Mandatory 1.19, etc.

Hi All!

Please don't worry about the 1.19 becoming mandatory. The Nicholaz Editions are using their own channel (the word/phrase you see in the lower right corner on the login screen) since 1.18..0.6 so unless the Lindens do something entirely unexpected, BE-v will continue to run nicely.

Besides, I tried to make an 1.19 with my patches but I'm pretty dissatisfied with the results. Some GUI patches broke (does someone has a standalone patch to fudge the menu/status bar back to old style?), it still crashes in one function and I don't have the time to redo or investigate these issues.

With these issues, that version currently falls short of BE-v in important areas, so that I don't want to release it ... not as long as BE-v is still good (very good in fact from what I hear). At the moment, the Nicholaz-1.19 would be a compromise, which I'll only make if absolutely necessary.

Speaking more generally, trying to compile an 1.19 was an opportunity to look at the SL viewer again (I haven't seen any new viewers since my last Windlight build). It is somewhat interesting to watch this project from a distance. I had always thought that the Lindens were driving me nuts because I was too involved with the viewer and because did not have enough patience. But even the way it is now, being involved in my own projects, seeing the patch list on the JIRA grow or reading some of the blurp on their blog still sets my teeth on edge (I guess my comments occasionally does the same for some Lindens, but that's par for the course :-)). But that's why I'll have to do that new stuff in small doses ...

Anyway, bottom line is that Nicholaz 1.19 will have to wait and what I have is probably obsolete already with the 1.19.1 RC, which ironically (from what I've been told) isn't even worth bothering with anyway. (Maybe it is okay as a beta, but it's certainly not the stuff Release-Candidates are made of). BE-v should continue to run after Wednesday.

Last but not least, from what I see on JIRA and what I saw when trying the 1.19, some of my best patches are still not there, so I can almost guarantee that BE-v will still give you superior stability, even if the latest bells and whistles may be missing.