Template talk:User Guide Disclaimer
Bumping the Second Life Viewer version to 7... and not 2.
When @Rand Linden added this template back in 2011, SL 2.X had come out, and it was a major game changer (double pun intended). This is usual with all software versions: historically, the "jump" from 1 to 2 is the biggest one. I believe there are many reasons for that (or so I've read about — I can't remember where, so, I have no references, sorry!), one of which is "okay, so we launched this product, and we did so many things wrong, let's rethink it from scratch, using the user input we got". While even the minor versions during version 1 were dramatic improvements, version 2 reformulated the whole concept of the viewer — too many things were changed, at all levels: interface, renderer, configuration parameters...
The jump from Version 2 to 3, comparatively speaking, was not so huge. Nevertheless, it did eventually break a lot of things, too. On the SL Wiki, there is still a lot of distinction made between certain configuration parameters that apply either to version 1, 2, or 3. But with 4 onwards, the change was not so dramatic. In terms of pure user interface, the changes have been mostly cosmetic — even if a lot changed beneath the glossy, shiny surface. But in terms of completely breaking with the past... well, no; for instance, the configuration parameters that existed on v2 still exist on v7. There are just many more :)
This warning template has been around for a long time, and, during that time, the SL Viewer acquired more and more features. While, as said, from the perspetive of a "User Guide", whatever applies to Version 2 will apply — mostly — to Version 7 as well, I think that it makes an even deeper impact in showing that the "User Guide" we have here is really old and should not be followed. It's not like saying, "oh, we're at version 2 now, this is the manual for the last minor version of the 1 series, possibly nothing has changed much since then". No — we're at version 7 now (at the time of writing this!), and the gap between what is current today and what was valid for 1.23 is huge.
This way, whoever visits this guide understands that the instructions here are really, really outdated in every regard, and the document is only hosted here mostly for historic reasons... and hopefully get encouraged to follow the link to a newer version instead!
— Gwyneth Llewelyn (talk) 12:17, 12 August 2024 (PDT)