[sldev] What color should I paint the bike shed?

[Tateru Nino]

Jason Giglio wrote:
> http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2491
>
> VWR-2491 has been kinda bumping around a while, I'd really like to get
> some consensus before writing the patch.
>
> My proposal is to simply get rid of BMP snapshots and make PNG the
> default format for saving snapshots.
>
> So far I've gotten about 50/50 feedback saying "go for it" and "keep
> BMP as an option".
>
> Due to SL's cross platform nature, keeping BMP will likely require new
> UI on the snapshot floater.    That's not a huge deal, but I'm not
> sure it's necessary since I still haven't heard any compelling
> arguments for keeping BMP other than "it's already in there".
>
> Does anyone have any compelling reason to keep BMP as an option,
> including new UI to select the format to save as?
I've got very little in the way of qualms about giving BMP the boot -
except one.
Writing the snapshot involves (correct me if I'm wrong) two basic
phases. Encoding the image, and writing it to disk.
During the encoding stage, the viewer essentially becomes non-responsive
to the network (okay, this can happen during the write-to-disk phase as
well, and BMP's are pathetically overweight). All that time taken
multiplies the odds that the circuit to the primary simulator will break.

That said, if this reduces the overall time that the viewer spends in
fairyland while packets pile up on the floor, then hooray!

-- 
Tateru Nino
http://dwellonit.blogspot.com/