"Communicate" Window: eeeeee!!!

who needs protest lol - they will know just from how many people are downloading the "official client"

BTW -

If its a bad UI - then someone could make a better one for use with voice too, not just the Non-Voicers.

1) Because it's not "cosmetic discomfort". There are actual, functional issues with the chatterbox. These have been discussed, at length, for /months/.

2) Its not just "a few people DON'T like it". It's an awful damn large amount of people.

3) Too often "change" gets held up as the trump-card argument. "Shut up, change happens." Almost always followed, just like in this case, with some smart-ass, condescending, derogatory remark. Change is not the holy grail. Not all change is good. People shouldn't silently take any change shoveled on them, when they believe - quite rightly, in my opinion - that it was nothing but change for changes sake. If Microsoft suddenly made Windows play an annoying sound whenever an internet browser other than Firefox was in use, that would be a "change". But it wouldn't be a good change, it wouldn't be a needed change, and just because they bundled it in with an automatic update that is part of my "windows experience" doesn't mean I'm not going to bitch about it if they did that.

3.5) Change to accomplish something isn't nearly as problematic as change for changes sake. Which, make no mistake, is exactly what this is. There is NO reason this change couldn't have been made optional, for example, if they absolutely had to make it, but there is no reason the change HAD to be made to begin with - voice certainly didn't demand it, voice was working just fine before Chatterbox came along.

4) (Not so much addressed to you) I don't give a /damn/ about Voice. I'm not going to use it, I just don't care one itty bit about it. But time and time again I and anyone else who complains about the chatterbox get labeled as "anti voice" critics. That is NOT it. Chatterbox has nothing to do with Voice. Voice worked fine before Chatterbox. Chatterbox is a completely separate change that got foisted off on us along with voice. I'm against chatterbox, not Voice.

also i need to note that I've played MMORPGs for about 10 years now and none of them have f*cked up their UIs this badly. Sure they make some small changes but even old games like EQ or WoW stick with the basic concept of keeping the chat window out of distractional view of the game, and have the friends list separate. I don't stick up for WoW but at least they kept their UI clean and out of the way. That huge toolbar background with the dragon heads at the bottom? you can make that go away if you don't like it. Thats a concept that LL needs to learn. "make it optional, and people won't complain so much".

Anarchy Online did a massive UI change during an expansion.

At first you were allwoed to use both finally you HAD to switch.

the new UI took up more screen area by default - so much so they eliminated the lowest resolution setting (the one I used lol) from being allowed.

Most of the annoying UI stuff they added people had been doing for years through keyboard shortcuts, so they simply werent needed for vets. Luckily you could turn the new icon bars off. However the new UI was extremely customizable for chat, it simply makes SL look primitive.

You can configure every chat window in all sorts of ways , size, border, transperency, channels of chat displayed, etc.

You can lock them in place or leave them dragable, you can make some always behind and others infront, you can make them fade when they havent been used for a while and they will reapear when you mouse over them.

Makes me wonder how such an antiquated gane is so far ahead of Second Life UI wise.

Hmmmm. Played Anarchy Online, until I came to SL. And you're right, the UI was very customizable.

LL could learn a thing or three from the people at Funcom.

wonders why frankly nobody cares if your a gaming designer. because if you understand what people want and don`t want that should be a concern. RL i am interior Design. If a clinet feels me he wants this and that, I do it. If I put in a element of some kind and its great look. and he says WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!. I explain well as a interior designer i feell. he interrupus and says TAKE THIS **** out i did not pay for this.. Now i understand that its two different ideas in a way. But what is the same is your the builder and they are the user. You have to make them happy not yourself.........Common sence



Usagi

Ok can i laugh now its SEEMS to have a purpose to LOOK "PRETTY" funtional well....i hope you understand product design concepts. because it part is at best 50% useable and more cosmetic looking.



I hate it myself and some people have put tickets to build a newer freiendlier version of this mess.

Having played AO since the beginning, i must agree that their current interface is entirely customizable without the need t learn XML. You can do almost everything from in-game through menus. I don't request LL to do that because i know they can't or they would have by now. *tease hint* >.> The UI for AO drastically changed since the beginning but that chat window never took a tumble for the worse, nor did the friends list. I think it was when Funcom introduced Shadowlands that they changed it. Funcom, and SOE are 2dev teams i see no problems with, although SOE has made some terrible mistakes in the past like what they did to SWG.

Past is past though, their doing really well with EQ2. Optional settings, and customizable interfaces are 2 strong points i look for in a game or virtual world. I sorta let that slip with SL because the 3D world it's self lured me in. It sure chased me away from THERE.com though. While it may be true that LL changing the feel of the chat/friends stuff might encourage 3rd party client growth, why should we have to resort to this? I think the only change the UI needed was possibly a better window skin. I know they have done this before. I've seen the original skin and i doubt many would like it in todays world. It will make you feel like your in the military. All that camo green.

My preference is for about four lines of history in my IMs. It doesn't matter how many IMs I have, they all tab along nicely without taking up additional room.

With the current functionality, I cannot size IM windows to less than nine lines of history, unless I undock them all from the Communicate tab. New IMs will be docked to that tab in any case. The interface for my IM communications is restricted by the requirements of a non-relevant other interface element.

This is a design error.

The error compounded by the fact that now I am effectively forced to use that old group/avatar IM list, and as this is shrunk by my requirements for my IM windows, that means only four visible contacts out of a list of some 200. Four. Out of 200.

This is a design error.

I would include an optional separate friends list (why not), and allow some option to have IMs dock together, or an option strip the group/friends communicate window of the additional functionality for setting map/edit rights, so that this window can remain without constraining the others. Actually, I would bin the verbose "Allow to" area, and replace it with simple checkboxes alongside the name in the list, with a tooltip over the column header icons to indicate the function.

Additional information. I can also claim to be a qualified HCI designer.

Check Nicholaz Beresford's latest blog. He is working on changing the user interface and includes a couple of screenshots on how he thinks it should look like.

Nicholaz Rules

i do really hate the communicate window.its way to huge,i run sl on a 17" screen (and dont intend to buy a buy a bigger screen).idont understand what was wrong with the old setup,with seperated chat history/IM/friends list windows.why changing something that works fine? and i do really hate voice too.if ppl want to talk to others they should use skype ,teamspeak or whatever all this programs are named.i hate voice because if ppl are TALKING and not all have english as their native language,theyre often almost impossible to understand due to a) bad english skills b)accents/dialects and c) i just noticed that voice users need ages to respond to written chat (if they do),thats really no fun anymore.the communicate window even needs half of my screen (1024*76 and i have a setup of my windows in sl i dont intend to change.chat history at top left of the screen,resized to 5 chat lines,IM window at the bootm left of the screen and resized to a minimum,friends list mostly dismissed.i also often run a small video window on the bottom of the chat history.because im used to watch movies while playing sl.(yes im able to multitask).but i refuse to use the new client as long as possible if they dont remove the communicate window.a solution would maybe to chose in preferences between communicate window (for thos who like it) and the classical layout with seperated windows.

~my two cent~