Viewer Skins/Starlight

	Important!
	Use caution when installing these skins, as modifications to your installed software files are not officially supported by Second Life support

By:	Hitomi Tiponi
Viewer Version:	2.0 - 5.0
Information:	Starlight 2.0.1 - 5.0.1170
Source:	Various
Image:	StarLight 'Silver Pink' theme - colourful, versatile, practical

About

StarLight is designed to provide a colourful, versatile and practical alternative to the default skin for Viewer 5. Hopefully it will improve the usability, and promote increased usage of the viewer - all official releases of the Second Life Viewer have a StarLight version produced to work with them. StarLight consists of a number of previously published viewer tweaks - produced by various residents (see credits in the downloaded 'Read Me' file or in the 'StarLight Skin' tab of the viewer 'About' floater), together with a continual addition of new ones. In addition there is a slight re-skinning to give the interface a lighter feel and several colour variants (called 'Themes'). It should hopefully benefit those people who have no wish to edit the XML code themselves, yet wish to benefit from a number of tweaks made by other residents, without using a third-party viewer.

Over 20,000 downloads so far!

Major Features at a Glance

• Colourful - Eight new coloured themes plus two that you can customise yourself
• Versatile - Masses of extra preferences, toolbar options and an extra 'Film' menu
• Practical - Changes to various floaters/panels to make it easier to see and enjoy the world

For fuller details see the 'Major Changes to the Standard Skin' section

Downloads

It is VERY important that you always use the version of StarLight for the appropriate viewer release. Always use the appropriate version from the table below of all supported versions.

StarLight - ALWAYS DOWNLOAD THE CORRECT VERSION OF STARLIGHT IF YOU SWITCH VERSIONS OF THE VIEWER

StarLight is available below for each release of the official Linden Lab viewer. The appropriate version of StarLight will be available within a few hours of Linden Lab issuing a new version of the Viewer.

StarLight Release (all OS's)	StarLight Easy Installer for Windows	Designed for Viewer Release	Date Version Added	New Features / Notes
StarLight 5.0.1170	StarLight 5.0.1170	Viewer 5.0.3 (5.0.3.324435)*	February 6th 2017	Release Notes

* Main Viewer downloaded from the Linden Lab web-site is in bold - to see which version you have look in "Help->About Second Life" in your Viewer

StarLight for Firestorm

StarLight and StarLightCUI are two of the viewer skins available as standard with the Firestorm Viewer.

220322 Firestorm announces Starlight skins are no longer maintained Firestorm Blog

220526 Firestorm announces user ScentualLust steps in to maintain the suite.Firestorm Blog

StarLight Lite

StarLight Lite is a reduced functionality version of StarLight with features described in this table. It works with a variety of Linden Lab and Third Party Viewers and is designed to require few, if any, changes between releases of Viewers.

StarLight Lite Release (all OS's)	StarLight Lite Easy Installer for Windows	Designed for Viewer	Date StarLight Lite version Added	Notes
StarLight 3.6	StarLight 3.6	All Linden Lab Viewers (Release, Beta and Project)	June 12th 2013	Tested against Viewers 3.6.1 - 3.7.2
StarLight 3.6	StarLight 3.6	Restrained Love Viewer	June 12th 2013	Tested against RLV 2.8.5.5
StarLight 3.6	StarLight 3.6	Kokua Viewer	June 12th 2013	Tested against Kokua 3.6.2
StarLight 3.6 Catznip	StarLight 3.6 Catznip	Catznip Viewer	June 12th 2013	Tested against Catznip R8 & R8.1
StarLight 3.6 Dolphin	StarLight 3.6 Dolphin	Dolphin Viewer	June 12th 2013	Tested against Dolphin 3.4.14.27321

