Help a Newbie Out!

Hey everyone!

In the Welcome Area, under the canopy in Bonifacio, there are new "How-To-Videos" for some of the most basic techniques in Second Life. They include:

How to Build
How to Locate an Event
How to Buy Clothes and Wear them in Second Life
How to Create a Gesture
How to Stream Music and Videos into Second Life

So if you see a new resident around and they are asking for help and you don't have time, try sending them here!

What a brilliant idea!

Now, if only there weren't that Tonka-toy WinXP GUI present at the top of the movie prim.

~Ulrika~

IMGO I found the embossiness of it (at first I thought it was bumpmapped or something) a bit tricky to look at.

Says the woman using something called Mighty Mouse The little traffic light metaphor at the top of your windows makes sooo much more sense than symbols for what something actually does.

Woah... just... woah. I just understood that... there's another thing that makes me feel like an idiot.

That reminds me of Goshua - i was just thinking about him today and wondering where he is.

The Mighty Mouse is without a doubt the most advanced peripheral I have ever used in my life. It's actually quite a coincidence but I was going to post a testimonial to how well it works in SL tonight in the Mac forum.

As for your argument against the window jewels, I could point out that the colors can convey the same symbolic meaning as shapes do, however that's not necessary as they reveal their function on mouse over.

Behold:

Warning. A WinXP versus MacOS GUI battle is likely to not go your way.

~Ulrika~

Okay, I'll bite. WTH is a Mighty Mouse besides a mouse in tights?

(And I agree, nothing wrong with Aqua's window widgets, although I almost just prefer the kill cmd.)

Me too.

Hey, you forgot AAlib...

ttyquake
aaquake2
aaut

Apple's page on the Mighty Mouse can be found here.

In short it's a way of putting a four-button mouse with a dual-axis scroll wheel into a package that looks exactly like an Apple one-button mouse. They do this by maintaining a single clicking surface (top-shell design) with touch-sensitive pads underneath the surface. Thus when one clicks on the left, right, or middle of the mouse, the whole shell moves as before (like the one-button mouse) but the touch-sensitive pad sends the correct click.

Additionally, the top-shell design (one- and four-button) requires one to squeeze the sides of the mouse when picking it up to reposition it while keeping the mouse held in a down position (it's very hard to describe to someone who hasn't used a top-shell mouse). What's cool about the mighty mouse is, that they mapped this natural squeeze action to another button as well.

It's just perfect. It keeps with the Apple experience (simplicity, top-shell design, side squeeze), while simultaneously delivering a high-end Unix-quality multi-button mouse.

All this and I haven't even mentioned the two-axis scroll ball yet.

~Ulrika~

It would be logical if the colors indicated the functionality - however, other than red, they don't. The red/yellow/green metaphor maps to stop/caution/go. Green makes sense for an ok button, but not for a maximize button. Yellow makes no logical sense for a minimize button/restore button. Also, having to mouse over to find out what it does is slightly less intuitive than seeing exactly what it does. In this regard, the Windows minimize/maximize/close UI is more intuitive.

As far as the Mighty Mouse comment, thank you for the laugh, Ulrika. I have had a sinus headache all day and it helped lighten my mood.

Note to self: Don't mention Apple around Ulrika, so as to conserve DB space

:d

I can't believe that 80% of this thread has been complaints and related ranting about how they're using Windows XP themed tutorial window captures.

Welcome to the SL forums

Symbols do not carry intrinsic immutable meaning. They are abstractions until convention and context give them meaning. Thus those colors have different meaning depending on whether or not they are hanging above a street (red means stop), on a MacOS window (red means close), on my iPod Shuffle (yellow means charging), on the dashboard of my car (yellow means shift up), or on my TiVo (red means recording). Provided that the symbols are consistently applied in a given context there is no confusion.

However, I don't need to argue that colors are abstractions until convention and context give them meaning, because, as I said, on mouse over other abstractions (shapes) provide redundant information.

Perhaps you are writing my serious description off as comedy, as you are suffering from Apple envy. It's OK. I see it all the time.

~Ulrika~

Hijacks can be a good thing once in a while, provided they are don't involve fighting and eventually terminate. They allow uncontroversial topics, such as this, to bounce around near the top of the General forum a lot longer than it would normally.

It's a trade off between unseen and off topic. *shrug*

~Ulrika~