User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2008-01-10

[15:03] Jacek Antonelli: Huzzah! Here's the man of the (office) hour :D [15:03] You: hi folks! [15:03] You: happy new year! [15:03] You: :-) [15:03] Kooky Jetaime: HAHAHHA [15:03] Squirrel Wood: Hoppy Nude Deer to you too :) [15:03] Disconnected from in-world Voice Chat [15:03] Squirrel Wood: Or Hippy Gnu Ear :p [15:04] You: did everyone enjoy their holidays? [15:04] Squirrel Wood: holidays? what's that? [15:04] Squirrel Wood: Oh wait... that's the time when I get not paid ;) [15:04] Jacek Antonelli: hehehe [15:04] Squirrel Wood: Did you have a dazzling holiday Benjamin? [15:05] You: lol [15:05] You: I did! [15:05] You: in fact, we're so close with Dazzle I can hardly stand it! [15:05] Juigidy Waechter: ??? [15:05] You: the goal is to have a first look out the first week of February [15:05] Jacek Antonelli: wooo [15:06] You: it's come a long way! [15:06] Squirrel Wood: Yay! [15:06] You: since the last preview update [15:06] Jacek Antonelli: ooh boy, I'm looking forward to it :D [15:06] aliceinwire Bleac: hello everyone [15:06] You: we're in code now so I can't do anymore preview file updates [15:06] Jacek Antonelli: *waves to alice* [15:06] You: hi aliceinwire :-) [15:06] aliceinwire Bleac: :D [15:06] aliceinwire Bleac: ^_^ [15:07] You: so Jacek, before I forget [15:07] You: I haven't forgotten about posting that list of technical requirements [15:07] Jacek Antonelli: hehe [15:07] aliceinwire Bleac: i have install xml blueprint [15:07] You: did I send you a list last time? [15:07] aliceinwire Bleac: for modify xml of SL [15:07] Jacek Antonelli: yes, in a notecard, thanks :) [15:07] You: ok [15:07] aliceinwire Bleac: file but i have some problem iwth it [15:08] You: there's one thing that I thought I'd toss out that would be really great to have someone in open source work on [15:08] Jacek Antonelli perks up [15:08] You: you know the login progress screen you see when you first login [15:08] Squirrel Wood: I hope you decide to bundle dazzle with the windlight firstlook :) [15:08] You: we need someone to expose that to XML so we can define the layout in XUI [15:08] You: and make it attractive/readable [15:08] Squirrel Wood: the one that takes an eternity and a half to show up when it decides to show up at all? ^^ [15:09] aliceinwire Bleac: what i have to do benjamin ? [15:09] You: yes, the one with the giant progress bar down the middle [15:09] Jacek Antonelli: The blue progress bar that fills up, and displays "Logging in..." "Precaching..." and the MOTD? [15:09] Jacek Antonelli: 'kay [15:09] SignpostMarv Martin thinks the whole XUI spec is butt ugly [15:09] You: haha yeah, tell me about it signpostmarv [15:09] You: I'm in XUI a lot and it's very hard to work with [15:10] You: fortunately there's an internal dev team working to clean that up [15:10] Squirrel Wood: You should make that blue bar rainbow colored and have it say WHOOOOOOSH! more often ;) [15:10] Jacek Antonelli: lol [15:10] SignpostMarv Martin: XUI is XML, yet it looks like HTML 3 [15:10] Squirrel Wood: last time I saw that one was april 1st 2007 [15:11] SignpostMarv Martin: I'd really prefer that XUI were stripped back to barebones XML, and was styled with CSS [15:11] Jacek Antonelli: yeah, XUI is *not* fun to edit [15:11] SignpostMarv Martin finds an example [15:11] aliceinwire Bleac: i like xui [15:11] SignpostMarv Martin: it'd also help if it used XHTML elements [15:12] You: so anyway Jacek, I just thought I'd throw that out there as something to work on [15:12] You: Richard Linden said it would be fairly trivial to do [15:12] Jacek Antonelli: I'll see if I can set aside some time for it [15:12] You: cool :-) [15:13] SignpostMarv Martin: the combo_box element [15:13] SignpostMarv Martin: wouldn't it make more sense to use <select> & <option> ? [15:13] You: see now you guys are getting all technical [15:13] You: :-) [15:13] Jacek Antonelli: hehehe [15:14] SignpostMarv Martin: people would find it easiser to edit XUI if it used familiar elements [15:14] SignpostMarv Martin: from floater_snapshot.xml: [15:14] SignpostMarv Martin: <text bottom_delta="-20" follows="top|left" height="15" left="10" name="type_label2" width="195"> What size image do you need? </text> [15:14] SignpostMarv Martin: butt ugliness [15:14] Jacek Antonelli: Oh, there was one question I just thought of -- are the width/height/left/top etc. attributes necessary for XUI anymore? I'm thinking in particular of the menus [15:15] aliceinwire Bleac: sorry if i don't reply fast [15:15] aliceinwire Bleac: i'm translating the language of the viewer

[15:15] SignpostMarv Martin:

What size image do you need?

