be confined to v2.0 this viewer is second generation of hope and choice it is the future 🙂 and we are lucky to have you all
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I am thrilled to see you are back!
but please, consider switching to the 2.x codebase real soon. LL has made it very clear they consider 1.x dead and are doing everything they can to make sure people will switch in the coming year. I wouldn’t put it past them to make mesh-imports 2.x only.
Give us 2.x with a better interface!!!!! Pretty please.
Thank you for this release…I am thrilled to learn we have some legit options from reputable developers again. I am having trouble though…I DL’d the viewer along with the patch and am getting this error code.
Login Failed. Issues with aux.mysql.agni
I was unable to connect with Emergence(Which I loved!) this morning as well. Any ideas what the problem is?
Oh..I am running Windows 7 on a 64bit machine
I love the viewer but it will not rez the names on the En garde board it worked fine on friday, but then I logged intoday and its all blurred and well, my husband logged into the *mutters orginal sl viewer* and its fine and its so blurred what could cause it I know there are bugs still to be worked out and I am a avid fan of you guys so I will stay here and wait, but I was just wondering if I was doing something wrong.
my norton doesnt alow me to download the viewer ??????
solved its on nortons end ,fixed it and runs smootly now thanks for giving us this viewer!
are you thinking of setting up a forum also
oh btw you may want to reconsider the front page of the website
1 the logo forces the content “below the fold”
2 the link colors are very low contrast
I had just downloaded and happily used Emergence, and today downloaded Phoenix and used it after the prerequisite 5 minutes of setting up prefs. It took a little longer to load the first time, but ran wonderfully. I hate Viewer 2.1; have used every viewer made since 2006 and resist that UI like the plague.
Thank you for your hard work and your willingness after the Emerald debacle pain to continue the project for us in SL.
I haven’t found any mention of the actual source code repository anywhere (cloneable Mercurial repo, not just browseable via Redmine wiki). But fortunately you guys stick to common conventions, so it was easy to figure out: http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-sg/
Good that at last everyone can use the source code while you are working on it. Helps keeping own patches applicable, and more importantly creates the transparency, which the old Emerald project was refusing to provide.
So finally you’ve got a reasonably mature open source project going! Keep up the great work!
If you go to the mainpage of phoenix (not this personal blog) you can found the link to the source code ^^
YAYAYAYAYAYAY
Thank you so very much, so happy now :)) I was so upset and depressed whilst waiting every time I logged in-world expecting to be banned and have to resort to another viewer I really did not want to use. I checked many viewers and for me, they were not to my liking at all. I logged in this morning and spoke to a friend in-world who gave me a link. When I read the name “Phoenix” I knew it was what I love, I remembered someone saying from the ashes we will rise and Voila home sweet home. I read the names of the devs etc and saw familiar names and I knew this is the new Emerald. I immediately IM friends in-world who like me were very unhappy and hope they download it too. I hope all goes well for all the Phoenix team and I will support as best as I can. Thank you Jessica and the team
Any chance we will see a 64 bit windows viewer in the near future? Emerald 64 was super speedy and as far as I know, was the only 64 bit viewer.
Thanx!
Way to go Jessica and everyone else who is trying to keep Emerald alive through Phoenix. In my opinion Emerald was the best viewer out there and I was very sad to see it die, but now I am positive that the Phoenix team will make an even better viewer. Way to go you guys keep at it.
CONGRATS JESSICA & TEAM!!!!!!!
to hell with 2.0! You guys have my vote for the long run.
So, Linden Labs wanted Phox out of the project. My question is, did you guys ironically name this Phoenix in his honor?
Thanks for keeping the keyboard shortcuts and everything pretty much the same. It made the transition a lot easier.
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