Please welcome Howard Linden!

I would love to see more flexibility in the current building tools
For example:
- make it possible to hollow a prim on all 3 axis
- make it possible to tapper a prim on all 3 axis
- make it possible to round off corners on angular prims
- make it possible to make multi sided prims, e.g. hexagons
- make it possible to hollow a prim in different shapes
- make it possible to position the hollow other then just the center
- make it possible to drag/stretch the prim on more then the current 12 point, e.g. on the line between the white markers
- make it possible to make slightly larger prims, e.g. 16x16 or better 32x32, as standard
- make it possible to make much smaller prims
- make it possible to make the hollow size bigger then 95% or smaller then 5%
- make it possible to....

gosh need I go on.

Just give us builders lots more flexibility to make SL look even better then it already is.
Somehow the limitation on the build tool is holding a lot of us back in our creativity.

I strongly urge that before changes are made to the UI, or to SL tools, that significant time be spent in world actually using the UI and tools in a meaningful and not merely cursory way. We've had our share of horrible changes made to the UI, such as unwieldy sized windows, or the inconvenient relocation of buttons, and have even suffered seizure inducing graphic colors. Many changes seem to have been made by those who do not actually seem to use SL in a meaningful way and were more concerned with change for the sake of change, or bragging rights, rather than usability.

Spend meaningful time inworld using the tools, building, creating, and moving before making significant changes. Merely logging in and flying around for a while is not enough. One UI area sadly in need of improvement is a more intuitive user friendly customization of the UI such as color, fonts and window background transparency. Prior to windlight we were able to customize colors and transparencies by editing an ini file in the client. Now the current customization method of is an adjustment of hard to manage debug settings that are explained poorly, are incomplete and need to be repeatedly reset.

I would love to see more flexibility in the current building tools
For example:
- make it possible to hollow a prim on all 3 axis
- make it possible to tapper a prim on all 3 axis
- make it possible to round off corners on angular prims
- make it possible to make multi sided prims, e.g. hexagons
- make it possible to hollow a prim in different shapes
- make it possible to position the hollow other then just the center
- make it possible to drag/stretch the prim on more then the current 12 point, e.g. on the line between the white markers
- make it possible to make slightly larger prims, e.g. 16x16 or better 32x32, as standard
- make it possible to make much smaller prims
- make it possible to make the hollow size bigger then 95% or smaller then 5%
- make it possible to....

gosh need I go on.

Just give us builders lots more flexibility to make SL look even better then it already is.
Somehow the limitation on the build tool is holding a lot of us back in our creativity.

Hello Howard welcome!

My suggestions are made in pure spirit of suggestions. Some will be a complete non starter as technically not feasible. But I like them as ideas, so perhaps more techy people have more viable suggestions on them as I am a designer.

Mine are:

- Dynamic Shadows (Kirsten Lee has done some amazing stuff on viewers) look at her work.

- Inventory - please make it like Itunes or similar - I want to filter on any parameter or search on any parameter. I heart Apple interface style, so even better give me thumbnails, or lists, or details.

- Search - I would like two things here. First generic search engine capabilities that isn't traffic ranked and has more depth in terms of information return. Second - community Search. I want on the pulse news on events, stories, things of interest -which is geared to my interests! Please see ME ME ME! below in terms of how it might know what my interests are. The setting of interests should be part of the sign up process before you get to platform and also donate your starting point on the grid first time in.

- Avatar - mesh improvement with system clothes improvement please open the door to the Pro 3D designers, the *tweaks* required to map to the SL mesh is a complete pain. the fact an SL system skirt inflates my bottom half by 20% isn't really great so more layers, attachment points (comes with improved mesh) and better meshes please.

- Viewer - ME ME ME. The bottom line is a new user with limited experience doesn't always *get* Second Life. You have the questions they answer to set up a few things upon arrival BUT do more human stuff.

