Open Development User Group/Archive/2011-05-09

07:01	Office Orb	mail_to set to oz@lindenlab.com
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	Oz Linden	Hi all
	Ardy Lay	Hello Oz
07:02	Wolfpup	hey oz
	Oz Linden	Looks like we have an open agenda today....
	Wolfpup	< is back using linux
07:03	Oz Linden	Careful, Wolfpup.... you may not want to go back ....
	Ardy Lay	I have a question about a Viewer 2 source dependency if I may.
	Oz Linden	Shoot
	Wolfpup	on this laptop ya right
07:05	Morgaine Dinova	Hi Oz, and latest arrivals.
		That would be Niel :P
	Ima Mechanique	;-)
		well at least Oz isn't ruthed for me today
	Ardy Lay	#include "winres.h" is kinda archaic and gives people trouble if they don't install the ancient samples MS provides with VS2010 Express. It's easy to work around but I am wondering if there is any reason LL doesn't simplify by replacing that line with #include "windows.h"\n#define IDC_STATIC 1000
07:06	Oz Linden	what does IDC_STATIC do?
	Wolfpup	actualy why dosent LL just include it in the repository?
07:07		that would make things even simpler
	Ardy Lay	I am not sure what it is used for, Oz, but the compile complains if it isn't there. I could search.
07:08	Siana Gearz	what's the topic?
	Oz Linden	why doesn't LL include what in the repository?
	Wolfpup	it is use for being able to use the indluded windwos resources
		winres.h
	Ardy Lay	Wolfpup, winres.h is part of MS's code sample package and is ancient and maybe outdated?
	Oz Linden	Ardy Lay: #include "winres.h" is kinda archaic and gives people trouble if they don't install the ancient samples MS provides with VS2010 Express. It's easy to work around but I am wondering if there is any reason LL doesn't simplify by replacing that line with #include "windows.h"\n#define IDC_STATIC 1000
07:09		I don't think we can include any MS code in the repo, unless they've licensed it very liberally
	Wolfpup	actualy it comes with all the windows SDK's
	Oz Linden	then why would we need to include it?
07:10	Ima Mechanique	because it can't be found by default
	Ardy Lay	It's in the samples, not the library/include paths.
	Oz Linden	what do we depend on winres.h for?
	Ardy Lay	And there is no really good reason to install all those samples for one #define
07:11	Ima Mechanique	which in theory, might not be there after some release of the SDKs
	Wolfpup	also if an os dev tries to fully script there nightly personal builds the winres.h causes problems
		Ima it is in the 7.1 SDK
	Ima Mechanique	Wolfpup, it shouldn't
	Oz Linden	I'm certainly open to anything that simplifies getting a dev environment up and running
07:12	Ima Mechanique	Wolf I know, but no guarantee that MS qill always include it
	Oz Linden	do we have an OPEN issue for this?
	Ardy Lay	I comment out that #include and replace it with another to a file that's easy to find and one #define
		I suppose we could make one if it's likely to go places.
	Oz Linden	storm-859
	Office Orb	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-859 STORM-859 winres.h isn't present within VC++ Express includes. Must be manually copied from win7 sdk example code.
	Ardy Lay	I think Ima pointed this one out to me.
		There you go.
	Wolfpup	when i tried ti run my script just befor my vid card on my windows system died i had an error when it was trying to finish building secondlife-bin
07:13	Oz Linden	I'm happy to try out solutions that reduce dependencies....
07:14	Ardy Lay	I don't bother installing the SDK. DOn't seem to need it as enough is included with VS2010 Express
	Oz Linden	we can't include windows files in the repo, and I'd rather not #define something that really should be coming from an include file (as soon as we forgot that we did that M$ would change it and break something)
07:15		but if we can find better #includes to use and/or figure out a way to avoid the dependency, that would be great
	Wolfpup	Ardy you need the win 7 SDK as you need to be useing msbuild instead of the vcbuild
	Oz Linden	are you doing your builds using autobuild, Ardy?
07:16	Wolfpup	and msbuild is part of the .net fram work that comes in with the windows 7 SDK's
	Ima Mechanique	Wolf the msbuild is available separately to the SDK
	Ardy Lay	Autobuild, yes
		C:\linden\viewer-development-build\indra\newview\res\viewerRes.rc(70): ICON IDI_LL_ICON,IDC_STATIC,7,7,20,20
		THat's the only reference to IDC_STATIC that my search found.
07:17	Oz Linden	Brad Linden has been doing a bunch of work to clean up and simplify the includes (with beneficial effect on compile time), but I don't know if he has touched the windows includes specifically
	Ardy Lay	There are a lot of #define directives for similar names.