[15:15] You: what do you mean Jacek? [15:15] Squirrel Wood: Is there a klingon version of thr client yet? ^^ [15:16] Jacek Antonelli: *finds an example* [15:16] aliceinwire Bleac: mmm [15:16] aliceinwire Bleac: there is no in italian [15:16] Jacek Antonelli: <menu_item_separator bottom="-370" enabled="true" height="8" hidden="false" label="-----------" left="0" mouse_opaque="true" name="separator7" width="153" /> [15:17] SignpostMarv Martin: hidden="false" ? [15:17] You: I'm not sure what you're asking, Jacek [15:17] Jacek Antonelli: if we cut out the bottom="", height="", left="", and width=""... would it still work? [15:17] SignpostMarv Martin: isn't that a bit redundant ? [15:17] You: oh yes [15:17] You: that should work [15:17] SignpostMarv Martin: shouldn't hidden default to true ? [15:17] Jacek Antonelli: Every item in the menu has those attributes too. It adds up to a big wall of text >_< [15:17] You: the problem is that when everything got converted to XUI they ran a script that output all the defaults into the markup files [15:17] Jacek Antonelli: ahh [15:17] You: so you can't tell what's a default and what is actually needed [15:18] Jacek Antonelli: lovely [15:18] You: yeah [15:18] You: :-( [15:19] Jacek Antonelli: Well, I guess I could try removing them, and if everything breaks put some of them back. *grin* [15:19] SignpostMarv Martin: there's mention on the wiki that XUI is being re-written [15:19] You: that's what I usually do :-) [15:19] Jacek Antonelli poses as postergirl for "Search/Replace Regexp.... for a cleaner future!!" [15:19] You: I think "re-written" might be overstating it [15:20] You: they are doing work on it [15:20] SignpostMarv Martin: to "clean it up" [15:20] You: right [15:20] Jacek Antonelli: Cool. What sorts of things are they doing, do you know? [15:20] SignpostMarv Martin: are they going to make it so it can be styled with CSS ? :-P [15:21] Camber Front Door: Christi Peccable is at the door. [15:21] Squirrel Wood: technically it should be relatively easy to write a converter tool that strips off all the "default" values on the tags [15:21] Jacek Antonelli: Malbers spotted! *bweeee-ooo alarm sound* [15:21] Camber Front Door: Christi Peccable is at the door. [15:21] Jacek Antonelli: :) [15:21] You: no CSS styling sadly :-( [15:22] You: but there are eventually plans to do CSS-type things, with templates and whatnot [15:22] You: to be honest, I haven't been following the project that closely [15:22] Malbers Linden: yes, my jellyfish is very scary. [15:22] SignpostMarv Martin: another thing that bugs me, [15:22] You: I asked Steve Linden about it today and he said they weren't quite to the point where they wanted usability feedback on the API/markup [15:22] You: hey Malbers [15:22] SignpostMarv Martin: was there a reason why XUL wasn't used ? [15:22] aliceinwire Bleac: hello malbers :) [15:22] You: those decisions pre-date me SignpostMarv [15:23] Jacek Antonelli: Malbers: Oh! Is a jellyfish? I thought it was a cloud or wintery trees. Oops! [15:23] Jacek Antonelli: I approve of jellyfish, though! [15:23] Kooky Jetaime: Always thought Ghost [15:23] SignpostMarv Martin: it's like, "hey, we're going to invent our our XML-UI language despite the existence of one that's broadly deployed" [15:23] You: malbers there's room on the couch by me if you want to sit down [15:23] You: although I might pop your tender membranes [15:23] You: :-) [15:24] SignpostMarv Martin: it seems more feasible now with llmozlib [15:24] Squirrel Wood: Hello Malbers :) [15:24] Jacek Antonelli: Apparently everyone in the UI department is some sort of fantastic sea creature [15:24] Malbers Linden: it' is required [15:24] You: lol [15:24] Malbers Linden: howdy all. [15:24] You: I'm not a sea creature am I Jacek? [15:24] Malbers Linden: sorry to be a distraction [15:24] Malbers Linden: what about CSS and XML? [15:25] Jacek Antonelli: I dunno, you could be, Ben! [15:25] Squirrel Wood: I'm a sea creature too. I live within a sea of green. Atop the