Known Bugs and Issues     - In Viewer 4.1.2 messages about HUD complexity may not display correctly When using StarLight 4.1.1166 the messages associated with HUD complexity may display incorrectly, but still be readable. This will be resolved in the next StarLight release. VWR-25735 - When 'plain text IM and chat history' is selected the name of the 'speaker' is coloured the same as 'URLs' A Linden Lab bug means that when 'Enable plain text IM and chat history' is selected from the 'Chat' option of 'Preferences' the colour of the name of the 'speaker' is set to the colour that has been applied to 'URLs' - this is useful to know especially if you are using the lighter colour schemes. As a workaround please set the 'URLs' colour to a suitable colour in 'Preferences'. StarLight is only working fully with English language version of the interface Versions for German and Japanese languages are planned for the future.

Discussions, information, support and questions

StarLight is assembled by Hitomi Tiponi, who may be contacted through the aforementioned forum or by IM or notecard in-world.

Major Changes to the Standard Skin

Key Feature Table

Key Feature	StarLight Linden Lab viewer version	StarLight (incorporated in Firestorm viewer)	StarLight Lite
Number of standard coloured themes	8	6	8
Number of customisable coloured themes	2	2	0
Draw Distance slider easily available	Yes (top bar)	Yes (top bar)	Yes (camera controls)
Additional options (esp. graphics) in Preferences	Yes	Equivalent features provided by Firestorm	No
Additional items in the 'toolbar toybox'	Yes	Equivalent features provided by Firestorm	No
'Film' menu	Yes	No	No
Phototools	Yes (lite version only)	Standard in Firestorm	No
Smaller Environment, Air and Water floaters	Yes	Standard in Firestorm	Yes
Smaller camera and movement controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Slideable World Map	Yes	Standard in Firestorm	No
Languages	English only	All languages	All languages (coming soon)
Works with these viewers	Official Release	Firestorm	Official Release, RC and Project. Catznip. Dolphin. Restrained Love. Kokua.

Colourful Changes

Eight preset coloured "themes"

• Original Orange - A dark theme with a touch of orange to brighten things up.
• Nostalgia Blue - A theme with buttons and other layout changes to remind you of Viewer 1.
• Silver Blue - A 'dark on light' theme that lifts the gloom from the Viewer interface with cool blue.
• Silver Pink - This 'dark on light' theme is very popular and gives your world a hint of candy-floss.
• Mono Teal - A classy high-definition theme with black text on a light grey/white background and 'teal green' buttons
• Orb Red - A very different look and feel designed to make the interface seem less one-dimensional. Also suitable for vampires.
• Orb Blue - Like Orb Red, but a deep shade of blue!
• Original Teal - LL's original colour scheme for those that love the simple 'teal green' on black look, but with slightly improved contrast.

Two customisable coloured "themes"

The StarLight Colourful User Interface (CUI) enables full control of many of the colours of the interface - see the CUI Guide for instructions and examples.

• Custom Dark - Ideal for using with a backdrop of a black, navy blue, dark red etc.
• Custom Light - For a brighter, vibrant look this option is ideal for integrating black text with a lighter theme.

Versatile Changes

• Draw Distance slider (between 32 and 992 metres)
• Comprehensive Shadows, Rendering, Depth of Field and Local Lights settings in "Graphics"
• Revised Preferences panels - with LOTS of extra options to control graphics, chat and many, many other features
• More buttons available in the toolbar 'toybox' to drop on the UI toolbars
• Film menu, for photography and machinima fans
• Phototools added (version of feature created for Firestorm by paperwork)

Practical Changes

• Camera control made smaller than the standard version (similar to the Kirstens Viewer approach but smaller)
• Ability to slide across the World Map to fill it's floater, also with ability to shrink the floater more than at present (useful when driving/sailing)
• Removable Favorites Bar
• More profile information available in the avatar inspector
• Much smaller Environment, Air and Water Settings floaters
• Better formatting of tabbed IM window (tabs larger and no icons in them)
• Smoother movement of camera and while in mouselook
• Undocked windows are resizeable to a smaller size than Viewer 3 allows
• Tweaks to the skinning and usability (more transparent panels, resizing columns, increasing glow, realigning text etc.)

