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Group chat

[17:41] Morgaine Dinova: waves
[17:41] McCabe Maxsted: ahoy!
[17:42] CodeWarrior Carling: Hi there
[17:42] Morgaine Dinova: Wooo, a quorum!
[17:42] CodeWarrior Carling: likewise
[17:42] McCabe Maxsted: yay
[17:42] McCabe Maxsted: whatre we quoroming?
[17:42] Morgaine Dinova: Dunno, is it a drink?
[17:43] McCabe Maxsted: hahaha, it should be
[17:43] Morgaine Dinova: (That was a very weak allusion to quorn, which isn't a drink :P)
[17:43] McCabe Maxsted: aw
[17:43] Morgaine Dinova: Oh, you mean RC2?
[17:43] McCabe Maxsted: I was thinking, any drink 60% proof
[17:44] Morgaine Dinova: Hehe
[17:44] McCabe Maxsted: bah, I'm getting messages out of order; RC2?
[17:44] Morgaine Dinova: Garn said he was in UXIG, but has just logged out, so maybe group channel failed to open for him
[17:45] McCabe Maxsted: there he is
[17:45] Morgaine Dinova: (We were talking about RC1/RC2) --- he says estate tools bug fixed
[17:45] Morgaine Dinova: Got us now Garn?
[17:45] Garn Conover: crash bang boom!
[17:45] Morgaine Dinova: Hahaha
[17:46] McCabe Maxsted: nods. I've got a fix, but since I'm not an EM I can't test it
[17:46] Garn Conover: happens when your on a double estate with 46 ppl on
[17:46] Garn Conover: McCabe if u have a compile that guy is still on last i checked? might test?
[17:46] McCabe Maxsted: aww
[17:46] Garn Conover: and and good news
[17:47] McCabe Maxsted: sure, I can do that; or do you think he'd be willing to make me an EM?
[17:47] Garn Conover: we might have a Mac Dev
[17:47] Morgaine Dinova: Woot!
[17:47] McCabe Maxsted: woo!
[17:47] Morgaine Dinova: I notied a Mac person offered to dev a few days ago on forum
[17:47] Morgaine Dinova: noticed*
[17:47] Garn Conover: i was talkin to another UX who might know some1 who would
[17:48] McCabe Maxsted: as long as *someone* is up for taking it on :) the longer it takes to happen, the harder time they'll
have
[17:49] Garn Conover: McCabe why nto let him dl and try it?
[17:49] McCabe Maxsted: maybe we should start annotating the source, like, "MACDEV: look here!"
[17:49] McCabe Maxsted: haha
[17:49] Garn Conover: hehe
[17:49] McCabe Maxsted: garn: the source is up on git, and there are compile instructions on the wiki
[17:50] Morgaine Dinova: Good point. If you can't clone and build it, not going to help much as a dev ^_^
[17:51] Garn Conover: still doesn't understand any of that stuff :)
[17:52] McCabe Maxsted: is trying to knock out all the non-gstreamer fixes so I can focus on the region crossing stuff
morgaine's reported (also you'll be happy to know I applied the track/artist listing patch, which is just *begging* for some ui
;)
[17:52] McCabe Maxsted: *kicks group chat*
[17:52] McCabe Maxsted: anything I'm sending going through?
[17:52] McCabe Maxsted: it actually makes sense once you wrap your head around it, it's just getting to that point, haha! I
wish Git didn't have such a steep learning curve. It's so perfect
[17:52] Garn Conover: McCabe u get to talk to Jacek about the animation idea i had?
[17:53] Morgaine Dinova: McCabe: Welcome to the joys of group IM over UDP :-(
[17:53] McCabe Maxsted: boo
[17:53] McCabe Maxsted: damn lossy chat
[17:54] Garn Conover: that would be an uber fix lol
[17:54] Garn Conover: no more chat errors!
[17:54] Garn Conover: find a fix then hold it for ransom!
