Release Candidate

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Revision as of 15:14, 9 January 2008 by Bridie Linden (talk | contribs) (New page: <font size=4>'''About Release Candidate viewers'''</font> == Intro == Now that we've been offering '''Release Candidate viewers''' for a while now (~4 months) and with 2007 now behind us,...)
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About Release Candidate viewers

Intro

Now that we've been offering Release Candidate viewers for a while now (~4 months) and with 2007 now behind us, it seemed like a good opportunity to pause and let everybody know more about how things have been going...

Back in August, we recognized that our frequent viewer updates — that often seemed to fix one thing and break two others — were causing Residents and Open Source developers a lot of frustration. To help address this and improve the release process (and hopefully overall quality!), we started offering Release Candidate viewers.

Release Candidate viewers contain the latest bug fixes and new features that we believe are very close to release quality, but that we want Residents to try 'in the wild' and report back any issues before we make it the primary viewer download. RC viewers are available as optional downloads — completely separate from the primary viewer download and compatible as side-by-side installs. You decide to 'opt in' — or not!

RC viewers spend ~2-3 weeks in RC status before becoming the primary viewer download. During this time, we import, triage and fix issues found by Residents (or Lindens!). We closely monitor blog comments and the public Issue Tracker (PJIRA). I host a weekly public inworld triage to review new issues and help decide which issues should be imported (into our internal JIRA). Once or twice a week, we make another build of the RC viewer, QA the fixes, and make it available for download. We wash-rinse-repeat until we're confident that we have a release quality viewer!

It may be a bit too soon to declare our RC process a success and to be sure, there's likely room for improvement, but we've received positive feedback from our community. We seem to be headed in the right direction, gaining ground in increasing the quality and predictability of viewer releases.

How can you help?

  • Try out the RC viewer (download here) and report any reproducible issues you find in the Issue Tracker.
  • Encourage other Residents to try out the RC viewer (but be sure to point them here so they know what it's all about).
  • Search the Issue Tracker for existing issues before reporting a new issue.
    • Comment on existing issues with your experience and vote for it!
    • Issues marked as 'Fix pending' means the fix is coming soon and will be included in an upcoming release.

And now for a little...

Release Candidate Q+A

Why is it called a 'Release Candidate' viewer?

As mentioned above, we consider these viewers to be release quality, but want to allow for feedback from our community before calling them a final release. Also see a general definition of "release candidate".

What's the usual uptake of RC viewers?

We've been seeing ~3% login rate/24hrs...not bad (but WindLight has been enjoying closer to 5%! Go WL!)

Has this process helped our confidence with new features?

Yes, we've been able to introduce new features during each RC. Residents have been able try out all of these additions to the viewer and report back to us. Some examples:

  • 1.18.3 - We tried out new beacon behavior, then reverted it in subsequent RC release due to Resident feedback
  • 1.18.4 - We introduced the new lag meter and new opt-in/opt-out checkboxes for forthcoming release of new inworld search
  • 1.18.5 - We introduced the new inworld search via the 'All' tab
  • 1.18.6 - We added preference settings for web browser proxy and added -loginpage option to client to specify the login page

How many iterations have there been for each release?

Let's see...

  • 1.18.3 - 4 iterations
    • 1.18.3.2 (RC0 on Wednesday, 2007-08-29)
    • 1.18.3.3 (RC1 on Thursday, 2007-09-14)
    • 1.18.3.4 (RC2 on Friday, 2007-09-14)
    • 1.18.3.5 (RC3 on Friday, 2007-09-21)
  • 1.18.4 - 3 iterations
    • 1.18.4.0 (RC0 on Friday, 2007-10-19)
    • 1.18.4.1 (RC1 on Friday, 2007-10-26)
    • 1.18.4.2 (RC2 on Thursday, 2007-11-01)
  • 1.18.5 - 3 iterations
    • 1.18.5.0 (RC0 on Tuesday, 2007-11-13)
    • 1.18.5.1 (RC1 on Monday, 2007-11-19)
    • 1.18.5.2 (RC2 on Monday, 2007-11-26)
  • 1.18.6 - 4 iterations (so far!)
    • 1.18.6.0 (RC0 on Wednesday, 2007-12-05)
    • 1.18.6.1 (RC1 on Wednesday, 2007-12-12)
    • 1.18.6.2 (RC2 on Friday, 2007-12-21 21)
    • 1.18.6.3 (RC3 on Saturday, 2007-12-29)

How many bugs have we kept out of the primary viewer downloads?

So far (as of the 1.18.6 RC), a total of 68 bugs have been fixed during the 1.18.3, 1.18.4, 1.18.5 and 1.18.6 RC viewer process.

