Suggestions 2 - General UI

This post is the second part of a list of suggestions that I've been compiling. I split these up into several posts that are loosely grouped by category, mostly because there are so many, and it'd get confusing to have commentary on all of them in one ginormous thread.

This one concerns various refinements to the user interface and "quality of life" enhancements.


1. Friend invitations to offline person

Function: Lets you send a friendship request to someone who isn't online.

Rationale: I'm accumulating quite a list of people who I know that have joined but which I don't have on my friends list. I can't send an invite unless I know they are on, and as far as I know, I can't tell if they are on (automatically) until I have formed a friendship. Catch-22.

I could resolve the problem through out-of-world methods (though it's rather inconvenient, as I don't share a predictable schedule with some of these people) or by occasionally checking through Find and getting lucky, but I think I shouldn't have to.


2. Referrals are automatically friends

Function: People who you refer should automatically be put on your friends list (or at least, it should give you the option to form a relationship with them at the same time you get the message that they have logged in)

Rationale: See above. Also, the message does say "your friend so-and-so has logged in for the first time" ... but they aren't your Friend in the SL sense. Friendship is so very fragile! If nothing else, the message should be changed to say something other than "your friend", as this is misleading.



3. Restore folder state when clearing search

Function: When clearing a search, restore the folders to their original open/closed state (or just close them all, except the folder containing things you selected while the results were displayed).

Rationale: When you accumulate as much stuff as we do, having ten folders pop open just because you searched gets annoying.


4. Object Clones

Function: A clone is a reference in the User's inventory to another item; the Second Life analogue of a windows shortcut or a unix symbolic link. In particular:

* Clones differ from copies in that a user should ALWAYS be able to create a clone, rename it, etc. (It's a Right of First Sale thing, and so requires no permission.)

* Any modifications to the clone (except the name and location in inventory) affect the original object (and therefore depend on the original object's Modify permissions).

* Giving a clone to somebody else simply calls the function for transferring the original item. If you can't keep a copy yourself, your original AND the clones get removed from your inventory. Otherwise, they get a copy of the original

Rationale: Basically, clones are largely for the owner's inventory-organization convenience ... if I have a particular piece of clothing from, say, Jennyfur Nightshade, I might want to set up several distinct "outfits" that use that piece. Since Jennyfur sells her objects no-copy, that means I currently need to move the item from folder to folder (yes, I know that I can activate items that are in different folders, but I use the "drag folder onto avatar" feature for wearing new outfits to keep things easy).

Once you get a large inventory, finding where you left stuff becomes tedious, even with search. (There is also a bug where you can use the "rename items to match outfit name" option in the appearance editor to change the name of a no-modify item, which prevents you from changing the name back...)

Note: While I expect this will obviate a lot of the need for copy permission, it won't replace it entirely. There is still a valid reason for actual copies to exist: If I change a clone, the original and all the other clones of that object are affected. If I change a copy, then just that copy is altered.


5. Unified chat and IM windows

Function: I'd like to have one interface for all chats (with commands like /say and /im).

Rationale: I hate hitting enter, then realizing that the wrong window is selected, and I'm IMing commands, or broadcasting private text to the world or something. Having both open also needlessly occupies screen real estate, resulting in a lot of window-dragging.

In general, the chat interface in SL is counter-intuitive and a bit annyoing. It always seems to be active at precisely the wrong moments, and never when I actually want it to be.

Related note: Is there an actual interface for whispering, or is this something that only objects can do? There's a button for Say, and there's a button for Shout, but none for Whisper?


6. Preference: Look Forward Unless Focused

Function: Keeps the avatar's head and eyes from following the mouse pointer. The avatar will still look at items that you focus on, and it can still be animated.

Rationale: Avatars running around with their heads aimed the ground, or wildly gazing around a room because the user is searching inventory or something, makes them look rather stupid.


7. Preference: Always Look Forward

Function: The avatar's head and eyes ignore the focal point. The avatar's head can still be animated, of course.