Give them I WANT functionality at viewer level. I want to meet friends, I want to buy a house.

This can be teamed with MY INTERESTS (or why I am here) - My Interests are architecture, house music, conducting business, adult pursuits, finding a relationship etc.

Use that output from the viewer to direct their search returns in the sense if gives you top suggestions (not the showcase but based on your settings) then the rest of the listings.

Remove the current Interests tab on profile to do this - as it's a waste of space normally and the choices poor.

Of course in the above you should be able to have nulls in all this if you don't want directed results and it be flexible enough to give enough options that are valid (e.g. not all will be PG) so maturity rating setting will be required here.

You can even add I AM functionality with mood settings, more forumy but it is kind of language most already get before joining a virtual world so gives some familiarity.

Contact List it's too limited - I want something more like my Mac Address Book - I know I can capture notes in their profile - but I want to bookmark profiles without offering a calling card thingy or friends or even them knowing. Tag them if you like. Give me more contact management tools.

Chat viewer - PLEASE give me one that Adium or similiar (is this Jabber protocol?) can use. I don't want to use the SLim application, I have too many applications. Make SL IM accessible from other tools like Adium, Ebuddy or whatever people use to manage all their chat accounts. I want Gchat MSN and SL chat on one tool.

Bookmarks in general. I know I can sometimes collect landmarks - but to Bookmark things in SL would be helpful - in Inventory, Contacts, Places I visit etc with a Bookmark drop down and tool bar type function. That way I find a cool sofa, I can bookmark it and that bookmark will take me back to it - of course added issue if the creator moves it - so this may require more thought in general - but the concept is "remember this".

Flckr Style stuff - I would like to mark favorites on things. This sim was my favorite, this person was my favorite, this house was my favorite, this pair of shoes was my favorite. The sim owner, creator, or person as applicable can see what of theirs has been favored, by whom and how many. I can click on my favorites too for easy recall. We can use this to measure what we are doing etc. Not sure about it being public as you get it gamed, and it loses value. This is purely to give direct love to the creator, the creator to know what we liked, and for us to remember what we liked so we can recommend it!

Map - I hate it. It's slow on a good day and frankly I ever use it to see how many avatars are somewhere or for a direct TP to a sim. Can we have a Google Earth thingy please. Tags for all sorts of things (my favorites, remember this see above), the sim details pop up in an interactive way, the thumbnail style, make it like a Globe etc etc. This is a world, and even virtual worlds are not flat are they ?

Windlight Settings (as we still do not have this at Sim setting level on server - screams in pain) a save setting to inventory function then ability to share with another avatar so they get the setting - or simliar. Downloading the XML finding the hidden folder and saving it (to find a new release nukes it) is not user friendly. Ps please also get windlight settings at sim level on server side sorted finally. We create stuff we want to light it too for avatars to experience it as we see it.

Finally - Building. I am an advanced user - please do not remove my ability to use the full spectrum of things including the Advanced Menu - I am happy for the added activities to be a one click - switch to expert level - or something. But please do not make it split out all over and remember things like the build button - was what started many content creator to discover their first cube. Don't remove build from the general viewer at least in some form.

I have loads more but off home now!

This would kick butt if the original creator could set the thumbnail and you could edit it later.

And and and and it could display on hover, like a coda tooltip. *drools*


Oh Oh Oh OHHHH, what if for inventory, you split it up into tabs for like images, clothing, scripts, that sorted independently from your regular folder structure.

O_O

Can we make wireframes and send them to you guys?

Thank you for the warm welcome of Howard and the many, many to-dos you've put on his list. Keep 'em coming! Best, M.

HiHi M and Howard,

Ive got another for your list, its a biggie and could change how everyone deals with a part SL.

How about building AO(animation override) into the viewer?

Dealing with attached, scripted, and sometimes no copy, AOs now is an unnecessary resource overhead.

Please add it to yer list =) thanks

Alisha

Ok one more suggestion and I'm going back to work.

