New chat setup.....

i think it shouldnt have been changed, i think the chat setup was bout as good as you can really get a chat on a program like this, the inworld chat is really a struggle when you have to switch it to an im... i got a headache just trying to remember what was going on,

it didnt need changing maybee he only thing that was missing was the ability to leave an "away" or "brb" status visable for any people on private messages

When you pull up the 'Communicate Window' click 'Near Me' (the chat history). Then just click the little icon next to/under the 'X' that looks sort of like a boxed diagonal arrow. This will separate the chat history from the IMs. You can then drag the chat history wherever you want on your screen.

And the cool thing is - once you tear away and place the chat history where it used to be - it seems to stay in place from session to session (between relogs). Plus, CTRL-T toggles the IM window and CTRL-H toggles the History window, which is pretty much just like the old version.

Along with this XML mod to allow a smaller IM window, I can live with it. Below are the two XML files I tweaked:

Having the friends/groups/IM/chat all in one window is so much slower and awkward to get around, that it has really taken out the fun. I found how to undock the chat history, but... not the IM and not the friends list, and I really WANT them undocked. They are so much more difficult to use now. What an awful thing. I read about this xml size change thing, and I don't even care. Even if I could make the IM window smaller, it's of no use because the Friends list is in there, and I have to make the window big every time I want to see my friends list. I see how to undock a single conversation, but since I usually have 4 or 6 going at a time, undocking them all is NOT a good option. It's horrible. I was just about to buy land too, and I'm certainly not going to if this is the way the interface is going. People actually wanted to see this changed? I can't believe it.

Please put the chat and IM back

They said they were going to remove this new chat from the build since NO one liked it. Looks like once again LL shows how little they value customer input.

I would add that I don't think anyone ACTUALLY asked for the new chat/IM window configuration, I suspect it was a 'developers choice' on the basis of 'Lets try this'....

With the client being open source, I would have expected by now, for some corporate like Google to have made a skinnable version, although I doubt there is any method in place to actually get that version out to the general public, which is the biggest crime of all. The cost for doing so, would utilise the revenues generated by advertising on the client window, but sometimes, progress must encompass these changes.

Hmm have you tried the tear of feature allowwing you to have multiple chat IM 's spread across the screen and resizeable too, I hated it till I fount that feature, the need to advertise better how it works I suspect, though there are free classes running about voice chat too.

Yep. It actually is good software design to have just one window and put all the stuff there and use tabs for other stuff. But this is different situation. The "one window" is SL the Virtual World. Everything else decorates that, so other windows or floating panels are needed. And they should be such that they take as little space as possible, but not less. That is not achieved by creating a communications window that combines everything about communication, but by using more or less small separate panels that can be opened and closed. Surely if anyone want a combined communications window, that could be an extra option openable from somewhere and with key shortcut.

Add me to the list of those who HATE HATE HATE the new "Communicate" feature.

I could live with Friends and Groups being on the same tabbed list because I prefer my Friends list and Groups list in portrait mode. I prefer the old way of having Chat and IMs on the same tabbed window because I prefer those in landscape mode.

Yes, the chat window can be split off, but the IMs still appear in the Friends/Groups window. If I split off every IM into its own window, I'll soon have no screen real estate left!

They should give us the option of if we want Friends/Groups/Chat/IM in the same window or have Friends/Groups separate from Chat/IM, each in their own tabbed window.

<taps outwards on your monitor acreen>
"HELLO! Anyone outthere reading me, there is a tear off feature that gives you multiple window capablity"
<Mumbles> Damn voicers ignoring local text.............................

Taps you on the noggin... there was so much uproar over this change they promised it would not go live... The problem is they lie and don't listen. I don't give a damn about tear offs never did I like to keep my history and ONLY history in one spot and my ims in another. I don't need and I certainly don't want this other crap taking up real estate on my screen.

I want my friends list to open when I click on the little tab at the bottom and I don't give a rats ass about who is nearby I have a radar very small and transparent that does that. I don't need or want that other crap taking up screen real estate. You like it great give the rest of us the ability to use the UI we like not force us to use a klunker with additions we don't want or need.

I'm not really using it a lot myself but just pointing out features hard to find, I didn't know till someone else showed me

*Taps your noggin too*
Did the fact that EACH and EVERY individual IM tab becomes its own window and does not combine back with other IM windows, only the main Kludge?

And I have to ask...

Why should we have to go through these kinds of hoops just to get back to something we can live with, that was not broken in the first place.

There is a large frammed poster in Philip Lindens office that says:-

IF IT IS NOT BROKEN... LETS ALL FIX IT!