[sldev] Voice

[Soft Linden]

Thanks, this does illustrate some of the problems pretty vividly.

Rob's forwarded this on internally - I'll make sure people get the
self-referring link as well.

On 8/1/07, Second Life <sl at phoca.com> wrote:
> Ack, sorry :/
>
> Does this work? I made a page with the letter text and links in it.
>
> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/
>
> Farallon
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Soft Linden" <soft at lindenlab.com>
> To: "Second Life" <sl at phoca.com>
> Cc: "Nicholaz Beresford" <nicholaz at blueflash.cc>; "Second Life Developer
> Mailing List" <sldev at lists.secondlife.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 11:43 AM
> Subject: Re: [sldev] Voice
>
>
> >I can't access the URLs on this. Could you check permissions?
> >
> >
> > On 7/31/07, Second Life <sl at phoca.com> wrote:
> >> Soft,
> >>
> >> Thanks for replying to this thread.
> >>
> >> Believe me it is not merely resistance to change. There is a fatal flaw
> >> in
> >> the design as it sits that should be corrected.
> >>
> >> There are many minor issues with the chatterbox but one stands out above
> >> all
> >> the rest. I have been using the FL client for about 80% of my SLing, 8
> >> hours
> >> a day for the last two months. And on the occasions when I go back to the
> >> standard client it is a RELIEF.
> >>
> >> I have taken several snapshots to try to illustrate the problem and it
> >> all
> >> stems from having a large number of :friends and trying to deal with
> >> several
> >> IMs at once where the chatter box is completely deficient in usability.
> >>
> >> Image 1: My normal, every day, always open window set. History and IM
> >> with
> >> enough space for 8-9 IMs before scrolling sets in and then I can enlarge
> >> it
> >> quite a bit sideways without using up any more real usable screen
> >> real-estate (eating up the mini map of course).
> >>
> >> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Current.jpg
> >>
> >> Image 2: Now, when I want to check on the friends list, it is a simple
> >> click
> >> away, click on, browse the entire list of "on-line" friends without even
> >> scrolling, click off when done. Extremely fast and efficient. And even
> >> when
> >> I want to leave it open to check on things real-time It's still
> >> relatively
> >> compact and out of the way, and I can see it and my IM windows at the
> >> same
> >> time. This is unusual but happens sometimes, nice to have that option.
> >>
> >> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Current-WithFriendsList.jpg
> >>
> >> Image 3: Chatterbox, trying to maintain the same setup as I normally use
> >> in
> >> image 1. Note that it is immediately and uselessly larger than it needs
> >> to
> >> be for IMs as compared to before. Why? because of the friends list that
> >> is
> >> wedged in there. Now look at even trying to use the friends list, I can
> >> only
> >> see 4.5 names at a time. I've never used the scroll wheel so much in SL
> >> as
> >> trying to look up and down my friends list in this configuration :(
> >>
> >> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-IMs.jpg
> >>
> >> Image 4: I tried this for a while, making the chatterbox more friends
> >> list
> >> friendly, but then you can only manage 2-3 IM windows before having to
> >> annoyingly scroll them, and the aspect ratio for the IMs is not best AND
> >> the
> >> friends list names are pretty scrunched.
> >>
> >> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-FriendsList.jpg
> >>
> >> Image 5: And here is the meat of it, IF you have a lot of friends and
> >> don;t
> >> like constantly scrolling scrolling scrolling AND you want to manage
> >> 6-8-10
> >> IMs at once, here is what you have to have:
> >>
> >> http://www.seal-cove.com/chatterbox/Chatterbox-Both.jpg
> >>
> >> That is plainly ridiculous. Now go back and look at my image 1 and Image
> >> 2
> >> again, see what I mean by "relief"? And finally, these shots were taken
> >> on a
> >> 1920x1200 screen at a UI size of 0.90. How are people on 1024x768 screens
> >> going to take this? (Which BTW I use on the living room media computer
> >> while
> >> watching TV sometimes)
> >>
> >> It should be fairly plain what the problem is: The friends list and the
> >> IM
> >> window /demand/ opposite aspect ratios for best usage and having them
> >> attached like that makes one or the other very hard to use.
> >>
> >> The solution isn't that hard: Make the friends list detachable and put a
> >> button to show/hide it back on the button bar.
> >>
> >> As I said there are plenty of other smaller problems but if this ONE big
> >> backwards step were put right, then I think I and most everyone else I've
> >> talked too just might be able to "get used to it".
> >>
> >> Thank you for looking.
> >>
> >> Farallon Greyskin
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Soft Linden" <soft at lindenlab.com>
> >> To: "Nicholaz Beresford" <nicholaz at blueflash.cc>
> >> Cc: "Second Life Developer Mailing List" <sldev at lists.secondlife.com>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 5:57 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [sldev] Voice
> >>
> >>
> >> > I've seen a lot of comments about the new chatterbox panel, mostly
> >> > negative. For me (and I think many other Lindens), it's hard to tell
> >> > how many of the comments are resistance to changing something so
> >> > fundamental and familiar, and how much is real usability breakage. I
> >> > know I get pretty attached to one way of doing things after being
> >> > exposed to it for so long.
> >> >
> >> > The design isn't set in stone, although what you see now will be,
> >> > roughly, what you see in the first release. Posting specific requests
> >> > and shortcomings as JIRAs will help a lot in evolving this into
> >> > something better-received, and many thanks to those of you who have
> >> > posted comments.
> >> >
> >> > The bHear team will be pushing to have the final source released at
> >> > the same time as, or just before, the official launch. If you've got
> >> > things you'd like to change yourselves, you might visit Benjamin
> >> > Linden's usability office hours to propose ideas in advance and to
> >> > highlight existing chatterbox JIRAs you want to act on, based on your
> >> > reactions to the First Look version. If we see patches that
> >> > specifically note that you already ran an implemented idea by
> >> > Benjamin, we should be able to bring them in pretty quickly.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On 7/28/07, Nicholaz Beresford <nicholaz at blueflash.cc> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> I just tried the voice first look for the first time
> >> >> today and read the blog post about a mandatory FL on
> >> >> Monday and integration in to the main viewer.
> >> >>
> >> >> Is there are roadmap for this (time-wise and in relation
> >> >> to the non-voice viewer)?
> >> >>
> >> >> Also, I'd like to know how much set in stone the
> >> >> communication center design is (in my personal opinion
> >> >> that dialog is quite underwhelming and will most likely
> >> >> cause a major uproar when it becomes mandatory for all).
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Nick
> >> >> --
> >> >> Second Life from the inside out:
> >> >> http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/
> >> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
>
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