tallest trees :) [15:25] You: SignpostMarv was asking if the next version of XUI would be CSS-styleable [15:25] SignpostMarv Martin: XUI looks like an attempt to reinvent the wheel, only the wheel came out square shaped [15:25] You: lol [15:25] Jacek Antonelli: Perhaps it was designed that way, to fit in with the rest of the reinvented wheels. *evil grin* [15:26] You: yes, we do seem to have a "roll your own" mentality here [15:26] Squirrel Wood: Well, it improved from triangular shape to square shape ^^ [15:26] SignpostMarv Martin: one thing I find interesting, [15:26] SignpostMarv Martin: is it's hypothetically possible to write SL as a Firefox extension [15:26] SignpostMarv Martin: browser plugins can render 3D content within the browser window [15:26] SignpostMarv Martin: ^Shockwave, WildTangent [15:27] Jacek Antonelli: Next we get pentagon, then hexagon... with enough iterations, we eventually approach roundness. :D [15:27] You: I would love to see that Signpost! [15:27] You: why don't you write it? :-) [15:27] SignpostMarv Martin: I don't do that kind of development :-P [15:27] SignpostMarv Martin: I reinvent LL's broken web API wheels [15:28] Jacek Antonelli: All the memory consumption of Firefox, now with the crashes of SL! Two great tastes that taste great together. [15:28] You: FYI, Signpost, that word is spelled "tendency" [15:28] SignpostMarv Martin: hrm ? [15:28] You: in your floating text [15:28] You: "signpostmarv has a tendency to multitask" [15:28] SignpostMarv Martin: Firefox has built-in spell check support [15:29] SignpostMarv Martin: :-P [15:29] SignpostMarv Martin: there's another thing [15:29] Jacek Antonelli: lol [15:29] Jacek Antonelli: So what sort of things are they doing on XUI these days, Ben? [15:29] You: long-term I would love to see a light-weight browser plugin [15:29] You: like I said, Jacek, I don't have many details on that project [15:29] Jacek Antonelli: ah, I guess I missed that [15:29] You: right now it's mostly deep code work [15:30] Jacek Antonelli: 'kay [15:30] You: the interesting stuff is just getting started [15:30] You: the stuff that will enable true "skinning" [15:30] You: making the UI more data-driven [15:30] Jacek Antonelli: Cool beans :) [15:31] SignpostMarv Martin: slimline XUI with JS and CSS support :-P [15:31] Jacek Antonelli: Do it now! Or he'll shoot me! :O [15:31] SignpostMarv Martin: MUHAHAHAA [15:32] Jacek Antonelli: o_O [15:32] You: whoa, nice gun [15:32] You: that thing is sweet! [15:32] SignpostMarv Martin: gimme CSS + JS or the jelly fish gets it :-P [15:32] Jacek Antonelli: lol [15:33] You: HAHAHHA [15:33] Malbers Linden: yeah, getting a little hot over here. [15:33] You: oh my god, that's hilarious [15:33] Jacek Antonelli: Only in SL, right? [15:33] You: good thing I'm safe up in Seattle [15:33] Jacek Antonelli: hehehe [15:35] Jacek Antonelli tests Marv for a pulse [15:35] You: lol [15:35] SignpostMarv Martin grumbles about this typing lag thing [15:35] You: so let's see, what else can we ask these folks Malbers? [15:35] You: I already updated them on dazzle [15:35] You: I guess I'd like to know how new search is working for everyone? [15:35] You: any opinions? suggestions? [15:36] Malbers Linden: people getting better search results? [15:36] Sougent Harrop: Option to open map instead of jsut a teleport buttone that takes you off. [15:36] SignpostMarv Martin: I'm loving it for scraping data :-P [15:36] SignpostMarv Martin: though it could be better [15:36] aliceinwire Bleac: for me yes [15:37] You: Sougent, are you referring to Landmarks? [15:37] Sougent Harrop: When yu search and get a hit on a place that has a teleport button, your only option is tot teleport [15:37] You: oh there's no "show on map" button [15:37] Sougent Harrop: Sometimes I search for future travel [15:37] Jacek Antonelli: That's a good idea [15:38] Jacek Antonelli: Add the Show on Map [15:38] Sougent Harrop: Also, perhaps a way to set a beacon to the individual items like in a store, it gives the coordinates