First and foremost before I start this group of blogs on firestorm, let me just say if u have problems after reading please either attend a class( ck for schedule at http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/firestorm_classes) or go to search>>groups>>type in Firestorm Support English. click on the title and get the group to join. the support team can be very helpful. *Just a reminder all blogs on Firestorm are taken from the class notes* Now to start the intro
Introduction to Firestorm class material based on the 4.4.2 release
This class is intended to give you an overview of the Firestorm viewer, as well as show you how to customize it to suit you.
If you have not installed Firestorm previously just download and install it. However, if you have tried one of the previous releases, please do a clean install to avoid possible issues. When the next release comes out also do a clean install please. http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_clean_reinstall has instructions on how to do a proper clean install.
Firestorm installs to its own directories so you can install it without affecting other viewers.
This class is meant to help you start to get familiar with the Firestorm layout. We'll cover:
* Top Bar
* Bottom Bar
* Viewer Modes
We have a large and growing body of documentation at http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=start to help you out as well as our support group secondlife:///app/group/3a1be8d4-01f3-bc1a-2703-442f0cc8f2dd/about where you can ask questions.
****Top Bar
The Top Bar has up to four lines.
The Top row shows the Viewer name, your name and the release version number, and it is not visible in Full screen mode.
**Menu Bar
2nd row is the Menu bar, which is also not optional. This has Avatar, Communicate, World, Build, Content, Help (displayed by default), Advanced and Develop (display is optional) menus, as well as draw distance on the Starlight skins.
Also: L$ balance, BUY L$, and the time.
The music note will start and stop music, the camera button will play or pause media and the volume icon opens a volume controller if you hover over it.
Right-click anywhere on the menu bar and you can enable and disable the following:
Show Navigation Bar
Show Favorites Bar
Show Search Bar Note that this requires the Navigation bar active.
Show Location in Top Menu Will add the location in the menu bar. On skins with the draw distance slider in the menu bar this may be an issue.
**Navigation Bar
3rd row, if enabled, is the Navigation Bar
On Starlight skins, the Navigation Bar and Favorites Bar are combined.
The arrows on the left end allow you to go back and forth between your current and previous location.
The Home icon will allow you to TP home
Land Shows you About Land
Sky opens the Advanced Sky Editor
Location bar icon (gives more info), name of the location, location rating, damage/health level, the star (add to LMs), Search bar, Arrow (gives typed location History)
Right-clicking on the Navigation Bar opens a popup that will display the following options.
Show Coordinates
Parcel Properties
Add to Landmarks
Cut
Copy
Paste
Delete
Select All
**Favorites Bar
4th row if the Navigation bar is enabled, 3rd if its not, is the Favorites bar. This allows quick access to landmarks that you define as favorites.
Drag a LM to the bar, or add it in your "Favorites" folder in your inventory to add it to the Favorites.
We'll cover one of the menus while we're here. For more detailed explanations we do have a class that deals with just the menus. Please see the class schedule for details.
Alternatively you could always just go to our wiki :)
We like to point out that all menus, and sub-menus will detach and stay open if you click on the double lines at the top of the menu.
So, click on the Help menu to open it, then click on the double lines you see at the top of that drop down menu, and voila.. it's detached and will not close as soon as you click on an option.
This makes it much simpler to remember and uncheck anything you happen to click on either by mistake or to see what it does. While we're here, let's look at what's in the Help menu.
**Help Menu
Enable Viewer UI Hints > Enables the hints that are available in the user interface (UI)
Firestorm Wiki (F1) > Prompts you to open the Firestorm Wiki page where you can find documentation on various parts of Firestorm
Troubleshooting > opens the troubleshooting page on our Wiki where you can find suggestions for issues you may experience.
Join Firestorm Support Group: Opens a window listing in-world support groups you can join, to get help.
Check Grid Status > Prompts you to open the Grid Status web page
Report Abuse > Opens the Abuse Report window
Report Bug > Opens http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=file_a_jira where you can read how to file a bug report
Bumps Pushes & Hits opens a window that shows who or what has hit you. Does not work on damabe enabled land.
