Difference between revisions of "Viewer Visual Update"

Revision as of 21:54, 21 October 2007

Sample screenshot

Project Description

The purpose of this project is to modernize the visual appearance of the Viewer User Interface. We will use the Viewer's existing skinning hooks wherever possible, documenting and addressing technical blockers as required.

Project Goals

Improve visual appearance with modern UI graphics and icons
Improve discoverability through expanded use of iconography
Improve approachability with a lighter, friendlier color scheme
Improve legibility by using dark text on light backgrounds
Document technical limitations of current skinning capabilities

Technical Blockers

Following is a list of technical limitations and bugs preventing implementation of the updated visual appearance. There is a longer list of skinning feature requests (such as human-readable texture filenames and the ability to apply gradients to windows) but such features will be incorporated at a later date as part of the Skinning project (see User Interface Roadmap). The modernized look and feel described above could be implemented immediately if the following issues were resolved:

VWR-2445 Default IM/chat text color not settable in colors_base.xml
VWR-2446 Viewer can't display UI textures that aren't in dimensions of powers-of-two
VWR-2447 Text drop-shadow settings aren't configurable in XML, resulting in legibility issues under various color schemes

Sample Files

Coming soon...

Feedback and Ideas

Please leave your comments and suggestions on the discussion page. Once we release an official First Look preview you will be also be able to file issues in the Issue Tracker.

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 === Feedback and Ideas ===
-* Would like to see a flash layer, where flash widgets could communicate to the UI via an API and either replace or partially replace bits and pieces of it.  This could be a big market for companies wishing to have customized clients but still take advantage of Linden Labs robust source.
+Please leave your comments and suggestions on the [[Talk:Viewer_Visual_Update|discussion page]]. Once we release an official First Look preview you will be also be able to file issues in the [[Issue Tracker]].
-* Great work on the graphics! Definitely shows off the potential for what can be done.
-* Well how novel: ripping off the Mac OS X metallic buttons and giving them an Aqua feel... Well, don't stop there. Read Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and implement them. Then we'll not only have the feel too, but then the whole thing may work as standard instead of being buggy, bloated, roll your own code. We would have international settings and keyboards that worked, standard window behaviour, one menu bar not two, and text editing handling that worked properly, and properly transposed keyboard shorcuts. Get that stuff sorted first then you can think of moving on to skinning.
-Would like more than anything to see the UI windows capable of being moved onto a second monitor off the main viewer window. Now that would be very cool and make life a whole lot easier.