Beta 1.16.0 (105) *CHATTERBOX*

I'm really unsure where to put this.. it's FEEDBACK on a GUI change. in beta 1.16.0 (105), a new unified Local Chat, IM, and Voice console was introduced, named "chatterbox".

It's REALLY hard to use. The "Near me" tab doesn't blink when people in the local area chat. Likewise, the window has limited resizing available due to features on the new "My Friends" tab.

Over the last six months, I've learned to keep my IM window wide and short along the top, and the "History" window short and fat in the bottom left corner. Now I can't do that. IM and history have become one and the same window. The voice features take up a large area in the "near me" tab, rendering the chat history nearly useless. And if you dare switch to an IM tab, local chat begins appearing below the history window (the entire reason I leave the history window open is to eliminate this scrolling text all over my work)

You guys sprung this new feature on us on tuesday evening.. and I really have to say, it's NOT READY to be added to the release tomorrow (gods I hope you see this). there is WAY TO HUGE potential for "wrong window" issues.. and even running at 1280x960, the "chat" window now takes up nearly 1/6 of my screen at all times.

Please please please... this chat window concept needs a lot of work. There's some promise there, but it's SO not ready for prime time.

Oh dear, interface improvements from Linden Lab.

I would be shocked if they release this today. But…it is LL. Anyway I agree with Winter. Don’t Like the Chatterbox!
DK

I never even had the time to log into Beta to test it, it sounds like something that when I see it I'm going to puke.
I have the History window open a lot too (and two of my biggest complaints are that the History window doesn't stay opaqe when you move to the chat bar and that when the History window is "active" (highlighted) you can't chat.
My preference for IM and History window locations where bottom of the screen (short and fat like), each half-a-screen wide, IMs on the right situated just high enough that any buttons (standup, etc) wouldn't interfere.

I haven't seen this "Chatterbox" either. It wasn't there when I was on the beta grid last.

From Winter's description, I am pretty certain, I will dislike this "feature".

I hope that if it does get implemented, that we get a toggle option to use the "classic" mode for the History and IM windows.

I agree, this thing is way too damn huge. I have always had history on the bottom left and IM's on the bottom right. Im at 1600x1200 and this thing takes up a huge amount of my screen space on its smallest size. Its completely impractical, why not just add a button to the normal IM box for enabling voice and such for that session? We dont need all this extra crap taking up our screen space. And dear god, give me back my friends list.

I have only seen a screenshot of it, and the first thing that came to my mind was:
Too fucking huge o.o

Especially for it not being resizable or in a separate window altogether.

At the very least there should be options to switch to old layout or hide the "near me" top
part.

What they need to do is add the ability to detach the different windows like you can with the menus.

do not want! i always keep my chat history open and with all the extra junk attached to the top, but it's too big to keep open this way.

*also ctrl+H will open it but won't close it again

Yes, I agree - I had a look on the beta grid earlier, and it is far too big, and (if i recall correctly) does not go transparent when not being used...

I like the current chat history (which I keep open and resized).

Gomez

One of the biggest advantages of open-sourcing the client is that open-source developers can work on a better interface, LL need to leave it alone!

I don't want the chatterbox, I just want to keep my IM and history windows, as I won't be using voice-chat anyway.

How did I miss this? I was beta yesterday with the new viewer and there was no voice in the client at all...it had been totally removed. I didn't see this chatterbox thing. Did I miss something?

Voice beta viewer is once again separate from the ADITI beta viewer.
If you downloaded ADITI then yes indeed…no voice.
I did the same thing…lol

LOL - yep.

Personally I *hate* the new system. The main reason is becuase as you know many groups are very active and quite as some put it "spamy". And if you close the group IM it opens right back up. Before the previous update it would give a few minutes before the group IM window would open again for you. Bascially a temopary mute, until the system thought it was a new session and you would start to receive the group IM's.

Well my method of dealing with this (and has been for some time) is to turn off IM's to History. Then open the history window. The benifit of this is I no longer saw the IM's from the groups unless I opend the IM window. With a setup like this I could advoid group IM's mixing in with others etc and ignore them much easier.

With this new "chatterbox window" method this is no longer possible as the new chatterbox window is much larger than the history window and while you can resize it some. It can't be reduced small enough. The same goes for IM's. The window now has to take up too much room.

I understand the new additions that chatterbox has such as showing who is near you and able to have a private conversation in voice is needed. HOWEVER It would be best if this was a seperate window with a extra button (there is room t add it). Or better yet give us the option of seperating them in prefernces.

-DB

This is just no good, it takes up 1/4th of the screen, and you actually have to have it open to see any sort of chat. This is just a really bad decision, so I hope it doesn't stay

I want my friends list back! I want my IM window back! I want that "speakers" window!

I love how everyone gives feedback like "need to default to no v-chat" and "make it easy to mute voice but not chat" and they respond by changing around the interface and combining buttons and lists that aren't actively related to each other.

At least you don't see people complaining about muting people now!

There is both good and bad things with the chatterbox. The bad things have been mostly mentioned already by others: The chatterbox takes a lot of space, specially on lower resolutions. I am one of those who keep my chat history open all the time. In the current version it isn't really in the way with it's semi transparency but the new chatterbox with the white box really takes up some real estate on my screen.

The good parts (in my opinion at least the tabs, having IM's appear as tabs is kinda nice, one less window to keep open when using IM's. The groups/windows is nice but I think it should be kept as a separate window completely.

I just logged in at the beta grid to test the new chatterbox. I normally have both the chat history and the IM window open, so I welcome the idea to have them both in one window.

But.......... (I hope the lindes are listening to us).... please make this 'chatterbox' window as-small-as-possible. Although I have a big screen, it eats a lot of my view to the wonderfull SL environment. As it is implemented now: two thumbs down!

I know I am not the only one complaining, but beter scream now, before it is too late!

Meni.

And you know what?

I did.

Best part was text-chat not even SHOWING UP AT ALL until you open the chatterbox.

Please keep IM and open chat windows seperate. It is now even easier to get the conversations confused and letting things slip into open chat that was meant for IM. This chatterbox contraption is a very bad idea.

concur, i don't want it either.

Yes, combining tons of features into one giant window is absolutely wrong. You want lots of smaller windows so that everyone (who is an individual BTW) can arrage what windows they want to whatever size they want and wherever they want to put them. Sl should be moving towards more of that, not less.

Speaking of which, is the edit wndow EVER going to remember it's last position again?!?

From what i've seen this thing takes up so much space on my screen i won't be able to build and chat or IM at the same time. And particularly annoying since i won't be able to use voice anyway. Also, how about exploring? Won't even be able to see half the world! Bad change as far as i'm concerned and i sincerely hope something is done about it before they let this loose on the main grid.

Yes, as someone who won't be using Voice, I'd like to have the option of turning this chatterbox window off.