"Communicate" Window: eeeeee!!!

I'm not hearing you. *sticks fingers in ears. "la,la la,la,la"*

ohhhhhhhhhh




why?

Hell the standard comm box get in my way sometimes.

You know you do have the ability to pull the chat history off into it's own window. You should play around with that a little to see what your options are with that...



And it begins again...



Not everyone is a super IMer. I actually find it kind of rude when you're talking with someone "in person" and they're sitting there talking with multiple people in IM...kind of like people talking on cell phones when they're out hanging out with their friends.

Maybe this new interface will force people to be more respectful to the people that actually took the time to be in the same area as them!

You're definition of respect and mine is far different. Mine doesn't involve telling people "Piss off, some guy has his avatar nearer to me than you".

Particularly if you are involved in several projects and/or admin one or more sims or large estates, or if you have to spend a lot of time in public areas where there is conversation you have to pay attention to but that doesn't entirely concern you, you really can't escape having IMs open nearly 24/7.

And in either event, software should not force your definition of "respect" by virtue of an ill-considered redesign.

Wow, that is one hell of a statement. Squeeze deigns to be in an area with someone, anyone, and demands that we be respectful. Trouble is, with the new viewer we can't even see the condescending, self-important .. something or other.

Maklin, why would I care what a jerk like you thinks? You're the very type I'd have beheaded if I could.

O Digitally of course.

Chas, this makes no sense. I'm sorry you feel it does. *shrugs*

You guys don't get me one bit--and most of you are far more hypocritical than I. I don't think I'm better than anyone. If you don't understand my ideals, and ideas...I'm sorry.

In the beginning, I talked my parents into buying Me a C64 with a text-based user interface. The Fingers of Me, the User, were moving over the surface of the keyboard. I typed LOAD"LIGHT",8,1, and there was light. I, the User, saw that the interface was good.

Then I, the User, said "Let there be an Amiga", and next Christmas there was an Amiga. It had a mouse-controlled GUI that allowed Me to say "Let the icons upon the desktop be gathered into one place, and let a window appear", and it was so. And I, the User, saw that it was better.

To cut the Bible references: later on, I learned to use a Macintosh at work (after having fought with a text-based Linotype system for years, which was clearly a step back). The Mac OS was different from the Amiga's "Workbench", but undoubtly better. For my home entertainment, I bought a 386 with Windows 3.11. Worse than MacOS, even worse than my old Amiga GUI, but hey, the machine ran breathtaking games like Wing Commander (under DOS though). I didn't find W3.11 awful because of my personal preference, but because it was indeed worse than any other system I had worked with, systems that had proven to be a continuous improvement.

When Windows 95 came out, my PC (a 486 DX-40 at that time) had finally caught up with the MacOS. It was a bit more unstable and crash-happy, but the usability was about the same.
What I'm trying to say is, I think that I'm able to judge the usability of a system rather unbiased. When I was asked to help a friend to upgrade his old Amiga with an external harddisk, after having worked with MacOS 7 and Win95 for some time, the old Amiga Workbench looked medieval to me. It wasn't my preference any longer, despite it being the first GUI that I got used to.

Aside from different OS types, I also had to get along with countless user interfaces of applications and games. I can switch from the avatar movement of SL to the character control in Vanguard and back without any trouble, and I work in Poser, 3DS Max and SL without getting confused by the completely different camera controls in the 3 applications. In some applications I rely on mouse controls, for others I memorized all keyboard shortcuts. They all work fine for me, since their unique UI has an overall theme that stays the same throughout the whole workflow.

The new SL client is no longer consistent with the overall UI handling, imho. The Communicate window looks as misplaced as the UI of some playful 3rd party filters in Photoshop. An UI needs a lot of redundancy; every modern OS and every good application allows you to do the same thing in at least three different ways. It can't hurt to have more than one way to access the friendlist, depending on if I just want to check who's online, or to open an IM window, or to access someone's profile.
If anything, SL should get more complex, not simplified. I'd like different ways to access my inventory for example, to switch between the all-in-1 explorer-look and lots of smaller windows. Or an additional friendlist in newsticker-style below my menu bar.



When I log in, I usually have 5-10 offline messages and also need to see instantly if one of my friends is online. They tend to be upset if I ignore them while answering customer IMs I badly need a separate friendlist that allows me to check who is online while I'm typing a reply to an IM.

While I work, I'm often in a conversation with several customers at once, while working in Photoshop or Poser on a second PC. The "friend online" notification windows pop up just long enough to see something blueish, but often vanish before I had a chance to read the name. I need to have the friendlist visible all day, and a separate window for IMs that I can close to have new messages popping up and being hard to overlook, lest a customer feels ignored.