but it'd be nice to click on that and get a beacon showing where it's at [15:38] SignpostMarv Martin notices the parcel isn't searchable [15:39] Jacek Antonelli: Hrmm. Is there a way to search specifically for "things"? Objects? [15:39] Sougent Harrop: What else, tehre was another thing that bugged me [15:39] Sougent Harrop: With peoples profiles [15:39] SignpostMarv Martin: there is no object option [15:39] SignpostMarv Martin: nothing stopping me from scraping it and making one though :-P [15:39] Jacek Antonelli: That would be another nice addition [15:40] Jacek Antonelli: There's People... there's Places... but no Things :D [15:40] You: good point [15:40] Sougent Harrop: Oh, I Think it was taht you click on peoples picks and can't go to them because they are private or something, but if you bring up their profiel you can. [15:41] Sougent Harrop: Yet the links are clicable [15:41] You: I think that has to do with how people are setting their privacy settings [15:41] You: I'll find out for sure [15:41] You: after the meeting [15:42] You: has All search supplanted your need to use the other search tabs? [15:42] Squirrel Wood: no [15:42] Jacek Antonelli: I have to admit that I rarely use the All search... maybe just force of habit? [15:42] Sougent Harrop: Sometimes it's nice to focus ones search [15:42] SignpostMarv Martin: I use the google search appliance via firefox [15:42] Sougent Harrop: Though if all tabs used it, would be ok [15:43] Squirrel Wood: usually for zero day griefer accounts the all search is ineffective [15:43] SignpostMarv Martin: http://secondlife.com/app/search/search_proxy.php?q=Linden%20site:world.secondlife.com/resident/ [15:43] Sougent Harrop: And yes, perhaps it's just tha tI'm used to the tabs rather than using the category dropdown [15:44] You: ah interesting point, Squirrel [15:44] You: because they haven't been indexed yet? [15:44] Squirrel Wood: yep [15:44] SignpostMarv Martin: does LL generate sitemap.xml files for the world.secondlife.com domain ? [15:44] You: wow nice job hijacking the viewer search, Signpost :-) [15:45] SignpostMarv Martin: http://svc.sl.net.marvulous.co.uk/resident/Blue%20Linden/mentioned/ [15:45] Sougent Harrop: Also, with profiles and groups, the current search gives you the whole deal in the results, no need to click a button to view full profile. [15:45] You: Sougent, there's room on the couch next to me if you'd like to move closer [15:45] SignpostMarv Martin: ^cross referenced picks :-P [15:46] You: I don't know the answer to your question Signpost [15:46] Jacek Antonelli: I think Marv is just showing off ;P [15:46] SignpostMarv Martin: :-3 [15:46] SignpostMarv Martin: if LL generated the sitemaps and poked them in google's direction via the webmaster tools, peeps could use google itself to search SL [15:47] Jacek Antonelli: My habitual tendency is to open up the specific tab of the search window that I want to find... e.g. if I'm looking for a person, I search the People tab. [15:47] SignpostMarv Martin: e.g. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Linden%20site%3Aworld.secondlife.com/resident/ [15:47] You: Jacek, you should try using all and see how that works for you [15:47] SignpostMarv Martin: Governor Linden is the top result :-P [15:47] You: interesting, Signpost! [15:48] Jacek Antonelli: I'll try. Hard to derail a year and a half of habit, hehehe [15:48] You: haha yeah I know [15:48] Sougent Harrop: Well, when I know I'm searching for people or groups, I used the old search on purpose becuase I prefe that the usable profile comes up in the results [15:49] You: as opposed to the web profile, Sougent? [15:49] You: what do you mean by "usable"? [15:49] Sougent Harrop: Well yes, on the all search I have to click on the button to bring up the profile [15:49] You: what functionality are you usually looking for? [15:50] Jacek Antonelli: Ah. Stuff like IMing or TPing [15:50] Jacek Antonelli: That's one common time I use Search People -- if someone says I should IM person XYZ [15:50] Sougent Harrop: Do a search for a group, when you select one you get the whole profiel screen that can be used [15:50] Jacek Antonelli: and they aren't on my friend's list [15:51] Sougent Harrop: Same with people, you get the profile, you don't have to bring it up [15:51] You: I see [15:52] You: yeah it's an interesting problem in the UI right now [15:52] SignpostMarv Martin fetches something [15:52] You: because we show the same UI even if you can't edit anything [15:52] SignpostMarv Martin: secondlife:///app/agent/825c069e-8a98-4bfc-ae3b-0b6616207ca6/about [15:52] You: so like we show the entire Groups UI even if you're not in that group [15:52] Sougent Harrop: In the old search the usabillity factor with the results is better with profiles for people and groups [15:53] SignpostMarv Martin: ^Plastic Duck's profile [15:53] You: because of the direct link? [15:53] Jacek Antonelli: Oh -- there is one time that I consistently use the All tab. That's if I'm searching for a specific product. [15:53] Jacek Antonelli: Say I want to buy a Flying Fizz (the boat). So I search for Flying Fizz, to see where they are for sale [15:53] Sougent Harrop: Yes....I could search for harrop say, and then click each one and see the profile to the right......right down the list. [15:54] You: yes, I liked that aspect of the old search as well [15:54] You: I would like us to do something like that, maybe with AJAX [15:55] Sougent Harrop: And if I select the picks tab, for example, I can look at the picks for each result I click on [15:55] You: signpost, what does it mean on this page you linked when it says "Reviews mentioning such-and-such"? [15:55] You: good point Sougent [15:56] SignpostMarv Martin: Benjamin: I cross-referenced "picks" and looked for picks mentioning the Resident in question [15:56] Sougent Harrop: Or another example is the Land Sales tab, can you duplicate that searchability with the all search? Then sort by price or area. [15:57] You: but what is the transcript beneath it? [15:57] SignpostMarv Martin: those would be the picks [15:58] Sougent Harrop: The functionality of the existing search tabs, with the exception of the old all tab, is pretty good. [15:58] SignpostMarv Martin: look in the relevent in-world profiles [15:58] Sougent Harrop: Just would be nice if the search on keywords was better [15:58] You: no, like on your page that says "Reviews mentioning SignpostMarv" it says: [15:58] You: [16:06] Blue Linden: I haven't even been in this session @_@ [16:06] Chase Rutherford: hehe [16:06] SignpostMarv Martin: tis from the aforementioned bug [15:58] Sougent Harrop: But the results and laayout work, at least for me [15:58] You: looks like chat transcripts? [15:59] SignpostMarv Martin: yes..... [15:59] SignpostMarv Martin: look at my picks [15:59] Jacek Antonelli: People put chat transcripts in their picks sometimes [15:59] SignpostMarv Martin: in my in-world profile [16:00] You: oh you can do that? [16:00] You: interesting [16:00] You: what purpose does that serve? [16:01] SignpostMarv Martin: what purpose does what serve ? [16:01] You: putting chat transcripts in picks [16:01] Jacek Antonelli: Save funny quotes ^_^ [16:01] Kooky Jetaime: Which is against the TOS I believer...or is it CS. [16:01] Kooky Jetaime: heh [16:01] SignpostMarv Martin: only if you don't have consent [16:01] Squirrel Wood: one thing that I find bad about the search is the keyword abuse that is going on [16:01] Kooky Jetaime: How many people do you ask before you do it? :) [16:02] You: in All search? [16:02] SignpostMarv Martin: one advantage of the cross-referencing i'm doing is that you'd be able to see who's made comments about you so you could have them removed more easily [16:02] You: interesting [16:03] You: oops we're out of time folks! [16:03] You: gotta run [16:03] Jacek Antonelli: Take care Ben! [16:03] Squirrel Wood: eeep [16:03] You: thanks for coming [16:03] You: see you next week! [16:03] Jacek Antonelli: *waves* [16:03] aliceinwire Bleac: see ya benjamion