new way of typing your words

I've been in other online games before, and one thing that annoys me is that when you type in second life...you hear the sound of typing...and the avatar starts moving his fingers, like typing. Other games use balloons (some even voicechat), there are different possibilities...however the current system is really a dramatic hit on the believability of the world. I know that adding a / before your sentence removes the typing...and the typing sound isnt even the worse..its the way the avatars themselve move their hands when they type. Its really amateuristic in my perspective. They should remove that and instead make the mouths of the avatars move when someone is typing.

I thought this was kinda silly at first myself, but you get used to it pretty quicky, and then before long you rely on it to know when the conversation is done, or if it's a good time to start a new subject in conversation, etc...

For example, when I'm hosting a class and I ask "Does anyone have any questions so far?" I can wait about 10-15 seconds to see if anyone is starting to type something, instead of having to wait 1-2 minutes to give someone enough time to completely type something before I know.

Give it a little bit of time and you'll get used to it and start to see the benefits of it.

I don't mind the typing, but I wish we had the object to maintain eye contact with whom we are speaking to instead of looking at our fingers.

Olympia

I kinda like the typing animation/sound for reasons similar to Kex's. I wish I could customize the typing sound with one of my own (Yay, IBM PS/2 Model M click-a-matic!) but, seriously, the chat interface is fine.

The problem I see with balloon-speaking is that it would require your eyes to be roving all over the screen. Besides, this is modelled after the Metaverse. The metaverse translates body motions into avatar motions. The metaverse was also immersive and with streaming audio, which we're not at (yet). But it'll happen, and it won't be so long off... I'm excited to think I'll be around for it!

The typing sound can be turned off via audio options in your preferences. [EDIT] My mistake, you cant do this. We should be able too. You can turn down footsteps, typing should be an option as well. You can turn down overall volume to help some.

I like to see the hands moving as typing. We are actually typing to communicate and when I see this animation, I know the person is attempting to say something.

I dont want to see my mouth moving, scary to think how silly that animation would look.

Any way to adapt a way to use voice typing programs in SL?Like DragonNaturally Speaking or whatever it was?

LOL .. We have bandwidth issues already, I'd hate to see what would happen if we all TALKED too!

I'm on board with the typing animations being a good way to indicate who is typing. Also, hearing the typing sound alerts you to the presence of someone else while you are working on something (zoomed in on that prim that just WON'T go where you tell it to). It's a heck of a lot better than hearing BLLLLLING REALLY loud when someone finishes a sentance and scaring the bejeezus outta ya!

Also, the typing stops when the other person stops, kinda like a "hmm what's that word again" or "how can I put this" pause. Lets you know the other person is thinking or whatnot.

Only thing that annoys me with chat is that pressing E (and forgetting to get rid of the chat bar by pressing ESC or clicking the Chat button off) causes you to type lots of E's and you have to delete them. Maybe a "sensor" routine that saw "hey, lotsa E's ... this guy must be trying to fly" or something. Same with C's

Just my L$ 0.02

Taun Patel

I'm not sure it's voice confererencing that Dev's after, Taun, as Dragon is a voice-to-text thing, IIRC.

On that note, Dev, I don't _think_ it would work - I remember hearing on the forums somewhere that SL uses keyboard scan codes or something (which is also why I have to deal with wierdness of a US keymap on a UK keyboard), so it may not have the right software hooks to do it.

May be worth a comedy experiment, if anyone has the s/w about. Remember though, voicerec still is... erm... not very good

Hehe... kinda like handwriting rec on the old Newtons... lots of words would get turned upside down!

"My cat has fleas."

"Hy oat na5 Heds."

My Mac has a Chess program that has voice rec on it and for the life of me I can't get it to recognize C or E correctly so I don't bother. So many words sound the same, and local dialects and all...

SL, now with Voice Recognition! not available anywhere but California or to people without the local Cali accent :rollseyes:

Taun

Maybe I am just used to it, but I like the typing.
It helps in knowning that someone is going to say something to you, or who is going to speak next, reflecting normal conversation.

I use the typing as a signal either to wait for the person to say what they are in the process of saying, or not to stand around and look completely mute while in a conversation.

And if someone is typing a nice long sentence, and you didn't see any signs of typing, you might just fly off.

I can see allowing the option of turning off the typing sound.

fen-

I love the sound because it cues you into how far away the person is -- convos going on in another plot of land that you aren't involved in have very faint typing sounds, but if the person is near you they are louder and clearer. If I hear it most of the time I'll spin about looking to see who is typing to me (a lot of the times this happens in Cordova/Sandbox with the "ooh what's that you are building"'s) I think LL got this one just right

However, I'm also one never to look and option in the mouth ... so if it could be an option (or the volume adjusted for in-world intereaction effects globally -- holy loud "hey" whistle Batman!!!) that might be keener.

Taun

I really like the typing anim.

For the first time in a MOG, you can tell that someone is trying to communicate, before they actually do.

typing animation is good. not just for comedy either ...

..there have been planty of times when i was going to say something and noticed the other person was typing, so i just stood patiently and waited until they said it (pressed enter)..
the typing animation is an excellent tool in preventing rude or inconsiderate chatting practices, even if they would be unintentional..

..another use: you've told someone that you have to leave, but they wanted to say something before you leave.. with the typing animation you see them typing before you can actually leave, thereby allowing you to not miss that last crucial comment that will fulfill the very existence of your being.

..umm, or at the very least, it's a nice gesture to let them finish what they're saying..

How about you can choose to have everyone's typing anim disspear (and the sound too, if you wish) and be replaced with either nothing or just a small box over their head. An icon of a keyboard maybe. Is it possible to make it local like that?

Seems like that would take some of the virtual humanity out of it. And I think thats another part of why the typing anim is nice. Its something that brings us more into the SLworld, its something that we can identify with from RL.

Since we aren't required to lvl to "play", we have to draw from the person in front of the monitor when we wander the sims. Add to this that very many of us use our hands when we talk. If we did not type we would loose some of what draws us in, what makes us US in SL.

Don't think this would be nice to look at in a crowd either, and if you show names, ugh...

fen-

This script stops the typing animation, put it in something you wear. Still need to figure out how to stop the sound though. If anyone knows of a script, post it here.


key typing = "c541c47f-e0c0-058b-ad1a-d6ae3a4584d9";
default
{
state_entry()
{
llRequestPermissions(llGetOwner(),PERMISSION_TRIGGER_ANIMATION);
llSetTimerEvent(0.01);
}

timer()
{
string tt = llDumpList2String(llGetAnimationList(llGetOwner()),"";
//15468e00-3400-bb66-cecc-646d7c14458e
//2408fe9e-df1d-1d7d-f4ff-1384fa7b350f
//c541c47f-e0c0-058b-ad1a-d6ae3a4584d9
if (llSubStringIndex(tt,typing) != -1)
{
llStopAnimation(typing);
}

}
}

Not at all. I've used Dragon (version two! They're up to seven now!) and it's pretty darn good. The reason? It's downside. And the downside is this: you have to dictate a whole bunch of stuff first, so that it recognizes your voice. Also, it learns from your corrections. It's an amazing program... if I still had it around, I might actually try to get it to work with SL (supposedly newer versions will be able to end to any program, I think).