SL Development Roadmap

I'd just like to know why Linden Labs has refused to implement MS GUI standards, especially when it would make pretty much everything better, easier, and more intuitive.

Because it's a multi-platform client?

I'm assuming MS =Microsoft here.

LF

Frankly, that's irrelevent. Transparency of commands, utilization of common placement and purpose, things that create a consistancy of experience that is generally accepted to be present in the marketplace... you know, the things that make something easier to use, intuitive.

The copy/paste/multiple select is part of this standard, for example.

If you're not familiar with the MS GUI standard, you might take a moment to understand it before assuming it's limited to one platform. It isn't. Just because Microsoft was the first to label it doesn't mean they're the only ones who use it.... or who should. That was the point.

I really like the Wikipedia article about GUIs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI

Doesn't that falsely imply we have gotten multi-item drag and drop?

Um, it is in the new preview release, so unless they manage to somehow remove it, I consider it now something finally done, even if not released yet.

SL doesn't have a roadmap because LL has a "progressive" management style

The same goes for just about every PC game ever made presumably to make players feel like they are running something other than Office. It does, of course, have the side effect of making every game a novel UI learning experience (wait, does the gold φ mean the option is on or off?) which is pretty stoopid, but it is not nearly as bad as DVD menus which have no conventions at all.

Fortunately, my DVD player has this fantastic (and probably DVD specification violating) feature of finding the longest track when the DVD is inserted and playing that; no trailers, no "the FBI and Interpol will shoot you if you even look at this disk", woot! I put the disk in because I wanted to watch the farking movie, not an advertisement for a truck I'll never, ever, think of buying, tyvm.

Fortunately Don Norman's Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things is now out in paperback, which - like his other works - is highly acclaimed, will be widely purchased, possibly read, and soundly ignored.

On a really picayune note the "standards" are derived from a decade long line of IBM SAA CUA specifcations that claim that Microsoft contributed to the latest revision, but probably only because Microsoft paid them to say that.

Great post! You're right about MS, of course. I keep waiting for developers to cop to the reality that UI standards are A Good Thing.... but I'm no longer holding my breath.

I used to think it was some strange conviction that what they do instead is actually better, now I understand it's ignorance in almost every instance.

Oh well.

because the MS GUI sucks. ask any mac user. ask many PC users.
is it better the the current inv GUI? maybe. but if they add it i want my mac version to use an Aqua interface for mine.



no, that was apple. and if anything windows is still trying to emulate the mac GUI. recently mac has added some stuff from windows too, but its apple not microsoft that came up with a consistent intuitive GUI, with *gasp* drag and drop of multiple items.

that being said i think that it would be nice if LL redid the GUI for inv management, but i dont think that they should just copy either the mac or windows interface, but something like it would be nice.

jester

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Sorry, the PC vs MAC wars are not being fought here. Check Usenet for that.



Wrong. Try IBM. I generally use 'MS GUI Standard' because it is usually the one people have actually heard of (if they've heard of UI standards at all). I'm well aware of the history and various religions that have arisen as a result of it. (grin)



I'd like to see them completely retool the UI. However, as with many things in life and gaming, I'm not holding my breath.