Alrighty, into the breach, mah fellow avatizzles! Second Life 1.7 is out?actually, not quite yet. It's the PREVIEW version, which means there's gonna be a boatload of bugs to work out. But what exciting, dangerous times we dwell traffic in.?A science experiment!?I've already filed a few bug reports looking for more anomalies, crashed a lot, and started a lively forum thread to get the excitement worked up! Some key points o' mine to mine (this is by no means comprehensive and I'll be picking off more as I see fit):

  • HUDs are very cool from the little I've seen so far. You could basically assemble your own dashboard of stuff or maybe even overlay a pink transluence on your whole screen so you can see the world through rose-tinted glasses. (When are we getting a drunkard's filter?) However, attaching one (or more) HUD somehow glitches the display of property lines. Fly and try. That's blessed bug report #111101.
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  • There are now a dozen, instead of the old deca, of buttons on the bottom of the screen. As a result, they're smaller and a bit scrunchy. Also, "Mini-Map" is now called "Radar", which displeases me in an unsatisfying retro way. If anything, it should be MiniMap without the dashthing! However, what's nice is the Build button cue?if you're on nobuild land, it'll indicate as such, similar to how the Fly button was dimmed in the past. However, clicking the Build button at present jarringly displaces your cursor to the middle of the screen.
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  • IMs come through when you're (BUSY). I don't get it! Bug report filed. Also, IM windows come to the forefront, like it or not, something that's really annoying, especially if you get a lot of IMs. There should be an option to have the "classic" 1.6 behavior back and simply show "IM Received" button in the lower left-hand. If I want to open the window up, I will!
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  • Clothing button's utility is questionable. Sorting by Name works but not "t" for "type". There should be a way to organize metafolders, or some way to figure out what outfits you've worn the most so that it'd be truely useful. Also, no current way to show what's all worn in that panel. Should be more columns for organizing this data to help you wear better, if anything.
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  • Something's chromey about looking into the horizon. Rezzing of distant objects feels slower but I don't know if that's because the prevgrid is on crashalicious sims or what. The gradient glow of the horizon looks softer, smoother, although the horrible sun reflection into the water is still present. However, one good point is it doesn't appear to intrude and jag into buildings like it does in 1.6.x. I am a?zealous fanatic when it comes to sunrises and sunsets in SL.
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  • LoD (Level of Distance) doesn't appear to show thin objects better than previous versions. I tested with my logo and a thin hatband and it still bleeds through.
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  • Map screen has improved severely. A personal wish of mine was to see autocompleteable fields instead of these LONG, inconvenient dropdown menus. Thanks Lindens, they're now in! I'll have to test how responsive they are with a longer list of Regions, however. Also, the map tracks and zooms smoother, reminiscent of some popular combat games, and doesn't appear murky and a dinge anymore. Detail, even color, are significantly better. It's starting to feel like Google Earth. Only not Google, and not Earth. :) Also, maptracking?Friends is a lot better for these reasons.
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  • Related to this, there are some welcome UI tweaks that bring SL closer to the liquid interface I have dreamed of for so long. It may just be psychological, but mouseover on buttons and moving windows and even typing into text fields feel a tad more responsive. Things fade in and out instead of a binary 0/1 switch, enhancing the immersive experience. Also connected is this: try clicking Show Telehub Coverage on the Map! SMOOTH.
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  • I haven't done enough framerate testing with other avatars in my vicinity. Yet.
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  • For accessibility purposes, menus can now be more driven by the arrow keys to select items (like Windows itself). Test by clicking on a menu and then moving the arrow keys around. Rather than rotate your avatar, you'll see the difference.
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  • Alt-Enter for toggling between fullscreen and windowed mode doesn't appear to work consistently for me. What I mean by this is that it hides the window and I have to Maximize it manually again.
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  • ADDITION OF CLEAR CACHE BUTTON! Thankye Lindens! Personal wish of mine, a simple and effective method instead of going through whatever the heck we're doing now. Boondocks.
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  • Coords now display on the menu bar instead of in the Radar MiniMap, which is pretty kewl.
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  • Looks like some redundancy of particles when rezzing prims?my avatar's left hand shoots out double lines. Not sure if it's supposed to be this way but I don't prefer it.
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  • No idea either why Contents tab doesn't make full use of that panel (and could easily be used to display a couple more items in an object) when Texture clearly stretches its interface elements all the way to the bottom.
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  • Can't negrate anymore. Aw, screw it… how the heck am I supposed to stay tru 2 tha game of "NEGRATE ME, FEED A HUNGRY LINDEN! ^_^" I ask??? Interface looks like it can be improved for this, since now we're dealing with binary changes, it'd make more sense to have checkboxes instead of radio buttons (tip of the flower hat here goes to Dave Zeeman hehehe).
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  • I can't find a selectable difference between the old "Light" and new "Full Bright". Where is it? O thanxies Rathe… it's under Texture. That's kinda confusing. Maybe both Light and Full Bright should be there. I?don't know?"Light" could be a material, anyh00.
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  • OHNOES DELETE BUTTON DOESN'T WORK TO DELETE SELECTED PRIMS @#$%!!! (Exception: have a menu from the top open.)
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  • Should be?separator line to mark difference between "normal" attachment points and HUD ones in the Attach To submenu.
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  • Logging in no longer?crossfades you into the world of SL. It's very stark and sudden. Don't like it. Similarly,?I don't know why the TP progress bar is lower?than center, and it doesn't show names of scripted attachments being loaded anymore. Don't like that either. I don't know if Local Lighting is any faster but it seems to have a more subtle glow instead of a harsh glare. More testing awaits.
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  • Meh,?clicking the I-beam in the main chatbar and then opening the IM window doesn't switch focus properly so the I-beam is ready to go in the IM window. It USED to do this, and it certainly still does it viceversa (click in the IM window's chatline and then close the window). ~files another bug report hehehe~
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  • FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY . . . GOOD LORD!!! OMG… try this. Get an object stuffed with items, like one of those new Resident giftpacks. Rez it, and then… easypeasy… right-click on it and select "Open". OMG!!! No more of the convoluted getting items out of boxes crap! THIS is the future, and it's in the present. Could a progressive extinction to boxhead syndrome be coming?

That's a wrap from the TorTor for now. Some of the above are KNOWN ISSUES, yayzerama, which means they will hopefully be addressed soonesque! Thank you graciously to all the Lindens who put such hard work into this.