I know I can tear off a single IMs, but that doesn't do any good when the next incoming IM lands in the Communicate window again, forcing me to either have 2 or 3 separate IM windows or to live with a hidden friends list. And the countless offline IMs... a 1600x1200 window isn't large enough to display them all in separate windows. If I could tear off the friendlist from the communicate window instead, it would make a lot more sense.

Ya, far be it from someone being nice. You're just prooving my point that most of you on this forum really are bastards that don't take kindly to people that think differently than you all.

At least I've tried to make nice on numerous occasion...you guys, however, are oozing with negativity.

I did try tearing off the chat history and the IM's. Chat history can resize to as small as it used to be, but tearing off the IM's makes each one a seperate window, and you lose the tabbed IM method of switching between IM's.

I'm a business owner. When a client cointacts me, they get a response. I can multitask well enough in text to have half a dozen completely different conversations going on at once. And I often do.

I also use IM's to communicate out of character comments when roleplaying. Like "Use the pink pose ball", or "By the way, did that fellow that hit your car in RL pay for the damages?". This allows what I say in Text Chat to remain entirely in-character. And that makes for a better roleplaying experience.

/me still doesn't get the Rembrandt over a Window Washer equation.

This is why you'll never be a thinker. If you were I wouldn't have to say .. read your own post and find the contradictions.

Yeah, voice definitely isn't for you. If you have this much trouble forming complete sentences with typing then I hate to hear you in a conversation!

Wow, does EVERY thing I say have to be taken as a flame, and be flamed back? Can you guys see ANY thing postive, or truthful about my posts? It's obvious YOU'RE the hating hypocrites here...seriously, the forum is just filled with know-it-all cliches.

I'm not sure you'd recognise a complete sentence if it jumped up and bit you on the nose.
By the way, that would be I WOULD hate to ....

If you can't read my posts, and see a bright person involved, then YOU sir need to re-read my posts.

You had richer parents than I did.



This.



Well, occasionally I flub the camera controls when I'm sleepy or in a hurry, because my 3D app and SL have almost diametrically opposed camera controls, but otherwise I agree.



And pretty much everything you said here is spot on. Every word of it.

What would *rock* is if SL decoupled the UI from the client almost entirely. Reminiscent of World of Warcraft... For people who aren't familiar with WoW, the interface is customizable (as in, completely replaceable) almost infinitely by 3rd party plug ins. It's possible to have six people running WoW with six /completely/ different interfaces.

Well (and i'm guessing here, after all i am blonde) one might lick a window but one wouldn't lick Rembrandt?

I find it seriously hard to believe, that those of you who [seem to] post intelligently, aren't aware how incredibly rude, short-sighted, and crass you're being. A handful of you really think you're being "intelligent" and "cool", but really, you're just being asses.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

In what way did I flame you, Michael? I merely asked how it its possible that you run in an 800 x 600 window, and yet find it perfectly acceptable to have half your screen blinded every time the chatterbox opens. Is there some trick you use to manage it better than the rest of us? Some hack that makes it smaller? Or do you merely rarely use it? You're the only person I have heard from that runs in an 800 x 600 window and yet finds Chatterbox acceptable. That's all. No flames. I just don't understand.

A bright person would recognise that our original objections were not about voice but about the lack of respect for issues that concerned non-voice users. A bright person would not then carry on like a broken record and continually deny our right to have those concerns in the most condescending and self-important manner imaginable.

As a very good writer once said .. A little learning is a dangerous thing.

1) Yes, you post in a pompous and arrogant style.
2) No, you're sanctimonious tone covers weak arguments.

No, we aren't hating hypcrites. We just detest little 'well I'm a _______' so I know more about this than you' types.

And so far, you are the BIGGEST cliche' I have seen...yet another linden cheerleader that cannot admit the lab can be wrong, so everyone and everything else must be.

Ah, but this isn't far from the truth--I'd much rather lick Rembrandt, than a window! Close...

Honestly, if my example really wasn't that hard to follow. I simply meant (for those cruel folks that pretend to be ignorant), I'd much rather see a new account in SL by a brilliant mind, as opposed to a mediocre dud.

And I do NOT mean that in a mean way. If you guys don't agree with that, then maybe it's one reason we have so much bad design circulating existence. Are you satisfied with mediocrity?

"Piss off, someone is in the same room as me trying to have a comversation." Is that how you answer the phone when you have company?

You know it is possible to say "hey I'm in the middle of something lemme get back to you" to whoever got into conversation with you 2nd (in IM or walking up when you are in IM with someone else).[/QUOTE]



Apparently none of these projects or responsibilities you took on are important enough to get your full attention...



Gotta be on the look-out for the broadly offensive!

But seriously, this is reaching for reasons not to like it. It's okay, though. You can not like whatever you want!



The theatre shouldn't force their definition of respect by making you turn your cell phone off.