When you search for an item in your inventory, and you click on the folder it's contained in and then clear the search, you stay on the folder you're clicked into.

It doesn't do that now. It spits you back out at the top of the folder list and you have to scroll down hoping you find that folder from the un-collapsed ones that were brought up from the search.

Or maybe give the ability to open just one inventory folder into a new window?

Like "Smart Playlists" or Spotlight searches, with maybe a few example tabs?

Inventory->Create New Tab

------
Select [type|v] [is|v] [texture|v]
[or|v] [type|v] [is|v] [snapshot|v]
[and|v] [creator|v] [is me|v].
------
Show as (_) Tree Thumbnails

Sort by name

Name: [My pictures]
Click OK...

Inventory->Create New Tab

------
Select [folder|v] [is currently selected folder|v].
------
Show as Tree ( ) Thumbnails

Sort by name

Name: [Name of folder here]
Click OK...

Of course just dragging the folder t the tab bar should create this automatically.

Ogre Mesh....
for building,.... for landscaping and for avatars/clothing etc...

tweekable inworld too would be wonderful....

thats it.. thats my wishlist.

I would find so much stuff in my inventory if we had that. Just any sort of search engine more advanced than what we have now would be great.

What if you could set categories on objects you make too. Like I someone sells sneakers and gives them a dumb name like "scooty puff happy rainbow thingies" but can add categories (or tags.) to say "SHOES, sneakers, foot, texture change, Blue, stripped" so that when you search you're not relying on the person's ability to name the object.

Some stuff is no mod so you can't rename it, But if you could tag it that would help! I have a lot of no mod japanese items that I can never find because there is no semantic relation in my head to the weird grouping of letters for a word that means nothing in English and a typing AO that makes my mouth move. I lose that thing all the time.

- Move all the information from the in game map into SLURL and use that as the default. Not only does it often load faster then the in game map but it would allow residents to browse events/etc without needing to be logged in.

- Move profiles onto a web based community. IMO this would be a great way to expand the community portion of SL to add more user friendly tools (ie inviting people to events). Adding in new features like sending IMs and other value added services (you could even make a lot of that premium only). This would be a dramatic improvement over the limited user area of the current SL website. This could also add an appeal to people who are just looking at second life as they would be able to see a larger portion of the community without stumbling around in world.

- In profile shops - this could possibly eliminate the need for networked vendors and as such could reduce the overall grid load (imagine just clicking a vendor and being directed to the buy page. Commissions might be a problem though...) IMO there is little need for a presence in order to shop. You could even charge a listing fee similar to how the existing classified system works.

Windows only. I already feel so welcome there. -_-

It's still in beta. I'm sure they will release for linux and mac eventually.

The thing that annoys me is they have pixel shading . Why does SL still not have pixel shading?

Does that include more joints for animators? If so, then I second this...we need smoother moves for machinima.

DON'T dumb it down, have one version for content creators with expanded abilities and one for newbies.

Shadows, more lighting...think of us film makers.

Refine the Beta lipsync (I like it now but better would be great).

Exciting H...have fun and good luck.

That would be a new skeleton. Which speaking as a confirmed ferret fan I would dearly love to see. A ferret avatar needs a more flexible spine. Shorter legs. Tail!

(and a place to hide your socks)
Materials, so you can have "matte" and "fuzzy" objects that are kind of the antithesis of "shiny".

Forget Shiny. Fix what needs fixing.

The list is way too long.

OK.

* Make cut-and-paste work everywhere.
* Make links clickable everywhere.
* Fix all the glitches in the inventory.
* Let me add inventory tabs.
* Add a button to apply an electric shock to landcutters, botfarmers, mapspammers, and anyone who rezzes a copybot-protector orb.

Agreed! (Not sure if this falls within the scope of what they are looking for, but this is no stuff I would *love* to see.)

