User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2008-10-08

Transcript of Benjamin Linden's office hours:

[15:06]	Benjamin Linden:	do we have the core group of residents here that wanted to know more about skinning?
[15:06]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ahoy Grant
[15:06]	Grant Linden waves to all
[15:06]	Jacek Antonelli:	I think so, Ben
[15:06]	Charlette Proto:	I'm not sitting, sorry the furnies here are rather poor even with a standard avie
[15:06]	Aimee Trescothick gets some bread and a fork
[15:06]	McCabe Maxsted waves
[15:06]	Benjamin Linden:	perfect
[15:06]	Geneko Nemeth isn't a member of "core group of residents" by any definition.
[15:06]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Grant, great timing
[15:06]	Aimee Trescothick:	noo, make that marshmallows
[15:07]	Richard Linden:	so I'm prepped for the flame wars :)
[15:07]	Aimee Trescothick:	:D
[15:07]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe
[15:07]	Geneko Nemeth:	Hi Grant!
[15:07]	Grant Linden:	hello Genko
[15:07]	McCabe Maxsted grins
[15:07]	Charlette Proto:	leave the flame wars for the email thread
[15:07]	Richard Linden:	well I didn't have any specific agenda
[15:07]	Richard Linden:	I figured I would start by taking questions
[15:07]	Benjamin Linden:	I don't think we really asked Richard to prepare anything
[15:07]	Richard Linden:	and then maybe blab from there
[15:08]	Squirrel Wood:	Okay ^^
[15:08]	Benjamin Linden:	so maybe if the folks who had questions want to lead out
[15:08]	Richard Linden:	actually
[15:08]	Richard Linden:	I can start
[15:08]	Richard Linden:	by providing a quick update of what we're doing right now
[15:08]	Richard Linden:	on skinning
[15:08]	Squirrel Wood:	What is the progress on getting the UI to a point where skinning it will become trivial for the everyday user?
[15:08]	Jacek Antonelli:	Great :)
[15:08]	Richard Linden:	so...
[15:08]	Benjamin Linden:	I'd also love to get some context from the Residents on where the sudden resurgence in interest in skinning came from :-)
[15:08]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehe
[15:09]	Charlette Proto:	OK LSL could it be made to support Objects (classes), methods (functions), events and signals programming interface instead of the State Machine logic;
	- more intuitive in learning
	- better problem representation
[15:09]	Richard Linden:	we're in the middle of a long process of skinning support
[15:09]	McCabe Maxsted looks at benjamin. "Resurgence?" ;)
[15:09]	Richard Linden:	right now we're on our second milestone
[15:09]	Geneko Nemeth:	Wrong channel, perhaps? ... oh wait, this isn't IRC....
[15:09]	Richard Linden:	the first was the ability to switch between the silver and classic themes
[15:09]	Charlette Proto:	OK sorry skinning is a very important thing too stick to that
[15:09]	Squirrel Wood:	What are these milestones? :)
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	well, the current on is to make the skin switching happen live
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	without restarting the client
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	sounds like a small task but it has a lot of impact on our code
[15:10]	Jacek Antonelli:	Goodie :)
[15:10]	Geneko Nemeth:	Talks about LSL doesn't really belong to UX office... I wonder where can you talk about that?
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	for example, how widgets store and manage their data
[15:10]	Charlette Proto:	silver shoud go. blue is the worst part of the colour spectrum for human visibility
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	well hopefully we will have a broad set of skin choices
[15:10]	Richard Linden:	further milestones are not well defined yet
[15:11]	Richard Linden:	but will expand on the ability to install skins, and create your own
[15:11]	Charlette Proto:	should have various skins with colour being a property under user control
[15:11]	Richard Linden:	and will push more of our UI logic out to either be data driven or scripted
[15:11]	Richard Linden:	charlette, yes, that is a popular approach
[15:12]	Charlette Proto:	resolution and text size like like in Windows should also be a part of skin control
[15:12]	Squirrel Wood:	one grayscale UI that you can set a color hue for ?
