Few things that forgot to mention - The release also has latest realXtend Tundra repository code. Which means months worth of features and bug fixes. I'm expecting rex to make their next release this/next week, depends when Jukka has time for it of course. - You can still do manua login (host+username) with the other client UIs. I made shortcuts to the installation for easy access: Start menu -> Adminotech Tundra -> Extras -> Tundra Browser Client and Tundra Classic Client. I will also make this available to our next release into the fancies UI :) - Screenshots don't do justice to the UI (subtle transition animations etc.), try it out!
Best regards, Jonne Nauha Adminotech developer On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 12:54 AM, Jonne Nauha <jo...@adminotech.com> wrote: > *Whats up?* > * > * > After the Virtual Gallery Weekend Berlin event was over, we got back to > Tundra client experience and our server hosting service development. We've > done some exiting things, so I figured to post something about them. > > Our Tundra hosting has been developed now for a long time. One big problem > for me was that it was really hard to find Tundra worlds even if they > existed somewhere on the web. Our initial logins to Tundra scenes was > always done via a "web portal" like we like to call them. A good example > for this is http://login.realxtend.org/ that we host for the realXtend > foundation to have some demo and sandbox scenes. The problem with this is > that the end users needs to know the URL to that login portal or they will > never end up there, sure we advertised that login portal on the mailing > lists here every now and then, but its still too hard. Additionally the > flow to visit a world is not very good when you first have to authenticate > yourself to a web page, then your main application start. Why cant the > client do this? > > Well now it can. We have made a new client user interface/experience from > scratch. This login portal inside Tundra is only shipped in Adminotech > client releases. You need to keep in mind everything we do with Tundra is > open sourced via pull requests and the main Tundra benefits from virtually > everything we do with Tundra. Good example of this is the rewritten > MumblePlugin that we made, that finally got us working fully open source > VOIP to Tundra. My point here is, the login UI we have made > to accommodate simpler access to Adminotech hosted Tundra servers is not > something that belongs to the core. Not in my or any other devs opinion. > Adminotech hosted servers have nothing to do with the core Tundra, we just > ship a different looking login UI than the "classic" write your IP:PORT and > username here :) > > *Get started* > * > * > > http://tundra-adminotech.s3.amazonaws.com/post-images/admino-tundra-auth.png. > > * > * > Enough of that for now then, lets get to the features. When you install > and run Adminotech Tundra (version where this feature ships is 2.3.2.6 to > be exact) you will land to a authentication page. Here you authenticate > yourself with facebook (more 3rd party auths coming, like gmail) or with a > Adminotech account. If you are skeptic about giving facebook auth, as I > know some are, you can create a new adminotech account from the same UI. > There is nothing to be scared about the facebook authentication though, we > only request your email and your public profile picture (that is always > public, even on your web profile). Facebook password is never given to us > (of course right? :), it uses OAuth and takes a small trip on facebook own > login page to verify who you are. Once you are logged in you will be > remembered for as long as you click the "logout" link below your profile > picture or if you auth to any web login portals, your Tundra login will be > expired and you need to relogin. > > *Selecting a Tundra scene and login* > * > * > > http://tundra-adminotech.s3.amazonaws.com/post-images/admino-tundra-login-lobby.png > > Next you will land to a view that will show you all the public servers in > our hosting. Public means the client is ok with giving public visibility > and login access to their scene. Currently there are 9 public scenes, but > as you can see from the bottom right corner stats we have about 60 scenes > hosted total, so we expect the public visibility to grow in the future. The > top part of the view is reserved for promoted servers. Currently Ludocraft > Circus, rex/ensad RMP and Virtual Gallery Weekend Berlin are shown there to > give people the idea. Basically its a nice place to highlight new scene or > ongoing virtual events. The promotions and the servers listings are of > course always fetched live from our backend, no client releases needed for > updates :) > > > http://tundra-adminotech.s3.amazonaws.com/post-images/admino-tundra-server-info.png > > Clicking a promotion image or server in the grid view will take you to a > focus view. If the server is promoted it will show custom graphics that > will tell you more about the scene or anything