UI changes in 1.18 FL viewer

I thought I'd start a new thread on the communicator since there has been some GOOD progress in the 1.18 FL viewer.

The good:

The entire history window is now MUCH improved. Very happy with that, can show and hide the near me info, it's on the long side where is is most useful and the entore window can be shrunk down to a nicely compact vertical size.

That addresses about 1/3 of my show stopper problems with the communicator in general.

What's remaining?

My two BIG complaints are:

1) The remaining communicator window still cannot be shrunk up vertically nearly enough, it should be on par with what the history window can do now.

2) The contacts window MUST be removable, we still have the problem where the bulk IM window carrier and the contacts windows are essentially welded togeather. One requires a vertical layout and the other horizontal to use effectively if you have lots of friends, and who doesn't?!?

Anyone have any others?

3) If the history window is open and/or the IM widow, do NOT echo the text in them to the main screen. There is no reason why the same text needs to be on screen twice taking up even MORE space.

You can scale the UI in preferences, I run at 1600x1200 resolution with standard fonts, although you can choose bigger fonts (defeats the object a bit), I set my UI scale to 90%, it helps.. not a overall cure..

Heh, I set mine for 90% and am on a 1960x1200 screen. The commuicator still takes up twice as much room as it has too. and my point 2 above makes it awkward to use for either IM or the friends list at all times...

Trying to run it on my 1024x768 screen downstairs in the living room the few times I'm down there means basically giving up half the screen

Point #2 is the worst above and pretty much definately HAS to be taken care of. I'm sure they are working on it, a good job was done on the history window, I'm holding out hope. I just wanted to give thanks for the changes done but also to reiterate some of the big points I saw as still needing work.

#2 really affects anyone that has been n SL more than a month. Noobs probably don't have more than one IM window open or a friends list more than 3-4 people. Get a friends ist of 100 people and 10 ims going and it's just unusable right now.

Yes, I have to agree. I just recently tried it, and at first I was aghast that everything was shoved into one window, until i realized you can tear away some things, I was able to seperate my chat and IM windows as I usually do, but as pointed out, the contacts pane seems to prevent the main window from being shrunk correctly. You can tear off an IM window and close that, but then that is only one IM for one person. Any subsequent IMs received require you return to that bulky window. Not an ideal situation. :\

I love it, love it love it... Been waiting for SL to have voice for almost 4 years now.

I'm runnign VIsta, and it drives me nuts that you can't easily get to the microphone gain control anymore. SL doesn't have mic gain control, so every time I log in, it's off to the control panel, sound, recording, device, advanced, to adjust the mic level so people don't hear my RL neighbors talking 100m away.

Seriously, MIC GAIN CONTROL!

One problem: alt-arrowing gets stuck in Contacts tab.

I do LOTS of IM in SL. I often use the alt-arrow keys shortcut to tab between the various IM tabs. If I'm at one thats near the farthest left of the window, I used to be able to alt-arrow to the left and go around and it would then start again on the farthest right.

But now, in this new convoluted window, your alt-arrowing gets stuck on the contacts tab. Suddenly, now the alt-arrow just tabs you between the Friends and Groups tabs. Then you have to hit the "tab" key to go all the way back down to highlight the "Contacts" tab before you can alt-arrow thru the IM tabs again.

This is retarded.

Further, why would you have a Friends tab and a Groups tab? Having two tabs only, defeats the purpose of tabs altogether. Look, the old way was better. Just have the Contacts window have groups and friends in one big list, so you can easily just type the name of what you want and have it jump to that in the list.

Or at the very least, have alt-arrow (left and right) remain reserved for tabbing amongst the tabs that run horizontally, and have alt-arrow (up and down) be for tabbing between the Friends and Groups tabs (which, incidentally, run vertically), while you're on the Contacts tab at least. That way it won't mess up your alt-arrowing amongst all the tabs, and you won't get stranded in Contacts.

But I really think you should not have separate tabs for Groups and Friends, unless there is the intention to add more tabs to that (what in the world would they be? user-created groups of friends that you could separate onto their own tab, to better keep your friends organized and help remember who they all are? etc? that would be nice)

But in all seriousness, it is not always a good decision from a UI ease-of-use perspective to consolidate everything into one single window. Multiple windows are good.

I really like having a separate chat history window independent from IMs by default, rather than having all these tabs in the same window! My vote would be just to go back to the way it used to be.

Oh yeah and eliminate voice as well, since it will divide the Second Life community (already is dividing it) and is a piece of crap that has no place in a literate cyberspace.

Instead of voice we should be getting a 50-groups limit, and a removal of all the retarded "security features" that have been placed upon poor notecards.

-=GE=-