I Make HUDDLES™

The Release Candidate 2 upgrader can be obtained by clicking the green ball on animation island. The object will turn your old EZ Animator Deluxe (v1.0.4 and above) into a shiny new one without you having to move all the animations. I’ve also added instructions on the web on how to do the upgrade. And rather than make another long post about what the update contains, take a look at the posts I’ve tagged with Updates.

If you have previously upgraded to Release Candidate 1, you can just use this updater and run the process again.

Please note, only people who own the EZ Animator Deluxe already can get the update. If you think you own one and it’s not giving it to you, IM Keiki Lemieux.

I’m particularly interested in finding out if this version is any smoother than previous versions. If you find problems, please IM me.

UPDATE: Bugs squashed after RC2:

• Fixed and Current, 7/18: Self animation off led to repeated “Stop All Animations” in Dance or Random mode.
• Fixed and Current, 7/19: The updater itself wasn’t showing the instructions.
• Fixed 7/19: Text reads flight assist on/off instead of flight boost on/off.
• Fixed 7/19: Sit on/off status incorrect after update, fixed by reset.
• Not Fixed Yet: Hugs should turn off your AO and turn it back on when the hug is over.
• Not Fixed Yet: Minimized HUD does not remember maximized position when detached and attached again.

I’ve updated the upgrader, you might want to grab it again, if you got it yesterday, but the only real change was the one bug fix from yesterday. I didn’t think it was worth it to do a whole new Release Candidate for it.

I’ve also added a pink prism you can touch to receive some extra items you may need if you never had version 1.2.0, like the notecard with all the radio streams and HUDDLES Group Radio, the gestures which allow you to press buttons on the hud by click F2-F12, and most important, the ZHAO II Notecard converter.

I’m working on bug squashing right now. I’ve had a number of strange reports of Dancers not working properly. I’ve been going over the relevant scripts and trying to optimize them. I think I’ve had some success, but it will require some testing. Here is a list of other things I’ve changing:

• Various changes to optimize for dancing and to try to reduce lag bubble moments.
• Made a small change that allows you to choose a Dance while in Dance or Random mode, without popping you out of those modes. Choosing a macro or animation while in Sit Anywhere mode, pops you out of Sit Anywhere mode.
• Playing a macro or animation pops you out of Sit Anywhere mode. By the way, in case you haven’t noticed the new Sit Anywhere button, it’s on the AO buttons, lower right. It looks like arrow pointing down.
  
• Whitespace at the beginning of an emote should no longer be stripped.
• Sit Anywhere animation changes when you select a new one via the menu.
• Fixed a number of small problems when Hugs are not accepted.

After some more internal testing, I hope to set out a new Release Candidate by tomorrow.

What is a Release Candidate?

A version of a program that nearly ready for release but may still have a few bugs; the status between beta version and release version.

The Release Candidate upgrader can be obtained by clicking the green ball on animation island. The object will turn your old EZ Animator Deluxe (v1.0.4 and above) into a shiny new one without you having to move all the animations. I’ve also added instructions on the web on how to do the upgrade. And rather than make another long post about what the update contains, take a look at the posts I’ve tagged with Updates.

Please note, only people who own the EZ Animator Deluxe already can get the update. If you think you own one and it’s not giving it to you, IM Keiki Lemieux.

UPDATE: Changes/bug fixes as of Friday, July 11th:

• When using the button to sit anywhere (lower right button on the AO buttons), you can now change the sit using the groundsit menu.
• HUDDLE gives feedback when you change the name for emotes (/99set name Keiki).
• /99n MacroName was only working properly for the first 10 macros. It’s fixed now.

I was doing some more tests this morning and I made this short video to show you what the update process will entail:

I am getting very close now. Tonight I got the updater working seemlessly. I converted several old EZ Animator Deluxe HUDs using it. I have a couple of small bugs in the actual scripts to track down. Here are the steps I’ll be taking this week:

Remaining Bugs/Changes

• FIXED 7/7: There is a bug that happens when you invite a new person to dance with you. Animations don’t sync up right away as they should.
• FIXED 7/7: Change text from “flight boost” to “flight assist”
• FIXED 7/7: Problem with the numbering system for the dance slave scripts
• FIXED 7/7: Stop all animations not working properly
• FIXED 7/8: Updater script not removing all old dance slave copies
• COULD NOT REPLICATE 7/10: Remove dancer not working properly (need to confirm)
• FIXED 7/10: Prevented the following kinds of macros from playing in Dance or Random mode: [HUG], [AO_ON], [AO_OFF], [REPEAT], [GIVE], [EMAIL], [DIALOG], [URL], mapping landmarks & loading new notecards.
• FIXED 7/10: Fixed conflict between hugger and groundsits.
• Squash any other bugs that I discover in testing

Testing

• I’ll be doing a big stress test tomorrow night. I’ll load up one of the animators with 50 dance slaves and invite as many people to use it at once. I think I’ll be doing this around 7pm SL time (PST), so if you would like to help, join the HUDDLES customer help group and wait for the announcement.

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I’ve been working on the hugger script some more. The next version (version 1.2.1) will have even more improvements than I had posted before:

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This is another one of those features that probably only a minority will use, but those that do will love it. Let’s say you have a notecard loaded with a lot of macros. And let’s say you used the [name] tag to give (at least some of) the macros names for the buttons. Well, in version 1.2.1, you will be able to use those macros without searching for it and clicking the button. All you have to do is say /99n MacroName, and the macro with the name, “MacroName” will play. Be careful not to give macros duplicate names.

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I have done some research on this issue and I don’t think that I’ll be able to make the EZAD run in no script parcels anytime soon. Sure I could get some functions working, but certainly not all, and not without big tradeoffs. For instance, in order to get the floating text working, I’d have to add something to every script in every prim. For scripts in the non-root prims, it would means seeing a blue drop down dialog for every script that contains the fix. That would end up being a real deal breaker for some users I’m sure. So, for now, I’m not going to change my scripts to attempt to make it work.

Things have been really busy the last couple of days, but I did find time to make some small updates to the EZ Animator Deluxe. I did some background fixing to make future updates easier. And I added a new feature.

Many people have asked for the ability to change the name used for emotes, so that instead the EZAD saying “Keiki Lemieux waves” it can say “Keiki waves” or “Ms. Lemieux waves” or “The Keikster waves”. It will be really simple to change your name for emotes and chat messages. I think it will also change your name for emails that you send as well. Here is the command:

• /99set name Your New Name - for example:
  • /99set name Keiki
  • /99set name Ms. Lemieux
  • /99set name The Keikster
  • /99set name Keiki the Great

Again, this is a feature that will be available in the NEXT version of the EZ Animator, which should be out soon, since I’m running out of bugs to fix and features to add.

The next version of the EZAD (version 1.2.1) will have a flight assist script inside. I’m using an altered version of open source script, Cyberflight by Argent Stonecutter. The flight boost will be on by default, but you can toggle it on or off using a choice from the Tools Menu. You can also turn it on or off by using these commands:

• /99flight on
• /99flight off
• /99flight (toggles it on or off)