[17:54] McCabe Maxsted: weren't they going to move it to tcp?
[17:54] Morgaine Dinova: The fix for group IM is, sadly, not to use LL's
[17:54] McCabe Maxsted: hahaha
[17:55] Garn Conover: is in a really good mood today
[17:55] McCabe Maxsted: aww. Because of V-Day?
[17:55] Morgaine Dinova: Tempted to work on groups and group IM for Opensim, although it would be independent of Opensim, a
separate web service.
[17:55] Garn Conover: spent the morning ambusing Linden's and Mentors with Big Purple Fluffy Werepoodle hugs!
[17:55] Morgaine Dinova: lol
[17:55] McCabe Maxsted: haha
[17:56] Garn Conover: grins goofily
[17:56] McCabe Maxsted: I suppose I should go just to see how bad the lag is XD
[17:56] Garn Conover: terrible
[17:56] McCabe Maxsted: last year, I think I pressed forward and somehow ended up across the grid after five minutes of freeze
frame
[17:58] McCabe Maxsted: oooh, I just figured out what the "chat history not scrolling bug" is
[17:58] Garn Conover: lol
[17:58] Garn Conover: yeay!
[17:58] Morgaine Dinova: Woohoo McCabe!
[17:58] McCabe Maxsted: it you set focus to your chat history *right* as someone talks, it doesn't scroll down
[17:59] Morgaine Dinova: Yeah, it's damn annoying
[17:59] Garn Conover: nods
[17:59] Morgaine Dinova: But how did that regression happen? Nothing's touched the IM window for ages
[18:00] Garn Conover: same thing that broke the history logs for it
[18:00] Garn Conover: ?
[18:01] McCabe Maxsted: it probably is my fix for group chat not scrolling to the bottom when show last IM in conversation is
enabled
[18:02] McCabe Maxsted: *roots out commit*
[18:03] Garn Conover: MCCABE!
[18:05] McCabe Maxsted: [1]
[18:06] McCabe Maxsted: I'm actually not sure if there's a fix for htis, since if the user is scrolling up through the chat
history we don't want to force them down to the nearest chat; perhaps freezing text on focus received to make sure there are no
updates when focus changes
[18:07] Garn Conover: yea thats always been a pain for me, scanning up looking for something to have some1 chat and bump it
back down
[18:08] McCabe Maxsted: nods. That's a case of "surprise behavior" that should be avoided
[18:08] Morgaine Dinova: Just mode it McCabe --- provide a "Locked" button that lights up when scrolled to bottom, but if the
user scrolls upwards then unlock it.
[18:08] Morgaine Dinova: Then no surprises
[18:09] Garn Conover: what relocks it?
[18:09] McCabe Maxsted: hm, that sounds rather confusing; would have to explain what that state means, how to use it, etc
[18:09] Morgaine Dinova: Either scrolling down to bottom on actiually clicking Locked locks it
[18:09] Morgaine Dinova: Tooltip will explain what it does
[18:10] Garn Conover: i went for a while before i even knew about tooltips Morg
[18:10] Morgaine Dinova: "If this is ON (lit up), then incoming chat scrolls the screen up automatically".
[18:11] Garn Conover: i'd almost think about using a key
[18:11] Morgaine Dinova: I like visual feedback on UI.
[18:11] Garn Conover: if a key is held with window active it stops autofeed
[18:11] Morgaine Dinova: The lock status is a must.
[18:12] Morgaine Dinova: You could just colour the scroll bar instead, but that's far less obvious than having an explicit
Locked button+indicator.
[18:13] McCabe Maxsted: I think that'd prolly be a little-understood indicator. No toher chat window I know of has one, they
all just work
[18:13] Charlette Proto: the window should stop scrolling when you put a cursor on the text inside eg selecting to copy, which
then is the task at hand not reading new entries, same for main chat
[18:14] Morgaine Dinova: McCabe: they all just work in the manner I described --- the only difference is that there's usually
no indicator for the mode, it's hidden. :-)
[18:14] McCabe Maxsted: hmm, it could stop scrolling when the mouse is hovered over the window
[18:14] Morgaine Dinova: Jeez no, the mouse is roaming everywhere
[18:14] Garn Conover: but how does that work for scrolling up? is the scrollbar part of the window?