Can you summmarize the highlights by release for me?

You bet!

1.18.3 RC (10 fixes)

  • Updated voice components to improve quality and address VWR-1532
  • Fixed URL handler exploit described here]: http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/09/18/second-life-url-handler-exploit/
  • Fixed default eyes appearing gray
  • Fixed login failure when declining optional updates
  • Fixed VWR-2487: Covenant Details between live version and release candidate version
  • Fixed VWR-2484: Icons missing from Mac OS X build
  • Fixed VWR-2482: build tree misses the cursors_mac directory
  • Fixed VWR-2378: Failure to enable the "Update" button in the profile/classifieds tab, after a "Set Location" update.
  • VWR-2265: Mis-spelled LSL constant OBJECT_UNKOWN_DETAIL renamed to OBJECT_UNKNOWN_DETAIL
  • Fixed viewer source linking error

1.18.4 RC (25 fixes)

  • Fixed a sculptie LOD issue
  • Fixed region Mature setting reverting to PG after Estate/Region changes
  • Fixed several UI elements
  • Fixed new group not appearing in group window until relog
  • Fixed Trash folders in user inventory
  • Fixed missing line of information on land sales
  • Fixed parcel listings showing [AREA] instead of parcel size
  • Fixed bad teleports from landmarks
  • Fixed up/down arrows for Repeats Per Face
  • Fixed a viewer nested message crash
  • Fixed a viewer crash with editing classifieds
  • Fixed a viewer crash when pressing Ctrl-F with a minimized Search window
  • Fixed secondlife.log spam when group info window opens
  • Fixed Publish on Web not saving for parcels
  • Fixed missing dialog for Publish in Classifieds
  • Fixed updates for Land and L$
  • Crash on startup (due to empty list of rewritten login URIs)
  • Viewer crash while trying to rez an object
  • Crash when editing classifieds
  • Land & L$ fields no longer update
  • Minimizing the search window followed by Ctrl+F crashes
  • Parcel option doesnt save publish listing on the web setting
  • Texture editing user interface is confusing
  • Can't set Repeats Per Face with up/down arrows
  • Auction ID and Land Description Overlap in the 'About Land' window

1.18.5 RC (10 fixes)

  • Fixed VWR-3311: Web UI elements' focus rectangle are offset from their displayed position
  • Fixed VWR-3388: Google screen is shown in new search-all with keywords trailing equal
  • Fixed VWR-3478: Using Search Clicking Show on Map button opens map, but closes Search
  • Fixed slurls with 3 slashes (secondlife:///app....) not being highlighted in the text window
  • Fixed various XML errors related to the search feature, Windows Only
  • Fixed VWR-3064: Land Search does not show Description Text for any parcel selected in Search
  • Fixed VWR-3084: Dramatic drop in frame rate after the first use of the new search engine.
  • Fixed VWR-3200: Classifieds Statistics in profile are broken
  • Fixed search turning transparent instead of minimizing
  • Fixed VWR-3073: Right-clicking someone's attachments to view profile loads (???) (???) instead

1.18.6 RC (23 fixes)

  • Corrected login page URL for German language
  • Fixed VWR-1115: Added preference settings for web browser proxy
  • Fixed VWR-3741: Added -loginpage option to client to specify the login page
  • Reverted bad fix for: Connect button does not have focus in HTML login screen
  • Fixed VWR-3815: Double-click on login name/password doesn't select name/password
  • Fixed VWR-3814: Fix tracking of click-throughs for Classifieds
  • Fixed Menubar doesn't turn red when connecting to a beta grid
  • Fixed VWR-3703: No wind sound
  • Fixed VWR-3659: Log in screen in 1.18.6 RC(0) displays UI elements that should be viewable only after login
  • Fixed SVC-1032]: Age Verification status shows in profile
  • Fixed XML resizing files to accommodate translated strings
  • Fixed New translated strings for the UI
  • Fixed Disable QuickTime when the installed version is less than version with RTSP exploit
  • Fixed 5 VWR-1919: Remove texture UUID information from UI unless full-perm
  • Fixed crash in Crash Logger
  • Fixed Change crash logger "Remember this choice" function to default to on
  • Fixed Connect button now has focus on login screen
  • Fixed Inventory folder loading state now more clearly indicated
  • Fixed VWR-3558: llLoadURL cannot be muted
  • Fixed VWR-3428: Checking a users profile while editing a linked set causes viewer crash
  • Fixed Viewer channel and version numbers reported incorrectly during login
  • Fixed Inventory cache version number incorrectly incremented, leading to perceved loss
  • Fixed Age verification status hard to read in the profile field
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