[15:12]	Richard Linden:	we haven't decided on our final skin format yet, but I could see us providing colore themes to go along with a skin'
[15:12]	Richard Linden:	so, as far as current progress
[15:12]	Richard Linden:	we have cleaned up almost all of our widget code
[15:12]	Richard Linden:	so that we have a unified interface for defining and building widgets
[15:12]	Charlette Proto:	great
[15:12]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ooh, excellent
[15:12]	Richard Linden:	that can eventually be controlled by a scripting language
[15:12]	Squirrel Wood:	cool!
[15:12]	Geneko Nemeth:	Cool.
[15:13]	Charlette Proto:	could users add widgets themselves?
[15:13]	Richard Linden:	We are also part way into abstracting out the concept of data management from the widget
[15:13]	Squirrel Wood:	llSetUIColor(vector color, float alpha); ?
[15:13]	Richard Linden:	so that we can swap out a UI on the fly while keeping the existing data in those widgets intact
[15:13]	Geneko Nemeth:	Maybe one day we could have XUI HUD elements...
[15:13]	Charlette Proto:	kewl 'm impressed
[15:13]	Richard Linden:	well Squirrel, I doubt that we would be usnig LSL calls directly
[15:13]	Jacek Antonelli waves to Tinker and Kippie
[15:13]	Squirrel Wood:	heh
[15:13]	Richard Linden:	more likely that LSL could send a payload that defines a piece of UI
[15:14]	Kippie Friedkin:	Hi everybody
[15:14]	Tinker Toll:	(hello everyone!!)
[15:14]	Squirrel Wood:	would be cool though... if it requires permission
[15:14]	Charlette Proto:	so HUDs will be able to be built as a widget too?
[15:14]	Richard Linden:	charlette, that is possible
[15:14]	Charlette Proto:	that would be fantastic most HUDs are crap and look so ugly too
[15:14]	McCabe Maxsted is curious how far along you guys are; is this something we should be expecting next year, or in a couple of months? And has the work for automatic new skin detection already been done?
[15:15]	Charlette Proto:	Christmass
[15:15]	Richard Linden:	well the next milestone (live skin switching) is something we'd like to get out this year
[15:15]	Richard Linden:	but I can't really set a hard date
[15:15]	Richard Linden:	because it keeps growing in to a larger UI cleanup task
[15:15]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehe
[15:15]	Squirrel Wood:	^^
[15:15]	Charlette Proto:	great winter vacation is the best time to test SL I think
[15:15]	Richard Linden:	but I'm trying hard to get it out within the next month or two
[15:15]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yay :D
[15:16]	Squirrel Wood:	try for this year and if that isn't going to work out, shoot for q1 next year? :)
[15:16]	Richard Linden:	new skin detection will probably come as part of the following milestone
[15:16]	Richard Linden:	when we've settled on our skin file format and packaging conventions
[15:16]	Richard Linden:	so, I'm curious
[15:16]	Richard Linden:	what do you guys see as being the most important for skinning?
[15:16]	Richard Linden:	creating skins and using them
[15:17]	Squirrel Wood:	ease of use?
[15:17]	Squirrel Wood:	the simpler the whole process, the better methinks
[15:17]	Richard Linden:	squirrel, the process of creating and installing them?
[15:17]	Kerry Giha:	I am certain a lot of people wouldn't want to learn a new language just to make a skin
[15:17]	Squirrel Wood:	I have people at work that are confused by simple click here, type this, click there instructions
[15:17]	Charlette Proto:	should be like making a web page in Macromedia as opposed to skinning WinAmp etc
[15:17]	Jacek Antonelli:	Tweaking colors on the fly would be great. Make it as simple as editing a prim's color. Edit the skin from within SL.