[18:14] McCabe Maxsted: well, not IRC :)
[18:15] McCabe Maxsted: yeah; I'd prefer to avoid using any mouseover, well, anywhere, haha
[18:15] Charlette Proto: maybe worth testing but clicking in the window (focus) certainly should
[18:16] Morgaine Dinova: Mouseover help (tooltip) makes sense though for help, since by definition you're interested in knowing
about something when you're hovering over it.
[18:16] Morgaine Dinova: Clicking in the window should ***NOT*** scroll to bottom --- you'd never be able to paste from the
text.
[18:17] McCabe Maxsted: hrm. I'd say that any feature that requires a mouseover to make sense isn't a very usable feature
[18:17] McCabe Maxsted: yeah
[18:17] McCabe Maxsted: I do hate that "feature"
[18:18] McCabe Maxsted: what about a [ >|
[18:18] Morgaine Dinova: Yeah, it's a totally disastrous "feature". Currently we always lose our position in scrolled-back
text whenever we change window focus. Who the hell though that one up at LL ... grrrr
[18:18] Garn Conover: u guys
[18:18] Garn Conover: if the local chat window is in focus and click auto scroll stops
[18:19] Charlette Proto: I meant focus in the text history should stop scrolling till you focus in the entry field
[18:19] Garn Conover: it does
[18:19] Garn Conover: i just tested it
[18:19] Morgaine Dinova: McCabe: you mean just below the current top and bottom buttons? Yeah, that would work.
[18:19] Charlette Proto: OK, I had some probs with that, but that was SL RC I think
[18:20] Garn Conover: yea ive got one of the nci alts with me
[18:20] McCabe Maxsted: yeah; part of the problem is the "rounded" scrollbars LL's skin uses too, I think; they don't give a
good indication of scrolling distance
[18:21] Garn Conover: u know now that im testin this i see no problem other than it not auto scrolling when the local chat
window is in focus
[18:22] Garn Conover: every other time it scrolls properly for me
[18:22] Morgaine Dinova: Please don't make any program logic depend on focus. It's a nightmare. Things should not stop
working as expected just because focus is elsewhere.
[18:22] Garn Conover: almost seems to its a feature that is not known fully
[18:23] Garn Conover: well thats the way its working currently
[18:23] McCabe Maxsted: yeah; I think LL asumed that "you're clicking on an IM/chat history, you must be wanting to always send
a message" which is why the entire window scrolls down
[18:23] Morgaine Dinova: Ew
[18:23] Morgaine Dinova: Bad assumption
[18:23] Garn Conover: well ive always said the double chat bars are a pita
[18:24] McCabe Maxsted: anything in particular annoy you about them?
[18:24] Morgaine Dinova: Input shouldn't be coupled to output. You can perfectly well be typing input to a session while
referencing something back in history.
[18:24] Garn Conover: well my lower one is always open.. so it just seems wasted to have the one on local
[18:25] Garn Conover: it makes sense when its in the communicate window, but after its ripped it seems like extra
[18:26] Charlette Proto: the text entry box on local chat window? I use that and hide the one on the toolbar
[18:26] McCabe Maxsted: hrm, I wonder how weird it would feel to suddenly have your chat bar blink in and out depending on if
the history has focus
[18:27] Garn Conover: i agree that having the history have focus in a way is stupid.. but only because there is no way to know
what it does
[18:28] Morgaine Dinova: Oh McCabe, everyone would love you if you allows the input text bar to be hidden with a button! No
more misposts! :-))))
[18:30] Charlette Proto: another thing; could the tab key switch the IM/chat tabs instead of going past the hidden ones?