Enable Sysinfo Button > Enables a button in IM windows that lets you send your Sysinfo
About Firestorm > This opens the About Firestorm window, which shows the sysinfo as well as the credits and licensing information. Team members have the ability to "ping" you for the sysinfo.
You will get a request to send it, please do, as the information can help solve your problems.
****Toolbars
Firestorm uses Linden Lab's FUI. This allows you much more choice of what buttons you see, and where you place them. You can place them on the bottom , left or right sides of the screen.
First an important note. Your choice of viewer skin will make a difference in how the toolbar looks as the Vintage skin has been heavily modified to look very much like the original Phoenix viewer skin.
Right-click on the bottom bar and select Toolbar buttons to choose the buttons you want. Simply drag the buttons from that window to where you want them.
You can drag these buttons around to place them in the order you want them.
You also get the option of how they align as well as the option of different sizes and labelling
The Chat bar is resizable (except on the Vintage skin). Hover the mouse just to the right of the nearby chat button or chatbar and then click and drag to resize the chatbar.
It can also be made to autohide, saving you space for buttons and chiclets in the bottom bar when not in use and extending the full length of the screen when it is in use. More info on that in our Preferences 101 class.
Chiclets can now show top or bottom right depending on your settings.they will show in the same place as you have group notices set to show.
You can also now hide the chiclets other than the main conversations and notifications icons.
**Conversation Icons
When a conversation is active, the person or group's icon will show in the top or bottom right hand side depending on your settings. If there are unread messages there will be a chat bubble on that person or groups chiclet. Unless chiclets are "hidden" of course.
**Box (Gift) Icons
Located between the IM icons and the conversations Icon. When someone/something gives you something it will show up there along with a dialog. Click it to Accept, Discard, or Block (Mute).
**Chat Bubble (conversations)
A small chat bubble will appear to show how many unread messages that you have. Click on the chat bubble icon and next to each group tab, the number of unread conversations will be shown for that group.
**Envelope (notification) icon
Shows the number of notifications that you have. Clicking on the icon brings up the list of notifications with a small blurb about the notification.
Clicking on the notification will give you a popup with more detail, and if there is an attachment you can accept the attachment from there just by clicking on the attachment itself.
**Toasts
They are the little fading bubbles of text that pop up on the bottom or top right. They can be group notices, IMs and such, depending on your personal settings.
****The Wiki
In case you missed it, we have a wiki. Our wiki has loads of info about the viewer, including images, and can help you troubleshoot problems, too. We will go over how to find what you're looking for.
***In The Viewer
You can reach the wiki from the viewer in two ways.
Menus: First, as we previously covered, you can go to Help > Firestorm Wiki. Hitting F1 on most keyboards will get you there as well.
Question Marks: Second, in many places in the viewer, you will see question marks in the upper right corner. Clicking the question marks will open a Help Browser with the associated wiki page.
***On the Web
The start page for the wiki is http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/ . We'll go over the basic categories of pages you can get to from there as well as some search tips for finding what you need.
There is a link to Phoenix documentation, but Firestorm is the focus of this page.
Since the wiki is ever-changing and may be updated even while the class is in progress, we'll talk about basic categories of links and highlights rather than trying to hit every link.
** Firestorm Documentation
Some Firestorm documentation has been translated into a number of different languages, and links to the language start pages are here.
Downloads: Takes you to all downloads currently available. Don't forget to clean install ANY version you get there.
Firestorm Release Notes: The links on this page give you a list of changes in each new version of the viewer. New features and known issues are included.
Preferences Moved After Mesh Beta: Some preferences were refactored several versions ago, and this reference is for those who still need to find where certain settings were moved.
Getting Help: There are a few links in this section that help you locate support groups and team member inworld or how to file tickets on the JIRA.
The Troubleshooting Guide is a clearly-laid out table of contents for pages with fixes for common issues. It can be a valuable page to browse through just to see what is listed. You might want to bookmark this!
Hot LL JIRA Issues helps you find Linden bug reports that affect Firestorm users. How to File a JIRA explains how to file one on our issue tracker -- or a support request or feature request.
