Little things that mean a lot

Some times, programmers will sneak one tiny change into a patch that gets ignored in the excitement over the bigger, glitzier sexier stuff.

In tomorrow's update, attention is focused more on the changes to land tools and the addition of a new ban option.

But I don't see anyone talking about something that could have far more impact, especially on the hordes of new folks joining SL:


If you're like me, your first day in SL when you actually bought something you were stumped about actually extracting the contents of that box in your inventory. Putting the box on your head became something of a rite of passage for newbies. Even today, a year later, if a box in my inventory has the same name as the item I might accidentally put it on my head and have a good laugh.

This doesn't mean boxes-on-the-head are going away, of course, but it is going to make the opening of containers much easier in SL. No more "Edit" -> "More" -> "Contents". Right click and open, presto!

God, kids these days have it so easy. Why, back in my day we had to kill our own meat and milk our own cows ...

Hasn't the Open option been there for at least a couple of versions now? I use it all the time - and especially the Copy to Inventory button which automatically creates a new folder for your items.

Walk backwards up hill in the snow, and no we didn't have fancy shoes, we had to crawl on our hands and knees to the overpass and grab some truckers shredded tire and glue those to our feet. Ah the old days.....

things were better then

I think this is just a bug fix to a feature that wasn't working perfectly. This isn't a new feature ... though I think a lot of people were unaware when it was added. It is wonderful.

I swear, I open boxes and unpack them all the time. Could it be that I'm just so used to the old way that I didn't see this? Or are you spending too much time in Preview?

Thanks, Pers - guess I have to retrain myself to use the AI. When's the next class?

Yay for people hip enough to put 'unpacker' scripts in their boxes.

I set my vendor boxes to sell the contents rather then a copy, so the buyer gets a folder with the box name and the contents in the folder. A lot of people are not aware of this option in the Edit Sell window.

*(grabs her bifocals and squints at a box)

this...uh...newfangled uh.. what?? being a total tard and not used to .... well gosh, if they have fixed that little thing, did they do something about texture rendering and lag that i dont know about and need to be pro active on??

*had no clue this was a feature now.
**feels very old and left out
*** don't mind me, i will just sit in the corner..alone..in the dark.

I've used the Open option to get to the contents directly for a couple of months at least, I would say. I don't know whether this adds anything to that option but Open as a menu option when right clicking on an object with contents is already there. Check it out before the patch.

Wendel

Sounds like a bug fix for those boxes. If a box/bag was made up of more than just one prim, Right-Click -> Open would only work if you happened to click on the object's parent prim.

This good because it's sometimes embarrassing when I'm teaching a new resident to use the Right-Click -> Open command on a freebie box, only to have them say that option isn't available.. >_<

Don't feel bad, I don't know how long this option has been availabale to us but I had a HUGE box of textures just a few days ago and was not looking forward to dragging each one to my inventory. Then I saw the copy to inventory and was tickled pink.

How long HAVE we had this feature? Anyone know?

Well I've worn many boxes and have "opened" many boxes. And (looks in embarrasment) have seen that a box tha ti could not open and was very angry at the vendor, in fact I finally got up enough nerve to msg one finally. Well.. After taking a class I was completely embarrased to find out I could have opened them via edit. I've thrown many many away.. sigh

Morale of the story, could we not be informed of this on learn it island or whatever it is called?

Ha good point, but man you threw stuff away? That seriously sucks.

I bet 9 out of 10 of the designers you bought from would replace the items if you asked nice and told them you just made a big noob mistake

Yeah, but the bad thing, the only thing I do when I log on, is shop (and practice shooting.. looks at everyone).. LOL so I don't even remmber everything I threw away or where I even bought it.. heh

Awww! Is the end of newbies running around with a box on their head? Oh and I think we ALL did this at one time!

ok ok, since i now know not to put a box on my head, I think i would get a kick out of seeing someone newer than myself do it, well anyone for that matter.. (snicker)

I and my friends always try to make the new resident feel better by putting boxes on OUR heads too, so we can all have a good laugh.

If we want to be different, we use a sphere or a torus. But that loses the effect I think.

lol to funny

I'm still wearing that box, I thought that was my free Hair for noobs, I'm so embarrassed.
omg, going to hide under water till i can afford a more stylish do.

lol

I've got so many I could share. This is a great thread, BTW.

One of my favorites:

The day "Release Land" was changed to "Abandon Land". Those who ever experienced heartbreak over a misunderstanding will know why.

Similarly, the click actions--particularly for "Sit", overjoyed me. I am such a bad sitter!

Weird, Cindy. I don't think I have ever gone "Edit" -> "More" -> "Contents" to open a box. I've always gone: drag-to-ground, right-click, "Open," forget-to-pick-up-box, slap-head-when-it-pops-up-in-lost-and-found.

Recently they added the Copy To Inventory button in the contents window which is FRICKING AWESOME. It was really difficult to hold a baby in one arm while trying to drag the contents of a box into a new folder in my Inventory. (Ctrl-A didn't work to select all.)

But like others have mentioned... the significant detail in the release notes is the "child prim" aspect, so you can make more complicated containers and still be sure users will easily have access to the object's contents.

This happened to me when I found the Linden Freebies wall at the Waterhead welcome area. I picked one of the freebies- a princess costume, I think? I wore it, and ended up with this big square picture of a princess on my head. "This is a dumb-ass freebie," I thought... but I kept wearing it for a day or two because, well, it was free.

I can't get in-world to test this right now but the notes say under bug fixes:

" * The "Open" option appears when right-clicking a child prim of an object with contents"

I have right-click-opened objects before myself. Is the key thing here "child prim". If you try to right-click-open a single prim with contents, I think that works.

What if it's a multi-prim object where the root prim doesn't have any contents, but a child does, and that's the one you actually right-clicked on? Is there an open menu?

Speaking of freebies.. I think they should advertise that as well on that island as how to open stuff..
seriously, i had bought hmm, bout 6 skins and i don't know how many clothes, shoes and an animation before someone bothered to tell me about freebie stuff.. -.-
and yes i bought a bunch of freebie stuff.. sigh