Shadow Box on Color and Texture Picker

Ok the Shadow Box has got to go. It serves no purpose but to visually get in the way when you are editing an objects color and texture. Please check it out people. It is just fluff that does not need to be there.

First time I saw it I liked it. Though at times it had me making double takes because some items like check boxes look disabled under it. Overall, I like it. I do not think it is useless fluff. But being togleable would be nice.

Dearly Darlings,

I also think the togle is a good idea.

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

It's there to show you which color/texture you're modifying, and to emphasize the relationship with the floater that launched it. We wanted to make it more clear that when you closed the parent floater, the picker would also close. Also, there are places in the UI where you can open many different color pickers, and we wanted it to be clear which color picker modified which tile.

I guess we ought to make it toggleable, but the preferences panel is already stuffed with options that no one knows about!

When in doubt, give the user *more* control. By giving us more options to customize and personalize our UI, you will make more people happier. Please don't let a concern like "There's too many options already" deter you from giving us more control over our SL experience. Honestly, fire up EverQuest2 and look through their list of options. It makes SL look simplistic. But even that can be improved upon. See below.

A Reccomendation:

If this is the first time opening the Preferences, popup a box in the middle asking "Do you prefer [Normal] or [Advanced] Preferences?"

If this is not the first time, place Normal and Advanced buttons at bottom of preferences screen opposite OK and Cancel.

"Normal" preferences would have much what we have now, or even a further simplification. Offering basic customization and ready presets (esp. for graphics settings i.e. Low, Medium, High.)

"Advanced" preferences would have every option available. Doesn't matter if it seems like a lot. Those who go into Advanced would be expecting a comprehensive list of options, and those who get overwhelmed by it will have the Normal button at the lower left to simplify things.

the main complaint I have, is that with the edit panel on the left side of the screen, and dragging the colour pallette to the right side of the screen (so I can SEE my work)... the triangle stretches across the entire screen, OBSCURING the objects I'm trying to do colour/texture work on. This is the worst possible time to be "Shading" or "Tinting" the work area.

What's wrong with just having coloured borders around the option you're editing? e.g the first colour picker you open has a red border, and the colour-picker's background changes to match, the next one you open will get a blue border, with the picker window being blue to match.

It's IMO just as good, since you can visually see "Ah, I'm in the blue window so I'm editing the colour with a blue border"

I've seen a comment that the color picker should take the line the avatar nametag uses. That's something that would be unobtrusive, and have the same effect as the big cone.

Is the shadow box the cone of context?

I started from the top of, not the preferences panel, with it's mere few dozen or so options, but the Debug Settings, with far far more options, and read each one, in hope of finding a way to make this pernicious shadow of doom go away.

I didn't succeed in that, but hey, I found how to make the drop shadow on the file menu go away! How would a file menu cast a shadow on the air in a virutal world anyway?

Please please please let us turn the shadow box off.

I understand that there is some actual motivation for this feature, although it's not useful to me personally. How about implementing it in a less obtrusive way, such as a line, rather than a giant semiopaque cone that covers up many more useful interface elements?

such as an OPTIONAL line

In the new preview, the shadow only appears if you are moving the picker around.

Sweet... Hopefully that will satisfy both parties. ^_^

I don't want to seek it at all, I don't like things I don't like at all fading in and out of view.

There should be an option to turn the shadow off completely, and the default setting should be OFF.

I don't want to have to have another thing to turn off after a clean install. I already have to turn off the chat bubbles and the background on the scrolling text and the automatic camera movement in appearance and and set the avatar detail up and the tree detail all the way down and change the thickness of the selection lines and turn the warnings off and - sheesh, I can't remember all the ways in which the interface is by default not the way I like it. I don't want another one.

Ooh yeah, the shadow under the file menu - what is that shadow being cast on? That another one I prefer turned off.

We'll be getting an option in the debug settings to set picker shadow opacity - hmm, I wonder what I should set it to?

We'll be getting an option in the debug settings to set picker frustrum opacity - hmm, I wonder what I should set it to?