Texture Window

I was in the middle of posting this as a reply to a thread that was a couple weeks old, when I realised it really needs it's own discussion. Textures are a wonderful thing, applying them can be daunting. The whole texture window needs a redesign imho.. And it should be based using the theory of the inventory window.

+ Let us sort our textures into folders. - It's much easier to pick a texture from a group of like textures than a pulldown box that is 3 miles long.

+ Give us a preview of the texture when we click on it, instead of after we open it. - You could reduce the server load by dumping a copy of the textures to the client machine. This could potentially reduce bandwith as the only time you'd need to get textures from your inventory again would be if the inventory changed. Not only would it save time on the loading, but potential is there to reduce lag for those who have thin bandwith pipes.

+ Allow multiple select of items so we can drag all the textures in those n00b boxes of texture goodness into our texture folder.

+Give us the ability to browse a folder of textures by clicking on the first texture, then using the arrow keys to highlight each texture, and thus making it preview in the preview area.

Yes, I know it'd be a big pain in the buttocks to implement, but in the end I think it would make for an easier life for all of us builders.

Yes, for the love of god, quit the server-centric extremism. If I have permissions on a texture or snapshot then I should really have a more permanent client-side version of it than just the cache, even if it's just a thumbnail.

I have at least 2000 textures, let me manage them more easily than opening them one by one and waiting for them to download.
I would like to drag a folder into a texture preview window and have them all tiled and thumbnailed so I could visually choose with texture to use, then drag it onto my object.

It would also allow me to NOT have to have 2000 textures since I could more easily pick out the ugly ones and delete them. Right now I dont even know what I have, I just buy texture packs full of crap and unbox them.
Thank god for the sell contents feature, it used to be that we needed to spend an hour unboxing crap one item at a time... only in SL...

/stamp with bright green ink seventeen times all over the paperwork

amen, this is desparately needed.
it's very difficult to find the right texture sometimes...
"hmm, is XRC_Blue_Tile_0947 the one i'm thinking of?"

kudos! yes, i think it would be a huge advantage, if we just had (instead of a pull-down menu) something similar to the bar atop a windows open file dialog, where we can search our inventory (inside the texture selection screen) for the correct texture.

I was also amazed that sl didn't come with its own texture-editor. not that i'd really use it, but you have model editors instead of miya or 3dsmax, so why not have your own texture editor? just a thought though, the previous suggestion is more important

signed

When you upload something, the game should store it locally. That way all your own textures will not need to stream (a savings for LL's bandwidth), display faster (a neccessity for the residents), and could be easily displayed in a thumbnail selection window for texture browsing (what this thread is about).

Also, if you have the rights to download an image, it should also be added to the cache.

Preferences sets the max size of the texture cache and least-used texture go to make room for newer ones when the cache is full.


Barring all that, save micro 16x16 thumbnails locally and set the texture inventory items' icons to these. It would HELP, at least.