New Communication Critique

heyas;

i read about the new, horrendous chat/im/whatever viewer setup while it was still an optional download. with trepidation, i figured i would go ahead and get it, as i might as well get used to it, hm?

well i got it and.... it's not that bad. once you tear apart the component pieces and put them back where they belong! they could, however, use some improvements.


1: chat history type-in buffer unnecessary

if i press chat, i get my old chat buffer area to type in. if i press history, i get a history window that ALSO has a chat buffer to type in. i don't need this second one. an option to turn it off, or drag the history pane down over it would be nice.


2: near me/im participants should open outward

as it is now, opening he participants list squishes your chat history/im window to the left. if it opened, like a drawer, to the right, it would look nicer and not hog so much space. of course, if the right edge of the window is too close to the right edge of the screen, it will have to slide open to the left.


3: IMs need to tear off as their own chunk, not individually

if i want to separate the ims from the friends/groups window, i can. one im at a time. and i can't seem to put them all back into one tabbed window sans friends/groups.
it would be nice to be able to tear these two functions apart, so that stubborn old curmudgeons could have things pretty much the way they used to be: one window for chat, one for friends, and one where all the ims appear.


4: IM window doesn't shrink enough

i dont know what it is using to determine the smallest height and width that my im window can be (apparently the friends/groups buttons and tabs), but it is not small enough - especially vertically - for my tastes.


5: hey, how about just a 'small buttons' option somewhere!?

most of the real estate seems to be taken up by buttons. the << button to show chat participants, the big voice button, the big group activate, leave, im/call buttons... i could do with smaller ones, hm?


6: Friends/Groups tabs and buttons bad layout design

my friends' names used to fit in the friends list. now many of them are truncated. why? (aside from my fetish for small, narrow windows taking up as little space as possible :X ) because the friends/groups tabs are sticking out, all on their own, to the left. with a big, empty, wasted space under them.
they would take up less room across the bottom or top, like proper tabs.

the 'activate' button is MUCH too close to the 'leave group' button. one little click glitch to change your active group, and you could just forget using that title, cuz you'll be OUT. (well, i expect there's a confirmation, but im not brave enough to try it.)

Hoo! I'll second that one. WHY do they put the button for leaving a group right next to the one for wearing that group's tag? Imagine the mess if you manage to accidentally click that and leave a group that you OWN, like your land access control group! At the very least, I hope there is a confirmation dialog, for "Do you really want to leave the group 'group name'?". Sheesh.

Rest easy, fellow SLers... there is indeed a confirmation dialog that appears in case you were to accidentally click the Leave option. I have actually left some overspammy groups on occasion! As to your other points, I'll leave those to more experienced folks.

You can't leave a group you own. You have to set a new group owner first, but yes, I see the point.

the communicate window WASTES TOO MUCH SPACE... and needs to be able to be made smaller without having to shrink your interface to microscopic.