	Oz Linden	any idea what that line is doing?
	Wolfpup	no he has not the work he has done from what i have seen on the RB is only on the LL code
07:18	Ardy Lay	Oz, it appears to be part of the login spash screen dialog.
07:19	Oz Linden	One of the tasks I'd like to get to pretty soon is fixing all our icons... I've got new ones so that Release, Beta, Project, Development, and Test (developer) are all different icons
	Wolfpup	Ardy actualy i think it is part of the program start screen befor you even get the login
07:20	Ardy Lay	Yes, the splash preceeds login
07:21	Oz Linden	Shall I assign STORM-859 to you to come up with a proposal, Ardy?
	Ardy Lay	NOt having a programming background sometimes makes building test viewers challenging.
	Siana Gearz	o.O what's up with the minimap... wonder whether i broke it. where do you see yourselves everyone? i see all of you in the middle of my minimap.
07:22	Ardy Lay	Hmm... I think I'd like to toss it into the mailing list to see if some Windows programmers want to chime in.
	Wolfpup	Siana if your zoomed way out yes all will apear bunced togeathere till you zoom in
07:23	Oz Linden	my minimap seems ok... it's centered on me, but everyone looks like they are in the right place on the map. But I'm running a windlight project viewer from last week
		go for it, Ardy
	Ardy Lay	Okay
	Siana Gearz	windlight???
		oh new project
	Oz Linden	Yes, we're working on Windlight Region settings
	Ardy Lay	My mini-map seems fine too.
07:24	Siana Gearz	i see. i'll have to investigate my own breakage later then.
07:25	Oz Linden	Other topics?
	Morgaine Dinova	Oz, what is the state of mesh code in Snowstorm currently?
07:26	Oz Linden	We did some trial merges last week, but some bad breakage was found in support for newer Macs (last couple of years)
		we are holding off the merge until those are addressed
07:27	Morgaine Dinova	Was that in answer to the question about mesh code?
	Ardy Lay	Oz, the mesh development branch appears to be pulling from viewer-development.
	Wolfpup	Im still wondering what code is coging to be used as part of the convex stub
	Oz Linden	but once they are fixed, that code will be in viewer-development, but with the mesh features disabled
	Ardy Lay	What point is there to pull back? Sounds like merge hell to me.
07:28	Oz Linden	yes, Morgaine, it was
	Morgaine Dinova	Some 2-year long Mac breakage is not a reason for not merging mesh.
	Oz Linden	no, Ardy... the easy way to do the merges is to pull out to the developer branch first - then the pull back will be merge-free and you don't risk blocking the trunk
07:29	Wolfpup	ok windows i have not been able to build mesh for a while due to an error in llmesh
	Morgaine Dinova	If the breakage is not in the repo, people can't fix it.
	Oz Linden	I gather that the problems on the mesh branch are worse than the "normal" breakage on Macs
07:30		If anyone wants to help fix it, they can ... the mesh branch is public
	Ardy Lay	That strategy seems misguided to me
07:31	Wolfpup	i wonder if the meshwould build on this linux system
	Oz Linden	Sorry... what seems misguided, Ardy?
07:35	Morgaine Dinova	I suspect Ardy meant the long-term separation of the branches. They really ought to touch periodically, or you get merge hell at the end.
	Ardy Lay	mesh-development is pulling from viewer-development and works at 110 changesets inbound, currently. Having viewer-development pull from mesh-development collides miserably with 2216 incomming changesets.
	Oz Linden	Mesh has been merging out regularly from viewer-development; recently it has been more or less daily, I believe
07:36		The current best repo for the merge is, I think, this one: https://bitbucket.org/davep/mesh-candidate-storm-1210
	Office Orb	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1210 STORM-1210 Shining team sidebranch merge into trunk for mesh technology, SSE2, deferred rendering
07:37	Oz Linden	That's where they have resolved all the merge conflicts. That merges into v-d smoothly
	Morgaine Dinova	Doesn't sound like there's a problem then, beyond the never-ending wait for an initial release into v-d.
07:38	Ardy Lay	All those repositories are public-readable, I suspect.
	Oz Linden	should be
	Ardy Lay	mesh-development crashes on me a lot
07:39		The crash reports tend to be empty too.
	Oz Linden	that's on Windows?
	Ardy Lay	Yes
07:40		Generally, the exit is due to an invalid memory access or a null pointer resulting in unhandled exceptions.
	Wolfpup	is mesh even avail for linux?