the client wants to relay to > the user. If the server is not promoted it will show a screen shot of the > last time you visited the scene, meaning the image area will be blank if > you haven't visited that world yet. This view gives you the login option or > you can go back to the main view. The grid view of the servers also shows > you what worlds currently have other avatars, the ones with users are > always sorted first in the list. > > > http://tundra-adminotech.s3.amazonaws.com/post-images/admino-tundra-filter-resizing.png > > The UI will adapt to any sized screens as you can see on this screenshot. > It also has filtering feature with auto suggestions if you cant remember > something exactly. This search also works for avatar usernames that are > inworld, so you can quickly find the server your friend is in. Granted this > filter is not very useful when you only have 9 scenes in the grid view, but > for example as i have the full ~60 scenes it sure comes handy :) > > *Download and try it* > * > * > Our client is available for both mac and windows. Mac now has a nicer pkg > installer, props to Cvetan for that. It will give you a more classic > next-next-finish kind of install UI. It will also do checks that your OS is > new enough to run Tundra etc. > > Auto update is live for both Adminotech Tundra windows and mac as usual. > Additionally all web login portal client download links are also up to date > and point to the latest installers, so if you'd prefer you can use those. > > Windows installer: > https://github.com/downloads/Adminotech/tundra/Adminotech-Tundra-2.3.2.6.msi > Mac installer: > https://github.com/downloads/Adminotech/tundra/Adminotech-Tundra-2.3.2.6.pkg > > *Login portal future* > * > * > All login portals will remain working, this client will work well with web > initiated logins as well. We will evaluate later if we want to fade out the > web portals at some points, but right now there is no reason for that. They > have many uses still and people have gotten used to those, it will take > time to win people to the new way of doing things :) Also we need more > features to the Tundra login portal for it to replace web logins for good > (anonymous login etc.) > > *Tundra contributions* > * > * > One big thing that we focused was making multiple logins with one Tundra > instance. The norm nowadays is to visit a world, close the client, then > login to another. That seems like a ass backwards way of doing things, and > its slow with booting up the client all the time. I've hunted some (crash) > bugs from the Tundra core that prevented us from simply logging out and > connecting to another view. With the new Tundra, you can keep tundra > running as long as you want :) This includes some threaded ogre asset load > crash fixes, cleaning the asset memory when you disconnect or eventually > your memory would end, some AssetAPI fixes to properly abort ongoing asset > transfers if disconnected etc. All these ill be putting into a pull request > in the upcoming days and send it to main Tundra. > > *Adminotech hosting* > * > * > We have also made major improvements to our backend and we have more in > the pipes. Soon our clients will be able to create new scenes, mark down > applications from a web admin UI into that scene and the apps will be > running next time you login :) This might be exiting for you SL/OpenSim > type of folks that want the basic virtual worlds experience: avatar, chat, > voip and terrain (possibly giving a height map to the admin web page etc.) > with a click of a button. Then you can start building your worlds from > there, we accommodate cloud hosting space for your scenes and assets. Now > relative refs also work perfectly in our scenes so you don't have to work > with cumbersome long URL to make things. This is not a company view (yet? > :) but I'm dreaming of making solid primitive building tools to top the > thing off, for ease of use for users that don't have 3D modeling > experience, or just no need to make complicated meshes but are happy > building with the good old prims. Who knows maybe someone in Tundra core > beats me to it. > > If your company/organisation/project/etc. is interested in Tundra hosting > please contact us admino (at) adminotech.com / http://www.adminotech.com. We > don't offer anything official for individual people yet, but we will be > working on that for the future. Individuals of course can also be in touch > and let us know if you are interested. > > *Long rant...* > * > * > Well it was, congrats if you read it to the end :) We will be making new > features and develop this client UI further. Like allowing a manual login > with ip+port+username to be done, people/devs need it, just didnt have time > to put it in to the first release. Anyhow please let us know what you think > and report bugs here or to our issue tracker > https://github.com/Adminotech/tundra/issues > > Best regards, > Jonne Nauha > Adminotech developer > -- http://groups.google.com/group/realxtend http://www.realxtend.org