[18:31] McCabe Maxsted: hm, I can do throw a debug setting in there to do that
[18:31] McCabe Maxsted: charlette: how do you mean?
[18:33] Charlette Proto: atm the tab key moves the cursor from entry box to send then the active tab (which doe nothing) and
back to the top group info, but it could go to all other tabs eg chat and other IMs instead of the one that is active since that
is useless
[18:35] McCabe Maxsted: that's the default action for tab though: cycle through anything clickable
[18:35] McCabe Maxsted: huh it doesn't touch the close etc. boxes, another bug found, haha
[18:36] Geneko Nemeth: It's not supposed to do that, although there's no way to open the window management menu in Sl (in
Windows it's Alt+Space)
[18:36] Charlette Proto: but clicking the active tab does nothing and clicking the others would actually be of some use to
cycle through the boxes
[18:36] McCabe Maxsted: is that jsut a windows-only thing? I use tab a lot when browsing
[18:37] McCabe Maxsted: and shift-tab to cycle backwards
[18:37] Geneko Nemeth: Actually, you can switch tabs in second life with Alt+<- (!) and Alt+-> (!).
[18:37] Morgaine Dinova: No, Alt-tab is X11 too
[18:37] Charlette Proto: well imagine that you could tab IM boxes instead of having to grab the mouse
[18:37] Geneko Nemeth: Which most applications take as "back" and "forward"...
[18:38] Morgaine Dinova: However, Alt-tab should ***NOT*** be caught by the application, since all O/S's use it to switch
between the current apps.
[18:38] Garn Conover: sweet i just won 500 bucks
[18:38] Geneko Nemeth: You can use Ctrl+Tab for that.
[18:38] Garn Conover: lol
[18:39] McCabe Maxsted: you can, charlette; geneko just reminded us all of the shortcut
[18:39] Geneko Nemeth: Ctrl+tab is often used switching between windows in MDI.
[18:39] Morgaine Dinova: Ctrl-tab is precisely for that, tab movement within an app. Alt-tab is for the O/S's app switching.
[18:39] McCabe Maxsted: ctrl-tab scrolls a line editor by word instead of character
[18:40] Morgaine Dinova: Yeah, it's redefinable inside an app
[18:40] Morgaine Dinova: But Alt-Tab should not be, or you shaft the O/S
[18:40] McCabe Maxsted: does alt-tab do anything other than app switching in the app?
[18:40] McCabe Maxsted: just tried it, opens the app switcher for me
[18:41] Charlette Proto: so why does the tab move focus to the active IM window tab when it does nothing since the tab is
already selected
[18:41] Morgaine Dinova: Which is correct, it's the O/S's app-switch keycommand, on X11 and Windows
[18:41] Geneko Nemeth: weird. Ctrl+Tab focuses on the volume slider first. shouldn't it be thebottom toolbar first?
[18:41] McCabe Maxsted: it actually focuses on the tab bar, which you can move back and forth with just the arrows
[18:41] Geneko Nemeth: And why is the root window (the world) never focused?
[18:41] McCabe Maxsted: can see how that'd be confusing without knowing how tabs are built though
[18:41] Geneko Nemeth: But that slider isnt exactly the easiest to find.
[18:42] Geneko Nemeth: By the way, remember to post a transcript later? If everyone connsents of course....
[18:43] Geneko Nemeth: .... or not.
[18:43] McCabe Maxsted: hah woah, you can tab through the entire toolbar
[18:43] McCabe Maxsted: sure
[18:43] McCabe Maxsted: where to be posting?
[18:43] Garn Conover: u never knew that McCabe lol
[18:43] Garn Conover: i leanred that when my mouse died
[18:43] Morgaine Dinova: Talking about world focus, it's always annoyed me that there's no indicator for it. All MMO clients
have the concept of target bar, and really we need something similar so we know when the world has the focus.