	Oz Linden	I'll check with the mesh team to find out about the empty reports
07:41		mesh is supported on all the platforms that the viewer is, afaik
07:42	Wolfpup	ok
	Oz Linden	I know that the mesh dev I sit near does most of his work on Linux, so I'm pretty sure it works there
	Ardy Lay	I got tired og questionable behavior so I built a machine using server/workstation class hardware, ECC all the way with a SuperMicro main board and Intel Xeon W3550 CPU and 12GB ECC memory. Should not be any memory error crashes now.
	Oz Linden	sweet
		More RAM Good!
	Ardy Lay	Yeah
07:43		Bye
		bye bye pagepool
		Hehe
		Also, SSD is nice
	Oz Linden	My brother does hardware simulation and verification tools... the amount of RAM his systems have is obscense
07:44	Wolfpup	Ardy be carfull of memburn on that SSD ardy
	Oz Linden	obscene
	Ardy Lay	I figured that since I sit at this computer when I am not mowing swampland I should have good hardware.
	Oz Linden	how do you mow swampland?
	Ardy Lay	Wolfpup, get your facts straight. Do the math. At max write rate it would take 53 years to wear this thing out.
07:45	Wolfpup	Oz you use an airboat with a brush hog
	Ardy Lay	Oz, tall mower and boots.
	Morgaine Dinova	You dangle a mower from a balloon.
	Oz Linden	LOL
	Ardy Lay	It's not supposed to be swampland but has been raining a lot the last 3 years.
07:47	Oz Linden	So ... here's a question for you... I'm meeting this week with the head of our UX team.... what are your top 2 user experience fails? Morgaine?
07:48	Wolfpup	i know one that dose not even want to be discussed
07:49	Ardy Lay	I really dislike having to use the mouse all the time. V2 has eliminated much of the handy keyboard UI navigation paths. For example, how does one switch between "NEARBY CHAT" history and IMs with the keyboard? In V1 it was simple. ALT + left and right arrow keys.
	Oz Linden	I don't know about discussed, but I'm willing to hear a quick statement.... Morgaine is quiet - who else?
		have you tried Tab?
07:50		I'm not an expert on the keyboard shortcuts....
	Wolfpup	Oz ardy is talking about the one i found the code still in the source for
	Ardy Lay	Yeah, tabbing moves around into several hidden stops and does not get me into IMs from NEARBY CHAT
	Oz Linden	Control-Tab
07:51		it seems to select between the bottom bar items....
		other UX fails? 9 minutes to get yours onto the list....
	Ardy Lay	Try to enter an existing IM session with that.
07:52	Ima Mechanique	colour scheme, it's the one thing prvents me using v2
	Ardy Lay	Yeah, black lighting up black on black is kinda...... ugh.
07:53	Oz Linden	the color of the UI elements? That one is on my list (I want to make them configurable)
	Wolfpup	i use the V2 but wish i had the 'silver' color scheam from v1
	Ima Mechanique	I know ;-) but it's a killer for me. without a better colour/contrast for the UI I simpy can't use it for long enough to discover it's benefits ;-)
07:54		same here Wolf. I remember when the dsark design was the only choice. The Silver made such a huge difference to me, I can't go back
	Wolfpup	Ima the 'silver' coloring of V1 has better contrast
07:55	Oz Linden	ok... don't need to convince me on that one, for sure.... what else?
	Ima Mechanique	hehe can't give you a second, the first prevents me finding any others ;-)
07:57	Wolfpup	Oz Ardys issue of switching between nearby and group/personal convos could be fixd with a particular feature request
	Oz Linden	which, Wolfpup?
	Wolfpup	the one you told me was an EXTREAMLY touchy subject inside LL
07:58	Ardy Lay	May I guess that it's asking for all text chat sessions to be in a single tabbed container?
	Wolfpup	yep
07:59	Ardy Lay	THat sure made navigation easier and reduced on-screen clutter.
		Also made spotting new IM sessions easier for me.
08:00	Office Orb	Your timer has expired!
	Oz Linden	I'll be discussing that one....
	Ardy Lay	I think putting them on opposite sides of the screen is weird and awkward and was done because somebody screwed up and sent something sensitive to the wrong session.
	Wolfpup	Oz issue number is VWR-17332
	Office Orb	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-17332 VWR-17332 Merge 'nearby chat' (previously 'local chat', 'chat history') into conversation floater
08:01	Oz Linden	My understanding is that the "enter in wrong place" was a major reason, but I was not here then, so I don't know how complete that is
08:02	Morgaine Dinova	It's a mistake to impose merged windows, or separate windows. Different people want different things. Make it user-configurable.
	Oz Linden	I need to go folks.... thanks for coming
	Office Orb	End transcription