Over the last two months, I was a bit unfortunate. First I was extremely busy, because the New Year will turn my professional life (the real life that is) upside down. So I had to get many things done to be prepared for the changes. That’s still ongoing, and will be for at least another month. (Not going to bore you with details here.)
And mid-December I got struck by the Swine Flu. In the end I won, but it was rather critical (first time in my life that I’ve been in Emergency Room). Anyway, no feeling sorry, please! I’m fit again. 
Just before I went down with the flu, Alex asked me about the future plans for Snowglobe:FE. Well. To be honest, time is and will be an issue for quite a while. Haven’t heard from Alex since, so he’s probably very busy, too. Or he was upset, because I haven’t touched the source code for quite a while now.
That leaves Snowglobe:FE with two passive maintainers/developers and according to Google Analytics about 200 unique SL residents per week, who log in with Snowglobe:FE. Other viewer makers will fall off their chairs and laugh reading these figures. But for a viewer, which originally was intended to be only for me, and hasn’t seen any progress within the last two months, it’s not too bad, is it? Anyway, I do appreciate that we have a few faithful fans out there!
However, the Swine Flu was a bit of an eye-opener and re-adjusted my focus. It may sound dramatical, but my lesson learned is: You can have as many second lives as you want, but you have only got a single real life, which may end any time and all of a sudden! Now, unlike many others, I’m not an SL addict (any more), and am fully aware of RL’s existence. However, the recent events will set my focus even more on RL, and less on SL. I’m sure that those of you, who haven’t forgotten what RL is like, will understand.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I can’t answer where Snowglobe:FE is going. There may be times, when I spend more time in SL, and when I feel like improving the viewer. Then you may see new releases. But there may also be times, where I don’t care about SL — and obviously won’t touch the source code at all. I also can’t answer if there are any Windows people out there (I’m on a Mac), who are interested in compiling the source and providing binaries.
Sooner or later, other viewer developers will spend more time with the Snowglobe engine, too. I’ve been asked a few times, if features of Snowglobe:FE can be used elsewhere. Of course they can! It’s open source. And the project home page, this blog, and the Mercurial source repositories will of course stay online for the fans of Snowglobe:FE, and for those who want to use our code elsewhere. Chances are that some of Snowglobe:FE’s features will appear in other viewers. (And as you know, we have implemented other viewers’ features as well. To be fair, all the viewers out there have got more than just a couple of common denominators.)
Well, this is where Snowglobe:FE and I stand. Don’t want to retire, but can’t commit to spending too much time, either. Dilemma.
Hi Sean
I am truly sorry to hear about your misfortunes. But RL is a must and SL is not. I hope you stay well.
I really like what you have done with Snowglobe:FE
) I have only 1 current problem with it and that is ..when i change clothes ..no one but me can see the change. I actually TP into a a mall naked ..lol.. and thought i was fully dressed. Luckily, only my friend was in the mall ..lol..
What i have to do when i change clothes is ..change clothes ..close out Snowglobe and open up SL Classic (Lindens viewer- lagville) ..give it a couple minutes and then i can go back to Snowglobe:FE.
I have the same problem in the regular Snowglobe too and with their SL media Plugins its pure resource hell.
My Question is ..Which other viewer would you recommend other than Emerald? i find Emerald just another overbloated SL Classic.
Stay well and thank you.
Rg
)
I am a fan of Snowglobe. Primarily because the one single “feature” of Snowglobe is performance. The other thing is that it properly saves Hi-Res snapshots to disk. The official (and third-party based on it) viewer screws-up snapshots to disk – and rezzing/rendering performance is abysmal.
The singular “feature” I miss from the third-party viewers is: double-click to TP. That’s it. The rest I really don;t care about. I have only last week discovered Snowglobe FE. Talk about “heaven-sent”.
Dismayed somewhat that active development won;t continue. But that’s okay because I agree: the cliché “first life comes first” is true and we all must focus there.
The only current issue I have with SFE (on Windows) is some memory leak as it crashes to desktop rather suddenly, especially in prim-heavy places. I also have a Mac, but it’s actually fun to do work on it, so I run SL on my XP box (as I am often multitasking work on my Mac LOL)
All I can say is: if I knew how to do it, I would take every release build of Snowglobe and add the DC2TP feature and compile for Mac and Windows myself. However, though I used to be that technical a long time ago, I certainly am nowhere near that now.
SFE can die as long as you set your priorities right. And that’s first life.
So I guess this comment is two-fold: first, to thank you for what you have done thus far. Second is please do focus where priorities should be, even if development of SFE must fade away. You have my support and best wishes for your health and livelihood.
I hear you Sean. It was great being around you in SL. I would however like to help on updates and releases. I have come a ways since we first met, with your permission, I would like to be able to present you with new coding that I have tested and am ready to release, in addition to your own to help make Snowglobe FE the fastest and most stable available. Give me a shout. You got my info…
Thanks for understanding my reasons, and for your support, folks! I appreciate that!
Meanwhile Alex has expressed interest in continuing development, and I’m happy to accept your patches to the code as well, Hurana. If you could open tickets and attach your patches, either Alex or I could integrate them. And as soon as we’ve seen a bit of working code, I’m happy to add a Mercurial SCM account for you to add your changes directly to the codebase.
Thanks a lot!
(Oh, and of course nobody needs permission to use Snowglobe:FE’s code. It’s open source. So in the worst case that Snowglobe:FE really dies, which I don’t hope, anybody could take the code from Mercurial SCM, change it, build it, and make it in an equally open way available to the public. A distinct name for the baby should be found, though, to avoid confusion.)