[15:18]	Richard Linden:	jacek
[15:18]	Charlette Proto:	YEP
[15:18]	Richard Linden:	you'll be glad to hear that we can do that with the current build of skinning
[15:18]	Richard Linden:	via the debug settings window
[15:18]	Jacek Antonelli:	Woohoo :)
[15:18]	Kippie Friedkin:	I would think that installation would be the most important. You'll have more people looking to install user-created skins than create their own.
[15:18]	McCabe Maxsted:	in my experience, the lack of a skinning forum has killed most resident interest in skinning, as people ahve moved on to other projects. The frustrations are lack of an ability to install and detect work; I threw a tutorial up on the wiki for adding new skisn to the preferences panel, but only my skins really use that
[15:18]	Richard Linden:	all UI colors are tweakable on the fly
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	sweet
[15:18]	Squirrel Wood:	double-click skin package in inventory to use it.... that is simple enough :)
[15:18]	Kerry Giha:	maybe make a skin build mode in the client which would put up the little editing buttons
[15:18]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, adding more skins is hard. You have to edit the XUI for the preferences skinning panel. And if you try to do that for your skin, it would overwrite other skins when you install
[15:19]	Kippie Friedkin:	Absolute
[15:19]	Kippie Friedkin:	ly
[15:19]	Richard Linden:	what do you guys think should be editable from within the SL UI?
[15:19]	McCabe Maxsted:	some ability to install and distribute skins effectively, yeah
[15:19]	Charlette Proto:	we should make info on that widely available then
[15:19]	Geneko Nemeth:	... everything?
[15:19]	Charlette Proto:	I never heard of that
[15:19]	Richard Linden:	well let's talk about packaging and distribution of skins then
[15:19]	Richard Linden:	since that seems to be something that a lot of you feel strongl about
[15:20]	Richard Linden:	do you want to see an in-client skin browser or just use your web browser?
[15:20]	Charlette Proto:	peeps could sell skins in SL
[15:20]	Richard Linden:	and should skins be SL assets?
[15:20]	Squirrel Wood:	packaging / distro like the appearance editor mayhaps? saves to a single object in your inventory that you can pass on?
[15:20]	Squirrel Wood:	it would create a whole new business ^^
[15:20]	Charlette Proto:	different genres of users have different needs and they communicated inworld and would be the best way to distrubute too
[15:20]	Mm Alder:	PARTS that make up skins should be SL assets.
[15:20]	Jacek Antonelli:	In the long run, it would be greate to have them as SL assets. But short term, I'd like to just be able to download a zip file to my skins folder, and poof it's available to select in SL
[15:21]	Richard Linden:	Ok, so it sounds like skins as inventory items is important
[15:21]	Malbers Linden:	just a general questions -- has anyone here worked on a L&F skinnable GUI toolkit?
[15:21]	Squirrel Wood:	ease-of-use ^^
[15:21]	Richard Linden:	jacek, that's what I imagined for the first step
[15:21]	Charlette Proto:	sure would be the best way
[15:21]	Jacek Antonelli:	Malbers: L&F?
[15:21]	McCabe Maxsted:	or to be able to install a skin from a zip you download and have it added to the preferences without having to place it in the right folder
[15:21]	Richard Linden:	throw myskin.zip into the skins folder
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	it would be cool if they could be tradeable assets as part of the economy
[15:21]	Malbers Linden:	"look and feel" == L&F (for me)
[15:21]	Kerry Giha:	It wouldn't have to be inclient browser if you could, for example, buy something from a vendor activate the contents from your inventory and have it import the skin code into the viewer.
[15:22]	Charlette Proto:	sure but inworld files could be a nice option too
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	I'd like to be able to browse skins from a website, teh same way I chooose winamp skins
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	taht'd promote a lot of third party development
[15:22]	Squirrel Wood:	the skin could be made up of different textures ^^
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	that's an interesting idea Kerry
[15:22]	Richard Linden:	so traditionally skins are given away for free in apps I've played with
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	yeah, agreed richard
[15:22]	Jacek Antonelli:	yep
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	but we are talking about micropayments
[15:23]	Richard Linden:	but it sounds like SL content creators want to create value-add for SL that they can make money from?