Not being able to hollow off-center drives me batty.

I just want the ability to hold a conversation using instant messages. Please? Someone, anyone?

Well, I have a few ideas, but other people have better ones, frankly, and so I'll point you in that direction.

I'd encourage you to get in touch with some of the folks who submitted interface design ideas, and take time to read the often lengthy submission notes that went with them - well worth it, and maybe even talk to some of the entrants.
http://dusanwriter.com/?p=662

Some residents put a lot of work into coming up not only with feature sets and ideas but different takes on philosophies and architecture. You have a vibrant creative community to tap into so please DO.

And on that note, do something about the user experience office hours. When I read a comment from one of the Lab that Linden's time was TOO EXPENSIVE to necessitate organizing community feedback I gave up going - if your time is too expensive, I can tell you my time, for which I don't even get paid, is far more valuable because it's volunteer.

The formats for soliciting feedback are terrible, in my opinion. Folks who arrive with ideas, presentations, who contribute time, energy and heart barely get a thank you, if that. Second Life should be, and often is, a living example of the ideas of crowd sourcing, community prototyping and is, in my opinion, like a creative city (a la Richard Ford) - and is perhaps the largest concentration of creative talent in the world today.

Linden Lab can continue to prove that it has developed a collaborative and community platform with very few equals by being intelligent in how it integrates community feedback.

Office hours are a very thin substitute for more robust forms of community involvement and feedback so I'm really only using them as one visible example.

Now, on to a more productive question - can you PLEASE give more details on what you mean by "modularizing the code base" - how modular? Will the viewer still be open source? Will the modular code base allow plug & play functions and a separate API for this?

If so....that opens a whole different realm of discussion on how to take ADVANTAGE of a modular code base....forget about individual features, we should be talking about how to prep for a modular code deployment and how developers could get a jump start on coding extensions.

Many thanks for listening!

One thing that I never understood since the day I started, is why we always have to place boxes on the ground to open them? There should be a way to open the boxes while they are in inv.

That would greatly reduce all the clutter that people sometimes leave around after opening their bought packages.

Also for the sim bans, etc. Give an option to set a time limit for the bans and reasons for the bans.

I.E. Joe Newb shows up and makes a mess. The sim owner/manager can say "Ok pal, your banned for 30 mins, come back when you've grown up some." Or something like that.

Hi Howard and welcome

Usability is purely and simply about reducing the time it takes people to do things.

To quote Jeff Raskin's first 2 laws:

Raskin's First Law of Interaction

A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction,
allow your work to come to harm.

Raskin's Second Law of Interaction

A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work
than is strictly necessary.

Let's all think about the major time wasters we encounter daily and try to work on those.

Before viewer usability then, viewer stability is vital, since an unstable viewer that crashes your supposedly uncrashable computer is the biggest time waster of all. We have had major viewer stability issues for over a year - memory leaks and issues like VWR-7779. Presumably the reason nobody has said "Class Action Lawsuit" on that one is that nobody knows whether to blame Linden Lab, Apple or nVidia. However, those who run SL on the same Mac using both OS X and Windows report that the issue is with the Mac version. Seriously, it's about 18 months since the issues with nVidia 8600 based Macs were first reported and zero progress has been made, in fact the situation has (in my experience) become worse for other GPUs.

Also before viewer stability - inventory loss, issues which lose money, issues which risk land ownership or risk increased tier due to momentary mistakes. By my count there are at least 4 ways to lose your land or the value of it if you make a mistake when taking it out of a group. Not all of these are viewer issues, but errors can and should be designed out.

On to the viewer itself.

1. Home brewed user interface - neither Mac nor Windows nor anything else but a law unto itself. Why? The viewer should be in the user's native operating system, to eliminate time wasted by habituation (muscle memory) to the OS user interface.