Rationale: As above. This is simply a different preference for the users to choose from.


8. Preference: Group Landmarks by folder

Function: Currently, the world map landmark drop-down displays an alphabetical list of all your landmarks. This option wuld instead forces them to display in the order that they are in your inventory (including folders). Let's say that I have three landmarks, named Alice, Bob, and Charlie. But I also have two folders, Friends and Shopping. The Alice and Bob landmarks are both stores, so they go in Shopping. Charlie is my friend, so he goes in Friends. I want the map to show (in the drop-down) Charlie, then Alice, then Bob. Ideally, an obvious "Friends" heading would precede Charlie's landmark, and "Shopping" would precede Alice's landmark.

Rationale: An alphabetical list of any length is useless unless you already know what you want by name. If I want to visit all the stores I like, with this I could just go down the "stores" list instead of trying to remember which of my landmarks are stores and which aren't. I could use the landmarks themselves directly from the inventory for this ... this basically allows the map to support it as well.


9. Preference: Ignore Landmarks outside Landmarks folder

Function: The world map drop-down would only show landmarks that are actually within the Landmarks folder when this is active.

Rationale: People often sell objects with landmarks included, which can result in the drop down displaying 5 or 6 entries for Abbots Aerodrome or whatever. This is rather confusing for new users, because they don't see a landmark in their landmarks folder, and there's no obvious way to delete the extras from the map where they *do* see them.


10. View/Show Sim Border

Function: Rather like Property Lines, this displays the border of the sim you are in.

Rationale: To avoid crossing the border when you don't want to (it's easy to do it by accident, even with the minimap open), since this causes performance problems at best, and may result in major lag if you step into a particularly slow sim.


11. Debug/Hide this object!

Function: Hides the selected prim or linked group.

Rationale: Eyesores, giant rotating ad cubes next door, neighboring foliage intersecting your land. In a way, it's the SL analogue of a popup blocker.

NOTE: It might seem an easy way to violate what little illusion of privacy you have. Just hide somebody's house, and bamf ... they might as well be outside. But that's not really a new problem; its already possible using the debug menu. This feature would merely be a bit more selective.

I can see how this might increase the database size if it were permanently stored on the server, so eiter make it on a per-session basis, or let the client keep track of it.


12. Inventory/Edit window docking

Function: Allow user to dock these windows to an edge of the screen, rather than overlaying them on top of the camera view.

Rationale: Frequently while in-world, I'm having to drag the windows back and forth because they get in the way. Docking them would prevent them from occluding the camera-view of the world.

Holy crap, Dyne, keep this up—this is impressive, all your ideas!

A lot of this strikes me as very easy-to-implement stuff that is very finepolish and will have a noticeable impact, the sort of thing that if you got used to it and suddenly it disappeared, one would have a violent reaction and weep inconsolably.

Also to bolster your evidence, it helps to make links to past threads talking about the same things too. It's great to know other Resis want the same features... there's a lot here in the archives.

Quickpoint for #5 is there used to be something in chat for Whisper but it wasn't very useful, and easily broken (two people could sit on boxes, stretch them apart, and be whispering across a long hall).

Instant Messaging can be further threadtunnelled into here if you're interested. :)

Upon further reflection, here are some of my comments to your original and very fantastic post, Dyne. They are hardly as elaborate and some of them are a recurring theme with me, so here goes:


1. Yes, because face it, finding some people at odd hours of the day is a PITA. After all, you can send an IM to someone who's offline—why not extend that to facilitate having them closer to you and connected? A missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

2. Here's the interesting thing—historian correct me if I'm wrong—it did in fact USED to be this way, when Calling Card=Friend and there was no "Friends" thing to speak of. Like, I entered Hamlet Linden as my referrer, and when I got inworld, I was automatically the equivalent of friends with him. That sparked off a great journey leading up to... today. History coulda been different. (And in a nod to #1, Ham and I have met at some odd hours!)