This section also links to our class schedule and to office hour info.
**Firestorm User Guide
This is where you can find reference pages, many of them illustrated, for nearly every piece of the user interface. Many are the pages that pop up if you use the question marks in the UI.
The first few links under Basic Functions give you an overview of the viewer; one of them might look very familiar to people attending this very class!
Then there is a list of specific UI components, some of which we cover in other classes (Inventory, Contact Sets), and others of which we don't yet (Profiles, Parcel & Region Management).
There are links for both Preferences and Quick Preferences, a list of Keyboard Shortcuts, and some very important tip pages: one on all the DOs and DON'Ts of cache and one on backing up settings.
There is also an explanation of the Abuse Report floater.
The Advanced Functions section includes links to info on some of Firestorm's more sophisticated features, some of them specific to Firestorm (like the AO and Bridge), others not (Windlight, Building, Physics).
You can also find a link to lists of Debug Settings (sorry, there isn't much description of them there) and a very informative page on lag. This is a good one to go back and read through later.
**Tutorials and Other Info
Some of our developers have created tutorial videos to help you with specific features or with the viewer on the whole.
Currently, you can find a video on Contact Sets by LordGregGreg Back and three videos on the Client AO by Zi Ree.
In addition, Jessica Lyon has also produced a pair of videos on customizing the 4.0.1 release of Firestorm, one focusing on the toolbar buttons and the other on replicating the old sidebar behavior.
Although they are no longer current, there are also a few older tutorial videos created for previous versions of Firestorm.
If you would like to try your hand at making a new skin theme, there is a written tutorial at "Colour Scheme Tutorial," though it was written pre-FUI.
Finally, there are links for developers and links to the viewer's credits, licensing, and privacy policy.
***Searching the Wiki
We'll cover the search tools in the wiki, but if you have browsed and have an idea of what's already there, particularly on the main pages, you can more quickly find what you need later.
For example, we already went through the start page, and you probably have a better idea of where to find answers to certain questions than you did an hour ago, just by taking a close look at the links.
Try doing the same with the Troubleshooting Guide ( http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/firestorm_troubleshooting ). Go down the list, pick an item, have a peek. Do the same tomorrow. You get the idea. ;)
**Search Bar
The Search Bar is in the upper right corner of every page. Think in terms of keywords here: "shadows," "bridge," "ao," etc. Some search tips:
When you type a word in, stop before you hit the Enter key. A floating window opens with a list of pages that contain that exact word in the title. If you see one that might be useful, click on it.
If not, then hit Enter and you'll be taken to the search results. At the top are listed the pages with the word in the title, if there are any.
Below that will be pages listed in order of search term frequency. The top hits will include some text from the page with the search terms shown in context.
Titles with a two-letter combo at the end, such as "nl" or "de" or "es" are translated pages in another language (e.g., Dutch, German, Spanish). If you don't speak that language, you can ignore those results.
- Combining search terms within quotation marks will bring up results containing the full phrase. E.g., "client ao" will only bring up pages where the two words appear together in that order.
- Combining search terms without quotation marks will bring up results containing both/all words anywhere on the page.
- Combining search terms without quotation marks but with the word "or" will bring up results with either search term.
**Viewing Pages
When you find the page you need, read the info in any large color blocks there are. Skim the section headings to become familiar with what is there.
Example: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/derender - This is a Phoenix page, but the warning box holds a very important cautionary note.
Look for sections specific to your operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux) but don't expect there to be sections for them on every page. Any section or page that is not OS-specific may apply to everyone.
Example: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_voice - This page has some Windows and Linux-specific fixes, but the first sections apply to everyone, including Mac users.
On troubleshooting pages, there may be a sequence of suggested fixes. Try these one at a time and pay close attention to the wording. Don't skip steps even if you think you've done them already.
Example: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/fs_camera - The fixes here are ordered from easiest to most cumbersome. Easy steps are first, debug in the middle, and complete settings reset last.
And that's the wiki. Once you're used to searching and finding, you'll see why we love our wiki. We hope that it helps you learn how to make Firestorm work for you, too!
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