New focus beta?

With the release of 1.13, I can't wait to try a new focus beta.

I can't say how much more I've enjoyed using Second Life since I installed the Focus Beta. It's made my chatting and movement much more predictable and the app is a real joy to use. I didn't realize how much I loved it until it was gone

Any ETA?

Hopefully sometime Thursday, Sharon. Glad you like it so much!

Well, I guess this is why they tell us not to make any sort of promises regarding when software will be delivered. We had a bunch of bugs introduced by the effort to make the Focus Beta compatible with the main grid again, and we had to take a few days to fix those. Just now I found a few that would make the beta useless until they're fixed. So, sadly, the soonest we could possibly distribute an update is Monday. Thanks for your patience!

As someone in the software buisness myself, I totally understand.

Take the time you need

On the other hand, I found the new focus beta made it impossible for me to chat, because every time I clicked in the world to look at something, adjust my position, and so on... I lost the chat bar.

Many vehicles, particularly planes, take chat commands *and* interact with the world. I simply can't use them with focus beta.

It also made it hard to chat while editing or scripting.

If this is put into production without some option to retain the model that the chat bar and the world *are* the same window for focus purposes... it's going to make SL all but unusable for me.

I agree with Argent. I tested the beta viewer for about 2 hours and then had to go back to the normal viewer because I couldn't stand it. It totally breaks the way I interact with SL (e.g. I move my camera ALL the time while chatting)

Maybe that's why it's called a FOCUS bets? ;P

I found the Ctrl+Enter shortcut an easy way to get back to the chatbar whenever I was doing something. It always works no matter what. I don't have to think where my cursor is when it hit it, I'll go to the chatbar. Also, the window that isn't transparent has my focus and if they all are then I'm in world.

Granted I haven't spent tons of time with the old method of working with SL so I don't have the muscle memory that many of you have.

Definitely the new chat model makes it easier to take focus away from the chat bar, and for some people, it makes more sense, whereas for others, it's difficult and annoying. I suppose that people have wildly varying usage models for Second Life.

Which,

What exactly is the game plan for Focus Beta? From what I have seen there is no tie in between it and you and the QA team working on Aditi Beta. Two completely different branches and what was repaired in Aditi before Focus was released was not incorporated into the Focus branch. Plus if you only release once per MG update it becomes frustrating and people drop out. I spend 90% of my time in Beta looking for bugs, Focus movement was so frustrating that I stopped using it after about 5 times. I know I am not the only one that stopped using it. All it needed was the other option in the preferences UI as in Beta or MG; "Movement keys move avatar in chat". Sorry but it seems to me that someone decided "Ah, they don't need that, I am going to throw it away".

Aditi is a dynamic enviroment. We have feedback on the bugs we report and we see new updates with some bugs fixed and some new ones. Focus is stale, no feedback, and you have to wait around for next main grid update to see if anyone even cares about your bug reports. I know we desperately need much more bug reporting and Focus Beta is a way to achieve that. BUt I do not see it getting anywhere in it's present form.

Would welcome more information and what your thoughts are concerning any changes to Focus after seeing it run for a couple of weeks.

New focus beta is out! Give it a try, though it's not hugely different.

To answer your question Jesse, the best explanation is "we're still experimenting". The focus beta was the first viewer-only beta, and we're learning from our experiences. Much of the purpose of the beta viewer is to try out new/experimental features and changes to see whether the feedback justifies them. Because it's distinct from the main beta, we have more freedom to pick and choose what works and what didn't. So, for your example of arrow keys moving the avatar when chatting, we were hoping that all the other changes we had made would make that unnecessary. Responses were actually somewhat mixed, since we got many comments saying "thanks for allowing us to edit the chat bar with the arrow keys again!" For others, such as yourself, it was unusable. So, you know, that's valuable feedback that we couldn't have gotten any other way, and we're going to try to resolve things as best we can in the future.

The downside of the viewer beta being so new and separate from the main beta is that it does take a while to pick up changes made there. There are no build engineers on this project, so any time we want to sync up, or post a new version, it takes us some extra time. Eventually, the focus beta will be merged with the main beta.

Overall, I think it's been a huge success. People have been very constructive with their criticism, and the survey results and bug reports have really helped shape our direction. So, thanks!

Ah great reply Which, hit all the points I was asking.

It is good to know that it is evolving. Hopefully many more people will give it a try and file bug reports.

Even though the curent focus behaviour is more obsessive-compulsive than the original, this new model is so bad that I really have to wonder if I could continue to play if anything like it was required. I have to switch between "chat mode" and "character mode" every few seconds, or just let my character stand there like a dummy so I can complete a sentence without interruptions.

Argent,

Simply stating that the new interface is inconvienent to you does not help further the cause. Can you please explain in detail what is not behaving correctly so that it can be addressed?