UI: Complaints without solutions

I don't like the current UI.

All the individual elements work (pie-menus, edit window) or mostly work (inventory) or make-me-cry-but-could-work-without-big-changes (avatar-tracking-picker on the map), but that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the UI as a whole.

Just as a specific example, when I was teaching an advanced scripting class recently, I needed quick access to (in decreasing order of frequency of access)
1) a notecard with my notes on it
2) a script
3) chat history
4) a specific folder in my inventory
5) the edit window

For most of those UI elements, to only way to have quick access to them was to keep them open on the screen (the script and notecard could be minimized, but, well, you know...). With all that stuff open, there was not much screen real estate for, you know, the actual game.

Now I'm NOT going to ask for whatever my favourite bit of UI candy is at the moment, say, UI elements that auto-shrink to a location on the screen and get bigger when the pointer gets near them, because a UI designed by consensus on the forums would be 100 times worse than the current one. My personal opinion is that the "right" way to design a UI for a game like this is to lock 3 or 4 really smart human-interface engineers in a room with giant whiteboards, notepads and an unlimited supply of coffee for 3 weeks, then implement whatever they come up with.

What I am asking is if this is a concern for players other than me, and what is Linden Lab's perspective on this (eg, is it "we are incrementally moving towards the final version and this is close" or is it "this is what we put in place to get the beta out the door, we're working on it"?

(sheesh, I'm long winded and opinionated today. I should schedule a meeting at work).

W - your not alone. The UI needs work.

Oh it's not mind wrackingly terrible - as a matter of fact, compared to some games it's quite nice.

But quite nice isnt great. it's just.... quite nice.

I agree - engineers + coffee + whiteboard + locked room + 3 weeks = something better.

or is that... something better = (engineers *locked room)/PI+(coffee-whiteboard).

or is it... Something Better = NewUI;
Same Old Crap = OldUI;

listen(dry_erase_markers, ID_Badges, Message);
{
if(message == "Hey guys this just might work, lets stay longer";
{
Start_UI(Something_Better);
}
if(message == "How long have we been here, I'm missing buffy!";
{
Start_UI(Same_Old_Crap);
}
if(message == "what we need is to prioritize our paradigm's so as not to undervalue the needs of the consumers while empowering our workers to acheive *";
{
rechk_string(ID_Badges);
startproc(remove_manager);
reset_timer(3_weeks);
}
}
end_state;

My own biggest complaint about the UI may be related to the fact that I am using an 800MHz machine. Maybe others can confirm or deny this.

When I have text windows, contact lists, build dialogs etc up they are being painted as part of the graphical presentation of the world. For full screen use this probably makes most sense. I have alway preferred to run in a window however. I have 1280x1024 screen resolution and there is PLENTY of room to run SL in a window and have a few other things running at the same time (ICQ and programs such as that for example).

In that mode, what would really be helpful would be to open those text based windows of SL up in a true text based dialog box OUTSIDE the window that the SL world is displaying in. I think such dialogs would be faster to process, plus they would give an unobstructed view of the world. As it is, I find that I am constantly moving various boxes such as chat history, IM history, Map, and build object edit dialogs around trying to make a space in the center where I can actually see what I'm doing. The results is that my view of the world ends up looking like an uncompleted jigsaw puzzle. The other problem with this, possibly because of the speed of my system (lack of speed more precisely), is that screen operations get confused. For example, I click on and drag the chat window from one place to the other but midway through this process the window stops being dragged and my mouse ends up grabbing an object behind the window. Now I am either editing someone else's object, or worse I have dragged something of my own from one place to another.

I know that many people run in full screen mode (otherwise it wouldn't be the default I suspect), so it may be impractical to implement it both ways, but for us windowed game players having the "camera" in its own window would really be a big improvement.

PS: the recent change in the chat input area was a big help. Previously when you had to hit enter each time I would always have typed several words before input mode was engaged. It's nice to not have people randomly jumping up in the air while you chat with them now

Wednesday,
1 & 2) You can minimize windows
3) Ctrl-H
4) Ctrl-I (Here there is a problem, it doesn't reopen to the folder you were last in, I agree that this need to be fixed)
5) Ctrl-3

I like this UI, I have no complaints.

-Pat Murphy

I like the current UI, but it does need tweaking to get what we really need. I agree with Wed. that real estate fills up pretty damn fast. I think that all windows should be resizable (I think this is already a feature) but we should have the option to set what a default size would be for each window. Like the map for instance, it keeps the same size, but what about everything else? Perhaps this already is a feature and I just haven't noticed it. As for minimizing, yeah... that could use some work...

I agree with the UI experts in a coffee with room...
er... the Coffee experts in a room with UI...
No wait ... hold on...

UI experts + room + lots of coffeee = awesome UI

yeah that's about right!

My thoughts:
The dynamic pie menus someone suggested would clean up a lot of clutter and make things a lot nicer. It could get rid of small windows (only a couple of options, like rating) entirely. And could offer a boon to scripters if there was a way to add buttons.

I just really hate the inventory. There has got to be a better system for it. Maybe instead of folders for each item type there was a tab (accross the top or down the left side). Then each type could have its own folder system. There should be a "new" folder instead of an "object folder" that started off empty and was where the new stuff went, instead of into the middle of everything else. Ya I can set this up now, but I'm talking the default should be better. And there should be one of these new folders on each tab. Also this would allow customization of each tab. For example, the Calling Cards tab could look more like a contact list with the name, their group and/or rating showing along with some buttons to IM them or open the profile. And they could be automatically sorted by name (more tabs!) and also a 'Whos Online' tab. The Texture one could be more of the big icon explorer view that showed previews.

The drop down menus for landmarks, people, textures etc. definatly need to be capable of taking advantage of sub folders.

A "remove duplicates" would be really nice for the inventory also.

There should also be a place to drop things and add them to Profiles, not give to the person. That way I could put landmarks for that person's shop, home, hangout on their card.

The IM system also needs a little work. IMs shouldn't be sent to normal chat history and it should be easier to track who is and isn't in a chat session with multiple people.

I also dislike the menu bar (File, etc.) in games in general. I'm not sure there is a better system in the case.... but maybe condensing where possible, move some stuff to a new properties window (show property lines etc.), and then replacing the bar with a couple of buttons (like the Map) buttons that droped down menus. I think it would gel better. You could probably fit as many buttons up there as there are menu options.

Regarding inventory

I wish folders in inventory, specifically textures. really meant something when it came to their actual use.

When I first started I organized everything into categories only to find when I went to create something my folders were useless. If Im making clothes I want to see my clothes texture folder, not every single texture in inventory. Granted, some of the other textures DO make very interesting clothes but it makes making things a pain in the rear having to scroll and scroll and scroll to find what you're looking for.

*falls over*

that's a great idea! especially for those of us with multiple monitors... it would be sw33t to have SL fullscreen on my primary, then have my little 15" on the side handle all the message windows and stuff... thereby leaving my glorious 1024x768 fullscreen (low res so i can turn up the eye candy ) intact for me to work with, messing with dialogs only when i need to... even if i had to have SL in a window to have the dialogs outside, i still like it.