and if I make it to the waterside, I'll be sure to write you a note or something

So, more reactions to 2.0:

Kitty O'Toole likes it:

"And there is your problem, because the new viewer is created with the new user in mind, and it really shows. With a few exceptions I think the uber-creators are going to despise it, and I’ve certainly seen evidence of that tonight on the forums and feeds. Gone are the pie-charts and the myriads of options that some, like myself found so confusing, but builders found essential. They’re still there of course, but this new viewer, so far as I can tell, is all about immediate functionality and ease of use all the way. I really rate a lot of the options that the labs have incorporated too. For a start the interface is really neat and more visual than the previous viewer. They’ve installed an easy to manage landmarks system, kerching! I LOVE that. They’ve integrated forward and back buttons which seem such a trivial thing but will make such an enormous difference to navigation.Beloved was peeping over my shoulder and said that the new interface reminded him of Firefox [...]"

The Betterverse blog gives five reasons why the new viewer is good for nonprofits, governments and business (which, let's all face this squarely, M Linden's new criteria for desired residency), including such "desired" features as a simpler user interface, "enhanced" search, and the SL-as-3D-browser concept.

Miro Collas comments on the new viewer on Twitter:

#SLViewer2 (how do I edit profile pics, classifieds?). No integrated AO, no script count, useless ARC count still there, sidebar unwieldy.

I would tend to agree, with one addition: no AO presence (as in, I logged in and, because of the HUD placement, my AO went missing. I still posed, but I couldn't find it on the screen, and that always worries me.

Also on Twitter, Lalo Telling responds to Skate Foss's (positive) comment about 2.0:

Maybe when it's out of beta, it'll be a major step forward. Frustration level's pretty high right now.

That's pretty much my view at present.

In an earlier comment, she stated:

There's lots to like in #slviewer2 - but the sidebar is intrusive, and forcing 2 chat histories (Local & IM) eats lots of screen.

There is a way to bring tabbed chat back--first, hit Ctrl+P for Preferences (or track down Edit, it still has Preferences under it); then go to Chat; then click the radio button for Tabbed over Separate IM windows.

Then restart your browser, because that's still a change that has to be made out of world.

I know I react badly to change. Part of the reason I'm in Caledon is I want to take change slowly, in fits and starts, and I want to hold onto what works likely far past its technological expiration date. And walking in to viewer 2.0 and being slapped in the face, essentially, with not one but two big pet peeves--untabbed chat windows and clutter on my browser--did not help in the slightest.

Finding out another JIRA's popped up--this one specifically to do with malformations in the SL inventory in all non-2.0 browsers--pretty much gave me a whole handful of nails to put in 2.0's coffin. If 2.0 is really where we're going? SL is going to tank, and tank hard, for anyone with the slightest bit of creative urge in their veins.

* You can't build if you're not at ground level, ON plain terrain. It's not possible; I'm hoping severely this changes SOON. (This has, several hours since I started writing this, spawned another JIRA on the subject.

* If you install the 2.0 browser, then go back to any non-2.0 browser (this is the JIRA I mentioned up there), you gain folders you cannot move, delete, or access in any way. This is a BAD THING. It is a BUG, not a FEATURE.*

* "Preferences" are no longer under "Edit", they're under "Me". "Edit" is under "Build" and does something entirely different.

* Cam controls? Don't make me laugh. You have a click button that spawns a large, OPAQUE square with button switches that are mostly graphical. Camera view, mouselook, zoom, pan and tilt, front view, "group" view, and over-the-shoulder "standard" are all accessible on this large LiveJournal-icon-sized square. You can move this square, but there are two additional problems with that: first, it stays opaque wherever it is, and second, whenever you click the button on the bottom to remove it, when you click it again to get it back, it comes back square center at the bottom of the screen again.

In fact, a huge part of my bitch on this? Nothing is translucent. It's all FULLY opaque. Which means hello, THE SCREEN IS BLOCKED. This is insane and needs to be fixed BADLY. Also, the thing I noticed earlier, losing my HUDs? They weren't actually lost, they were just displaced. To the side, when the sidebar opened.

I don't know who came up with this. I know early testers are irritated because the things they most complained about a year ago, in early testing? Are still there now.

Osprey Therian did find out one cool thing about 2.0--apparently with a little tweaking, 2.0 can render shadows. Can it do it on all machines that can render SL now, though, or is it another stopper for certain architectures like Windlight was?

"The dream over the long term: Linden Lab wants Second Life to be bigger than Facebook. Much bigger." And lose the long-time users in the process.2.0 is only the start of the campaign against every user of SL who wants to create things, not simply shop and rent land directly from the Lindens.

* {Late insert: The "bug" I mentioned for the folder creation in non-2.0 viewers--as has been pointed out in conversation, it's not a bug in 2.0, 2.0 is doing what it's supposed to be doing. If anything it's a bug in 1.0 viewers--and even there, it's not a bug, as 1.0 is being told there are new system folders. Unfortunately, this is what happens when the game architecture changes on this drastic a scale.}