Recent Release Notes

StarLight 4.0.1158

• Fixed bug that caused crashes in 4.0.1155

StarLight 3.8.1150

• Incorporates updated login screen

StarLight 3.7.1140

• Also works against the Experiences RC Viewer

StarLight 3.6.1080 & 3.6.1087

• New toolbox button for toggling Advanced Lighting Model

StarLight 3.6.1072

• More bug fixes

StarLight 3.6.1058 & 3.6.1063

• Bug fix for Appearance filter text color in lighter themes

StarLight 3.6.1045

• Gamma Rendering slider added to Rendering tab of Graphics Preferences - helps with adjusting world brightness with new materials code
• Bug causing extra debugging messages eliminated
• Removal of some unused texture files for custom themes (making download slightly smaller)

StarLight 3.5.1026 & 3.6.1030 (withdrawn)

• Minor graphical changes for lighter themes

StarLight 3.5.0991 & 3.5.1016

• Changes to Conversations floater to reduce sizes and optimise layout

StarLight 3.5.0980

• New option to switch off pre-caching after teleport replacing slider that changes by LL has made inoperative
• Removal of 'Worn' tab in Inventory as it is no longer functional following changes by LL

StarLight 3.5.0969 & 3.5.0975 & 3.5.0977

• First changes to modify CHUI Conversation Hub to make better use of space
• Improved definition on CHUI graphics
• Bug fix for STAR-38 - StarLight automatically logs in after entering a name or password

StarLight 3.5.0966

• First release to match the new CHUI produced by LL
• strings.xml changed so that 'Not Available' appears on unavailable commands for default skin.
• Avatar Inspection brief profile details are now scrollable so you can see the full details that appear under the biog tab
• StarLight extension offering vertical buttons in chat window removed (as that is standard in new CHUI)

Installation Instructions (all OS's)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WINDOWS AND LINUX USERS

1. Log out of Second Life Viewer, if you are using it.
2. Go to the directory you use for Viewer.
3. Copy across the contents of the 'skins' and 'app_settings' folders into the Viewer folder at the same level as the existing folders with the same name, making sure you accept any overwriting of existing files.
4. NOTE: This will NOT delete the existing 'skins' folder - it is essential that the only change to the existing 'skins' folder is the change to these two files as well as the addition of the new StarLight skins.
5. To uninstall rename the 'panel_login_backup.xml' file to 'panel_login.xml' in the /skins/default/xui/en sub-folder, and 'commands_backup.xml' file to 'commands.xml' in the /app_settings sub-folder.
   

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAC USERS

1. Find the Second Life Viewer application in you Applications folder.
2. Right click on the Second Life Viewer application icon. You will get a menu.
3. Choose "Show Package Contents" from that menu.
4. Open the "Resources" folder and scroll down until you see the "skins" and "app_settings" sub-folders of StarLight.
5. Make sure you are not actually running Second Life Viewer as you do this.
6. Copy the files from the folders in StarLight into the Second Life Viewer application folder - this will add in the new skin elements and will overwrite some files.
7. To uninstall rename the 'panel_login_backup.xml' file to 'panel_login.xml' in the /skins/default/xui/en sub-folder, and 'commands_backup.xml' file to 'commands.xml' in the /app_settings sub-folder.
   

Installation Instructions using easy Windows Installer

Simply download and run the associated file and follow the simple instructions. Ensure that when asked you select the appropriate directory to download StarLight into (this is the one into which you installed the Second Life Viewer) - the installer makes a guess at this but probably will not be correct.

Activating a New Skin

1. Start your Second Life client, but do NOT log in.
2. In the log-in screen, select the skin from the drop-down list - it is next to the "Login" button"
3. Restart your Second Life client and log in. The new skin should now be active.