[18:43] McCabe Maxsted: no, I didn't know you could tab up to group notices either. Didn't think the lindens would be that
consistent, hahaha
[18:44] Morgaine Dinova: McCabe: prolly a bug :P
[18:44] Garn Conover: group notcies too? nice lol
[18:44] Garn Conover: haha
[18:44] Geneko Nemeth: Well I was thinkin that since it's a rare on-topic chat it would be nice to archive it somewhere.
[18:44] McCabe Maxsted: you mean an indicator you're focused on the 3D world?
[18:44] Morgaine Dinova: Yeah
[18:44] McCabe Maxsted: grins at geneko
[18:44] Geneko Nemeth: Not all MMOs have that.
[18:44] McCabe Maxsted: what does it look like in other MMOs?
[18:44] Garn Conover: waves to Geneko
[18:45] Morgaine Dinova: A bar that describes what the current thing pointed at is
[18:45] McCabe Maxsted: (and I'll throw it up on the wiki later)
[18:45] McCabe Maxsted: hmm
[18:45] McCabe Maxsted: we could flash the title bar
[18:45] Geneko Nemeth: Well... actually no MMOs have an indicator of "you're focusing on the world" since you're always
focusing on it, that's just what you're fosucing at in-world.
[18:45] McCabe Maxsted: like, turn it light gray when you're focused on the UI, dark gray inworld, or something like that; what
would be the benefit though?
[18:46] Geneko Nemeth: In Second Life the role is played the tooltip (which has been turned off by default in the previous two
releases).
[18:46] Geneko Nemeth: Not much... I think as long as you're not focusing on anything atop of it it would be fousing on the
root window.
[18:46] Morgaine Dinova: Yes, it would let you know when you can move with cursor keys. And in due course, we can use it for
normal game target selection./
[18:47] Morgaine Dinova: Currently there is no indicator of whether you can move in world or not. Focus might be on UI, and
you can never tell/
[18:47] Morgaine Dinova: Feedback FTW
[18:47] Geneko Nemeth: can always move because he has a joystick
[18:48] Charlette Proto: I kind of get it, you saying that tabbing through the IM tabs rather than using arrows would be
inconsistent with the rest of the interface
[18:48] Geneko Nemeth: Maybe have your nametag lit up when it's focused?
[18:48] Morgaine Dinova: Geneko: good idea :-) But people with mouse and keyboard only should be supported too :-)
[18:48] Geneko Nemeth: You can use arrows too.
[18:48] Geneko Nemeth: That *is* for people with mouse and keyboard only.
[18:48] McCabe Maxsted: hmm, do people get confused when chatting, or also when dong other stuff like sitting too? I know it's
weird that the movement controls light up when you're sititng down even though you can't move
[18:48] McCabe Maxsted: charlette: yup, you got it
[18:49] Geneko Nemeth: for joysticks it's always controlling the avatar. Unless you patch in joystick support for UI, of
course. which is something really needed
[18:49] Charlette Proto: the tag would highlight just the same BTW selected tags should be highlighted
[18:49] Geneko Nemeth: switching between tools... nah.
[18:49] Geneko Nemeth: You can arrow between IM tabs though.
[18:50] Charlette Proto: yeah I said that before I get it now
[18:50] Geneko Nemeth: It's just inconsistant with all other apps...
[18:51] Charlette Proto: it works, but more complicated that a few more tab clicks
[18:51] Geneko Nemeth: Also I think the tags is a bit too big. And voice indicator probably can be merged with it.... and
perhaps a text chat indicator too.
[18:52] McCabe Maxsted: how would you indicate it in the tag?
[18:52] Geneko Nemeth: put the dot before, above or below the name tag.
[18:53] McCabe Maxsted: like, lock it in, so it always changes the same way the tag does?
[18:53] Geneko Nemeth: Kind of.
[18:54] Geneko Nemeth: Merge them to be one element.
[18:55] McCabe Maxsted: hm, I'm trying to picture how indicating voice volume would look built into the tag
[18:55] Geneko Nemeth: Imagine something from the nearby local speakers tab.