3. YES. GOOD LORD PLEASE. Why do I have to keep selecting "Close All Folders"? It is the ruination of my groove. Redundant, ugh!

4. Very much in favor of this for swapping between quick outfits without having to worry about no-copy schtuff. The names could appear conveniently in italics.

5. As useful as it can be, I can see many improvements for the current Instant Messaging interface, as I've written myself. Also notice how weird it is how empty the Chat/IM part of Preferences is?

6. & 7. seem straightforward enough to me.

8. In relation to this, I've sometimes wondered why we don't simply have a Landmarks menu that corresponds to your Folder and is more analogous to a Firefox Bookmarks or IE Favorites menu.

9. I GET THIS A LOT. HECK YEAH!!! Hehehe... all my folders of extra landmarks, I had to clear 'em out to stop the confusion. You know what they say about necessity...

10. Easy peasy why-not-feasy?

11. Very useful for photoshoots too, and confined to the clientside it is something selective. Heyyy I'd want to use this to hide THOSE DAMN FOOT SHADOWS!

12. Inventory window can be easily hidden by clicking on the Inventory button. You can do it with Edit too, but only if Build is enabled in a suitably buildable zone. Are there other benefits you're thinking of here? There's also Ctrl-Alt-1 for hiding the interface.

Yeah. I did do some searching, but honestly, it took me two weeks to compile and post these as it is, so I didn't do as much as I ordinarily would've...



Hmm. How weird.

Of course, that particular quirk sounds kinda useful to me.

I feel like I am writing old-fashioned letters, not the speed but the essence. We are like two scientists! Well, you anyway! I'm well aware of what I am!

Here's a bit more on what happened with Whispering...

And o I should explain that quirk allowed other people inbetween to hear it.

Mostly I'd like to keep those windows open and available (because I'm always dragging things to and fro, from edit/contents to world to inventory and hither and yon and back again), but also get them out of the way.

Hitting the button, or ctrl-I to hide inventory, etc. (I didn't know about ctrl-alt-1, but it falls in the same category) all sort of help, but they slow you down and interrupt the flow of what you are doing. Docking the windows would pretty much keep them handy, but not covering stuff up.

Ahhh I see... hmmm can you give me an example of a current program that does this so I can visualize it better? Not quite sure what you mean by "docking" because I've seen this in different implementations. Like, mouseover a tab and it pops open?

I'M ALL FOR FLOW D00D.

You basically take your Inventory or Edit window, and drag it over to one edge of the interface. It "attaches" there, and the part of the screen containing the camera's view occupies whatever space the docked window doesn't use.


Have you used Mozilla Firefox's sidebar feature? Although it really isn't one, the sidebar looks and behaves much like a docked edit or inventory window would.

That is, the sidebar opens to the left, the webpage you are looking at displays to the right. The two parts of the interface do not overlap at all. In SL, instead of a web page, the area on the right (or wherever) would be displaying your camera's view of the world.


Paint Shop Pro's tool options, brush variance, color palette, and materials palette can all be docked if I remember correctly. This prevents them from covering the image you are working on.

The Trillian instant messenger also shows the behavior ... it can dock itself to either side of your desktop, so your windowed programs wont cover it up.

I think I get it now. That makes sense!

Just a tip:

If you're using Search and you want to close up all your folders, you can achieve this by backspacing (deleting) the word in the search box.

Not the best solution but it works.

Yes, Yes, Yes! That gets my top vote for improved UI.

My monitor is plenty big, but in the current windowing method no matter how big your main window is, all the little palettes (inventory, mini-map, object editor, &c) are necessarily blocking something in your field of view.

I'd rather surround my Main View with docked tools. And as a (minor) side benefit, the main render will be a tiny bit faster, with fewer 3d pixels.

(And I do not want separate windows for inventory, mini-map, &c... That turns into a different kind of annoyance very quickly. If Gui Linden happens to be reading this, please make a note of it. )