Lateral Features for Better Second Living

Second Life has many lateral features which aren't immediately apparent. "Lateral" means something to the side--it might not be staring you in the eyes, but if you turn your head and look closer, it all becomes clear! So for your benefit, let's have a look at some of these not-so-obvious gems:

You may already be familiar with holding Alt key and clicking on the ground to zoom, but there's another way to zoom which can add some really cool effects. To try it out, go to the View menu and check out the Zoom options. These change your field of view, so try this: push Ctrl-8 six times. Whoa, crazy! Push Ctrl-0 to reset everything back to normal. This is super-fantastic for taking close-up pictures of the sun, snapping spaced-out photos at weird angles, and much more! Picture, meet 1000 words.

selectively! If you've ever been to a musical event in-world and were annoyed because of all the click-click-click typing and other distractions, we've newly introduced a feature which allows you to keep playing streaming music, but turn off those in-world noises. How? Easy! Just go to Edit menu > Preferences and under the Audio & Video tab, see the "Sound Effects Volume" slider? Move that all the way to the left and click "OK".

It's not the most obvious, but you can directly save snapshots to disk and bypass the Snapshot Preview (accessed by pressing the "Snapshot" button on the Toolbar) by doing File menu > Take Snapshot, or using the Ctrl-` shortcut. The only downside is that you can not utilize any of the advanced features. The first time you take a snapshot, you'll be asked to save it to a directory of your choice. After that, each snapshot in that session will make a whirr-click! sound and be saved automatically to that directory.

If you've looked at the funny ==== lines at the top of a menu and wonder what they mean, try clicking on one. Notice how the title pops out and you can drag it around like any window? This is useful for frequently-selected options. For example, if you're doing a photo shoot, you may want to tear off World menu > Force Sun and have one-click access to moving the sun! Just press the orange X on the title bar to join the menu back to where it came from. There are future plans for menu customization to be even more flexible, allowing you to have a palette of your favorite choices right at your fingertips.

More Object Info

Hover Tips show you additional info about land and objects, such as name and description. If you're new to Second Life, maybe you haven't seen them yet, because they're turned off by default. View menu > Hover Tips turns them on. To use, just keep your cursor still for a second over an object or the ground, and the hover tip will appear!

Want to find out more? Spend a few minutes exploring what bits 'n' pieces you've never used before in-world. Ask questions to fellow Residents to understand what they mean, or search our Knowledge Base to find out more.

Learning makes all the difference when you find a jewel that helps you enjoy Second Life more!