[18:56] McCabe Maxsted: hmm, I could see that. How would you indicate typing, though? "klak-klak-klak"?
[18:57] Geneko Nemeth: I don't know, really.
[18:57] Charlette Proto: that would be great to have the dot and level bar in the tag in my view
[18:57] Geneko Nemeth: It could be a thought bubble icon with animated dots but that would look like what I want for the chat
icon...
[18:58] Geneko Nemeth: Or it could be a keyboard just to drive the typing err... metaphor?
[18:58] Charlette Proto: as it is the dot gets lost on light background and is quite ambiguous as to whose it is
[18:58] McCabe Maxsted: hehe, that could be pretty cool; a little keyboard gif of different keys typing
[18:58] McCabe Maxsted: yeah, that's true charlette
[18:58] McCabe Maxsted: it only really says "I have voice" after you see someone actually using it
[18:59] Geneko Nemeth: j2c! J2C!
[18:59] McCabe Maxsted: bah; j2c!
[18:59] Geneko Nemeth: (Actualy SL should support PNG and TGA too...)
[18:59] McCabe Maxsted: I gotta say I love the dazzle team for letting us use png/tga/jpeg instead of j2c
[18:59] Geneko Nemeth: Nah, only so serious :3
[19:00] Charlette Proto: and noobs never get it or often confuse which one belongs to who nametag would resolve all that
[19:00] McCabe Maxsted: sidenote: the worst offender is the login screen: state_startup.j2c I think it's called; loading it
takes *forever* when it's not j2c
[19:01] McCabe Maxsted: would it be cool if they changed color for friends? the voice dots, I mean; yellow for a friend
[19:01] McCabe Maxsted: if they're going to be integrated in the tag, they need to always be enabled, so we'd need colors for
voice activated/inactive too
[19:02] Geneko Nemeth: One problem, the chat indicator is "attached" to head while the nametag is "attached" to agent height.
So for furries (whose avatars are like mascot costumes), it sometimes block their head.
[19:02] Geneko Nemeth: No need for colors.
[19:02] Geneko Nemeth: If someone is listening only then draw a bar aroundthe dots.
[19:02] Geneko Nemeth: If someone is not on voice, don't show the dot.
[19:03] Charlette Proto: I agree and on the nametag that would be less of a colour mess in the world view
[19:03] Geneko Nemeth: If put on the top/bottom, you can have a half-circle as the background forthe voice dot, so if somebody
dont have voice there won't be that circle and so would be easier to recognize.
[19:04] Geneko Nemeth: It's not like I like propritary voice systems... :<
[19:04] McCabe Maxsted: well, then you'd have the same problem of nobody knowing what hte dot did, and having some people
running around with dots and some not; better to make the dot always be a voice indicator so people can just look to see what it
shows, rather than checking if it exists or not in a particular tag
[19:04] Geneko Nemeth: Well, I'll draw something quick up....
[19:05] McCabe Maxsted: yeah, I know what you mean, heh; vivox was *supposed* to be add an opensource distribution license for
SLvoice in january but there's been zero movement on that
[19:05] McCabe Maxsted: even then I'd love to have an actual OS voice client
[19:06] Geneko Nemeth: I'm worried if they can open source it at all, You know, that " Polycom® Siren14(TM) (ITU-T Rec. G.722.1
Annex C)" thing...
[19:06] Morgaine Dinova: I don't even want to know what people sound like, it messes with my head totally.
[19:07] Geneko Nemeth: It does. My voice betrays my avatar.
[19:07] Geneko Nemeth: Then so does listening to animated adaptions for manga...
[19:07] Garn Conover: u said something simular to cupid earlier
[19:08] Geneko Nemeth: (Geneko, 7 years ago: InuYasha is a BOY?!!)
[19:08] McCabe Maxsted: hahaha

User Experience Interest Group/Transcripts/2009-02-14

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