The Meerkat Viewer 0.1.15.6 on Windows XP - A Review.
Meerkat is a new View - former project name was "Shanti"
On 07-27-2008 a Post hit the SLUnivers Forums, in which a User
asked for help with decyphering some codes. The readable
Title of the encrypted text just said : "Shanti is coming". More
the 2000 Posts and 2 month later the digital paperhunt, which not
only included encoded texts, but also codes in digital images and
voicemessages finally came to an end by the message Shanti is
now Meerkat!
And a few Days ago, this Meerkat raised it's head in the wild.
Available for Windows and Mac, the Meerkatviewer for OpenSim
or SecondLife based Virtual Worlds is licensed fully under GPL and
doesn't contain any proprietary dependencies.
I just tested the Meercat and was sceptical what would await me,
but hellO …
The functionality of Teleporting directly out of Secondlife into
Opensim or vice versa without closing the Viewer is a Killer
function .. Really, this should be standard in any future
Viewer … OMG!*
I like the Grid Manager function .. You can set your Username
and password for several Worlds including your own hosted local Sim
.. Wonder what the 'Secret Level' Checkbox is good for ? Ill keep
it checked and see what SL has to offer in regards to Secret Levels
..
The Avatar list is great .. shows you every Avatar in the Sim,
see his AGE and also its location in meters away. You can get its
key and mark the avatar and/or directly TP to his destination ..
Also functions like IM or use Land Tools on him (e.g. Eject) or
directly Abuse report him are looking good. This function is also
available in the OSGrid .. so no further need for a Radar HUD
..
A better Teleport History, many limits removed ( like Upload
unlimited length sounds, build objects of any size (opensim
only), advanced cut available for all objects, maximum
bandwidth increased, and many debug options enabled by default]
makes me very happy .. [ Feature List or download
it here and test it for yourself ] i uploaded a .wav sound
longer than 10 seconds … and it plays …
It also supports creation of prims bigger than 10 meters as we
in the OSGRID have (nearly) no restrictions on prim size..
Also the Export and import of a prim or a group of Prims even
with textures works. It seems that if you clear the Viewers
cache you loose the cache uuids so textures wont be
imported. But in my case i just TP`ed out of SL and
directly into OSGrid texture where restored .. But only after
taking it into my inventory in the OSGRID .. but as
soon as they are back in the cache (after visiting the cration grid
) .. they are visible again … but others, in this case
my ALT Avatar can not see the textures ..
another Sidenote: Scripts or objects inside a object are
not yet included as well ..
One problem is that even if you have full permissions on an
object, if you are not the creator (in my case a Opensource script
creates pyramids) you can not backup this object as of now
… but time will tell ,., Secondinventory
mußt sich (wohl bald) warm anziehen .. which means roughly
translated to English : There is a anothe wind blowing so get your
best and warmest cloth out of the closet ..
Also i noticed the that if you start the program it always
remembers your last connected Grid and get its starting page.
There are some glitches like slow loading textures for
clothes ( the viewer has to change clothes in different
grids) and sometimes in the GUI i await that a window closes if
press on APPLY or QUIT like in the Grid manager or mild crashes
… but hey .. this is just the first release (i am aware off)
.. And a quick REBAKE (CTRL + R ) lets you look nice again.
so this Thing has in my eyes a bright future .. i will keep on
testing it and reporting with more pictures about the Meerkat
Viewer [ Meerkat Wiki ] .. As usual first here at
maxping.org
As for the name: Wikipedia says:
The meerkat or suricate
Suricata suricatta is a small mammal and a member of the
mongoose family. [Wikipedia ] ..