Xah Particle Maker Release Notes

Version 1.6.1; 2009-05-20

This is a major release, featuring real-time graphical user interface sliders for all particle parameters.

Graphical User Interface Changes

• Added sliders for all parameters. These sliders update particles in real time. You can hold your mouse button and move your mouse on the panel, to see particles change in real time.

• The Color Pickers now also update particles in real time.

Chat Command Changes

• Some command names have changed.

The new names are more self-explanatory.

• Much better input check. Now, ALL chat commands will be checked on its validity. For example, typing “age 40” will result “Max sprite age is 30 seconds. I've set it to 30 for you.”. These are Second Life limits, some are actually Second Life bugs.

Parameter Display Changes

• The parameter names are changed to the new command names.

• The parameter display has been improved a lot. For example, it displays “(spam ≈ 30%)”. This means the particle is using 30% of the max particles of a typical Second Life client's default preference settings. The default for most users is 4096 sprites. In the previous version, it would display “(total: 1228)”.

• Fixed a bug in the param display. When pattern is DROP, then BurstSpeed (now BurstSpeedRange) has no effect and should be shown as “◇”.

• Fixed a bug where ending zero in particle age is dropped. For example, when you type “age 10”, then press “Create Script”, the age in the script is 1.

Version 1.5.51; 2009-05-12

This is a major release with many improvements.

Graphical User Interface Improvements

• New Color Picker. The color cubes for setting starting/ending color has been replaced by a single-prim color picker. This reduces prim count from 22 to 2, and lets you choose all possible colors.
• Better On/Off Panel. The On/Off control panel got a major rework. Some panels now have small texts that explains what they do. The Glow and Color Changing panels are placed togeter with the rest panels. The Target Pos and Target You buttons are merged into just Target You. The Target Linear button has been removed, because its usefulness is rare. (may be added back on later)

Chat Command Improvements

• StartColor and EndColor chat commands can now accept RGB hexadecimal string format or values of 0 to 255 model. For example, to set starting color to red, you can type any of: “startcolor ff0000”, “startcolor 1 0 0”, “startcolor 255 0 0”. This is useful when you need to set a exact color value from the web, photoshop, or other LSL script.

Other Improvements

• The firework preset now uses a star texture for more fun experience.
• The help notecard now mentions Release Notes. The release note doc (this page you are reading) tells you what has changed in the latest version. The location is here: http://xahlee.org/sl/xah_particle_maker_rn.html
• The parameter display now only display last 4 digits UUID of textures or target agent/object, for security purposes. (onlooker can steal your texture if UUID is displayed.)
• Now there is a inworld user group. Please join “Xah Particle Maker users”.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug in the version update. Before, the code would think “0.2” is later than “1.0”.
• Changed the preset of blinking beacon, so that upon change owner, it is set. This is for fixing the bug: when rezzed for the first time, and preset buttons are not pressed, the generate source code button results broken code.

Version 1.4.38; 2009-05-01

• Added Automatic Version Update feature. When a new version is available, it is automatically given to user.
• Now demo version touch button uses a obj server to give out latest demo copy. Instead of just giving a copy from inventory.
• The Preset Panels is now “Full Bright”. More visible while sim is in midnight. (Thanks to DaleLynn Beck for the suggestion)

First Public Release; 2009-03

Thanks to Sleeves Rhode, Aaliyah Capelo for help and support.