Am I the only one who thinks the UI is horrid?

There have got to be better ways to do this, SL would be alot more popular and easier to understand if the interface didn't look like it was eight years old with silly new features strapped onto it - Hell, Asheron's Call had a better interface then what we have to fight with currently.

Giant ugly boxes for text conversation and lots of stupid windows filling your screen take away from the whole point of being unique and creative in my opinion at least. I'm seriously tired of having two chat windows, a voice chat box, my minimap and atleast one notecard or script open while trying to talk to people, yet if you close everything and actually have a clear view of the scene around you - guess what - you've still got the ugly row of buttons across the bottom that you *can't hide* or move or *anything*...

Dealing with the SL interface reminds me of Windows 98.

If you have specific suggestions and aren't insulting, I'm sure Benjamin Linden would be happy to hear about them in his office hours.

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Office_Hours#Benjamin_Linden

If comparing SL to a microsoft product is insulting, I apologize, but it's just what it reminds me of.

Big. Blocky. Buttons.

Ok.

I stand by the rest of what I said as accurate descriptors of the product at hand.

...And with "Dazzle" it's only getting worse. (>_< One thing I do is try to run at the highest resolution possible. I'm running windowed @ 1600x1200 resolution. I have tried to run at lower resolutions just for fun and to see how fast I can get the framerate. But, really, I'm after quality over quantity, so I keep sliding things back up to the maximum all the time. (^_^)y

Actually, mentioned some ideas in a thread, possibly on SL Exchange instead, for it. They included:

1. Prioritizing prims, so you have clothes load before the main body, to avoid some problems you get places. Not to mention automatic hiding, for stuff that shouldn't be there at all in an area. We already have issues with people not following the rules, but for those that want to, some way to set something as "adult only" would help them.

2. Mouselook, I suggested, needs to work a bit like EQ2 (sorry, don't play WoW, or some others, so don't know how similar they are. This means that the mouse button that currently opens a menu should still select, when in build, or the like, **but** in normal use, holding it down should mouselook *even when not in first person*, and a single fast click should work as touch, like it does now. Right click, should be the menu, like 90% of the applications out there.

3. There should be a way to hide/remove the main body, so if you are using Furry, or non-human, or even some human version that *isn't* the main body, that version should either a) replace the body parts, or b) show up *instead* of them. This helps reduce prims too.

I since thought of:

4. Attachment points are a pain. If I attach an ear, I can't attach something that goes "on" the ear. Doing so, loses the ear. My suggestion would be items that you can set to "hold" items. I.e., you could add one "visible" object, which is attached to the item, like a belt, or.. the furry ear, plus, some set of "invisible" ones, which lend their scripts/functionality, to you, while not actually showing on the model. Again, this means you could set a tail attached at pelvis, then also attach a visible parachute, and also an invisible grappling hook, etc. Mind you, for certain places, like the pelvis/waste, you might allow for 2-4 visible objects, one on each hip, one in front, one on back, for example. Others, like hands, legs, etc. You might only allow "one" visible, but have the scripts, light effects, and other things working on the invisible ones.

This would help the "Oh heck, how the do I use this, since I already have 5 things one the spots closest to where it needs to be?", issue, while reducing the number of actual prims used when displaying them.

5. Already mentioned this there, but it helps here too, since you can set up a game like "window" that shows what items you have "in" the named attach points, or clothing locations. But, you also add a "bag" type support, so that you can "open" those and look at what is "attached" to the "attachment". Adding, to some place in the menu, an "inspect" type feature, so you can see what extra gadget "would be" visible on another avatar, if they where in one of the visible slots, would be nice too, but not absolutely needed.

The only option currently is to have someone make a custom item with every wizbang effect added to it, or attach all the junk anyway, even if it doesn't "need" to be visible. The former isn't practical, and the later.. Just adds the same number of prims to the model anyway, as you would get by allowing more junk.

But yeah, the UI is probably the single worst I have ever seen, especially for a 3D world, where you are supposed to have both first person and second person views, and interact with it realistically.

Oh, and, btw, one helpful thing with an "I am wearing" type display would be, possibly, allowing the menu for that item to come up by clicking it "in" that display, rather than trying to fight with it on your avatar. Same if you are trying to edit. Pop open the window, select the item, then fiddle with all the drag handles on the real thing. Spent five minutes trying to click on something on my avatars head, which *it* kept twitching out of my fracking reach, ever time I tried. lol