2. Everything is in one main window. This wastes time as we shuffle windows around trying to see the world but still keep chat, maps, huds etc in view as well. This isn't a problem for me in OS X or Windows. Both of these user interfaces give me methods to control the windows. The SL viewer doesn't.

3. Inventory management. I don't have a problem with my Mac OS X finder, and I can put up with the Windows equivalent. Why reinvent the wheel and do such a bad job of it? My going in request would be, let me use my OS finder for my SL inventory. What's wrong with inventory management exactly? It just wastes too much time, because it's one giant list, it seems to scroll around when I don't want it to, I can't organise the folders the way I can on my OS finder - because there's no column view and no desktop.

4. The stupidly long time it takes to load inventory from a prim.

5. The stupidly long time it takes to load textures. Compare SL with a web page showing the same set of textures. The web page loads far faster. As a minimum, I want to be able to point to a texture and say "I want that one right now!" whether I'm shopping or trying to watch a slide presentation. This is a showstopper for corporate users.

6. While we're on the topic of corporate users, another showstopper is how chat lag makes a mockery of any attempt to have a group discussion. Agreed, not a viewer issue.

7. Group invites. Someone IMs me and needs a group invite. Can I open their profile and invite them to the group? NO! Instead I have to go through about 8 mouse clicks and type part of their name when their profile is right in front of me.

8. Ban Lines are a nuisance for vehicle users but another downside is they ruin people's experience of their properties by being visible through their windows and from their roofdecks as they watch the sunset. How long would it take to make view banlines an advanced rendering option, so that people could enjoy their homes without red barbed wire in their faces? It's really surprising nobody has made time to do this yet, given the difference it would make to the victims.

Building and texturing has a plethora of timewasters.

9. when you try to texture a prim using repeats per meter, the texture is set at different sizes on path cut faces and on the underside of the prim a math error makes the texture smeared. So the builder has to take extra time to texture those faces manually. Setting textures properly is hugely time consuming, easily wrecked and there's no undo.

10. you can't set parameters for a group of prims at the same time - for example increase the Z dimension of a set of prims.

11. you can't make one prim a clone of another so that changing the original prim changes the clones

12. no hierarchical linking means that when you build something out of sub assemblies and then unlink it, all the work done on the structure is lost; this also makes it difficult (and time consuming) to have a linked object with child assemblies which move relative to the root

13. no boolean operations on prims - maybe not a timewaster, it just totally prevents you from building certain things like a cylindrical tower with an arched entrance

14. resizing a prim - why do the white grow in all direction boxes have pick precedence over the red, blue and green boxes for resizing along an axis? I have to spend time zooming in so I can pick the axis grow box. I never ever use the white boxes on a single prim - I'd be happy if they weren't there at all.

15. Alpha sorting - spoils the appearance of things you make, or even just arrange, for example a plant next to a window.

16. People who use a trackpad rather than a mouse seem to have an issue where objects are accidentally deleted during building. There's no way yet to undo this.

17. The one major timewaster that has been fixed - since Havok 4 I can now actually link a smallish house into one object without being told the pieces are too far apart. Something that used to take hours of trying ending in failure now takes moments to succeed. This makes a huge difference so thanks for the people who worked on this.

One more thing - usability and stability count for nothing without reputation, trust, and customer service, all of which have taken a huge dent over the open space issue. Every type of land based business has been damaged this year by a) the introduction of the open spaces, b) building 10 new sims a day and c) jacking up the open space price by 67%. Whether or not it's bait and switch, the appearance of bait and switch damages the reputation of the platform and reduces confidence in owning other types of land. Providing great customer service is so easy, it's continually disappointing to see mistakes being made that alienate people both one at a time and in large groups.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html should be required reading.

These!

Howard, many of these issues have been raised in the JIRA: I'm linking here to a few that I can remember. You can login to JIRA and read the comments and related suggestions there, as well as judge relative popularity of the issue compared with others.

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3432
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1449
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-220
http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2199

etc

Good luck and have fun!