Linden Takes Away Another Useful Feature

The new version removes the small Lag and Bandwidth indicators that were located in the upper right corner of the viewer. Why would Linden's remove these tiny indicators?

I post this in case there is a Linden reading the forums and caring at all what residents have to say--they make a big show of caring but the reality appears different to me.

My ISP bandwidth varies quite a bit during a session--or is it Linden's networks that vary? To get maximum performance I would adjust the Preferences, Network Speed, based on those two tiny indicators raising or lower Network Speed as necessary to cut lag.

Torley's video shows us what Linden considers the replacement for these two tiny and useful indicators--the Statistics Bar and the Lag meter. Both of these things take up viewer screen space. Thus to keep them open interferes with your SL experience. The tiny Lag and Bandwidth idicators used no viewable space and were there all of the time.

So Linden takes away a useful feature to replace it with a problematic "feature" and Torley makes a video to convince us that this is good. Is this the Linden technicians messing things up again?

Hi Electron:
There is a jira for this 'issue', and it looks popular! Go to:
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3156

and vote for it.
-Stimpy

In a word, yes.

This new update has also borked my communication box. Now it will not resize to the smaller size I kept mine at.

Holy crap, I just downloaded the lastest viewer and saw that. I depend on those little bands. I probably look at them more than the back of my head when online.

The Lindens can't understand why we object to large UI elements, because *they* apparently all have mega-huge monitors, the size of a small home theatre. None of them bother to test usability on a small screen or in a small window - only full-screen on somethng you could use to display a movie for a dozen friends to comfortably watch!

Nicholaz already has a compatible viewer that brings those back, thanks to patches from Gigs Taggart and Henri Beauchamp.

Thank you Stimpy. I went to your jira link and added a comment and a vote for bringing back the lag and badwidth indicators.

All of you who want these tiny indicators back on the screen go to that jira link and add your voice to the other 100 or so votes to smack the search team down and bring back what residents need. Torley has already responded to the jira. Go vote!

And this viewer is pretty much the only one I use now. I like being able to look up in the corner and go, "Oops, my network is like zilch.. maybe I should stop building until the number changes, or the mini-map goes red."

Yeah, it's good for that, because if BOTH are empty for me, it's bye-bye connection!

Because it's change!

Anyone who doesn't like a change is Against Progress! And a Luddite!

Let's all jump up and move to the next chair at Alice's Tea Party. Why? Because that's what we do!

coco

The technical development of Second Life seems to run along the same theory of technical development for Vista. "Ask not what Vista can do for you. Ask what you can buy for Vista." So your monitor can't handle the Second Life update? Buy a new monitor. Buy a new monitor every week that Second Life is updated.

I still don't understand why people say things like this... it's not that SL requires new technology every week..

Its that to get the best performance, new(er) stuff is needed. I built my own computer a couple months ago, got a new monitor, all that. It runs SL Windlight max qualities (Draw distance not withstanding for lag reasons) perfectly. It will likely run SL perfectly at max qualities for a long time. I didn't build it with SL in mind either, just uses I could foresee me using it for in general, and what is good these days. Its a good machine, but not 'state of the art'

The problem comes when you 'upgrade' to something that doesn't actually handle SL well.. to the bare minimum. If you upgrade tot he minimum then yeah.. expect to need to do it again.

Yay for the forums! ty, voted...



It's because a picture of a Windlight sunset on my computer looks like the new IM window, which can't be made smaller than half the screen height! And my screen is fairly new...

Meanwhile, what was gained? Nothing, the small, useful meters were replaced by huge, screen obscuring indicator lights that provide, ironically, less useful info...

I'm actually not sure at all what you just said.. sorry =/



Maybe make your UI smaller? ANd the lag meters have a jira going... which is the point of this thread so yeah.. lol..

This is why I love these forums, without them I would not know about these jira submissions
(who has the time to browse the jira eww)
THANK YOU (running over to vote, I miss those lag meters)

the new one sucks! doesn't even do anything except show those stupid traffic lights (that is what it reminds me of, red green and yellow) blah

I know what you mean about the lag/bandwidth meters. I liked them, not so much for the information they yielded, but because they were colorful and pretty. lol For more useful analysis of the sim I open the Statistics Bar (under the View tab) to see if it is the sim or my bandwidth which is the problem. The little traffic light signs red, yellow, and green Lag Meter is kind of pretty and useful, but as others have stated it takes up too much space, has misleading info, and you have to actually open it. I voted for the JIRA issue; I wish they would just put the meters back and scoot everything over to make room for the search bar if it must be there at all. There is so much room up there to put about 100 meters for all kinds of things if they wanted to. It would appear that they swapped the meter code for the search bar code to make it simpler on themselves.

I liked the lag meters because it was an easy visual reference
many times I have been building or whatnot and have the feeling I crashed and if those bars were both black, chances are that I did crash.

now if I have that feeling I crashed, I have to stop what I am doing and attempt to move, if stuck then yep crashed.

whereas before a glance at the meters would determine if I had to stop and move or not

Reading what Torley's response is in the issue, we have the Search team to kick a few times to get this changed back. Who is the Search team so I can IM each one in turn with the complaint? Or note card if quite a few of us get the same idea?

I'd already voted for this issue, btw Gotta have me those little bars back! The lag meters a nice addon to the bars, but nothing more.

*shouts* LINDEN ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOUR USERS!!!

Smack down that Search Team, so self-important and so obsessed with their project that they take away useful indicators to put a stupid seach box there. Out the door with those Search team people and give us back what we need.

Come on SL residents get to the jira and give us more votes on this issue.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3156

Thank you again stimpy for steering us to this

Now I knew it all reminded me of something!!! Thanks!

Said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'
`Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.
`Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.'
`But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask.
`Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning.

Am I the only one who has used the new lag meter features? See http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/22/tip-of-the-week-12-how-to-easily-boost-viewer-performance/#more-1412

I found this extremely useful. The feature gives its best guess as to why the lag is occuring (loading textures, too many complicated objects in view, and so on). It helped me to tweak my preferences for best performance. It rocks.

But does it still have the old communications window? I like the new one and do not want to go back to the old one.

Last I saw it looked fine, though you may want to switch to an dandruff shampoo.

It does, but you can keep the new interface, I believe, if you do not copy the panel_toolbar_nicholaz xml file to the SL installation directory.

edit: nope, doesn't work. it was worth a shot, though

Buuut if you edit the xml, rename the IM button and delete the friends button, you end up with.. the same thing.