[15:23]	Charlette Proto:	yes but there is room for inworld marketing and distribution according to user needs and genre in SL
[15:23]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah. There would be freebies too, of course :D
[15:23]	Squirrel Wood:	basic/advanced/extended skins
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	and folks do pay for plugins for their myspace pages
[15:23]	Squirrel Wood:	basic = free, everything else.... $.$
[15:23]	Richard Linden:	there is an important distinction between add-ons and skins
[15:23]	Charlette Proto:	also special interests as opposed to level of skill
[15:23]	Richard Linden:	I'm not sure if we will combine the two or try to keep them separate, like Firefox
[15:23]	Charlette Proto:	special needs (colour blind)
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted:	so you are pursuing add ons then? were you thinking of using lua?
[15:24]	Geneko Nemeth:	I'd say JavaScript.
[15:24]	Richard Linden:	I don't really have anything to say about addons in particular
[15:25]	Richard Linden:	we have been looking at how to script new functionality into the client for a while
[15:25]	Geneko Nemeth:	Only if it's already bundled with the browser, though.
[15:25]	Richard Linden:	but that is not officially part of the skinning work
[15:25]	Mm Alder:	Richard, do you think of a skin as a monolithic thing, or as separately modifiable elements?
[15:25]	Charlette Proto:	yes JavaScript is the best, look at WEB2 apps
[15:25]	Squirrel Wood:	make trees out of bicycles, then use said trees to program the thing? ;)
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	sort of a ... part 14 if we get to it
[15:25]	Richard Linden:	what do you mean Mm about separately modifiable elements?
[15:26]	Mm Alder:	Buttons from vendor A. Menus for vendor B, etc.
[15:26]	Richard Linden:	you mean like an inventory "skin" that can be mixed and match with a chat window "skin"?
[15:26]	Richard Linden:	aaah
[15:26]	Richard Linden:	the current direction is towards monolithic skins, like our silver and classic
[15:26]	Richard Linden:	but I'm open to the idea of mix and match
[15:26]	Squirrel Wood:	basic inventory "module" / advanced inventory "module"
[15:26]	Squirrel Wood:	mix, match, swap :)
[15:27]	Richard Linden:	the question is how to manage so many different skins at once, maintain compatibility, etc.
[15:27]	Squirrel Wood:	common defined interface ?
[15:27]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, that'd be tricky
[15:27]	Charlette Proto:	modiles would support modality for the interface eg building/creation VS communication
[15:27]	Charlette Proto:	modules*
[15:27]	Mm Alder:	Think of it the way you think of clothes.
[15:27]	Squirrel Wood:	like, link messages in scripts
[15:28]	Charlette Proto:	yes I love clothes
[15:28]	Charlette Proto:	hehe
[15:28]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Several wiki skins are already out of date
[15:28]	Richard Linden:	so does anyone else see a distinction between addons and skins or do you want to treat them as pretty much the same thing?
[15:28]	Jacek Antonelli:	Well, addons implies some extra functionality that's not in the viewer already...
[15:28]	Charlette Proto:	if modular then it is the same thing
[15:28]	Geneko Nemeth:	Nope, they are different, although they may be packaged similarily.
[15:28]	Aimee Trescothick:	hmm, definitely separate
[15:28]	Jacek Antonelli:	Skins could cover things like layout changes, as well as colors and graphics
[15:29]	Jacek Antonelli:	Stuff you can already do with skins by editing the XML
[15:29]	Squirrel Wood:	ye. skins define the layout, addons define functionality ?
[15:29]	Benjamin Linden:	I agree, they feel separate
[15:29]	Charlette Proto:	the less concepts the better from the point of view of user customisable UI
[15:29]	Richard Linden:	so the current short term work is focused on changing colors, layout, and images
[15:29]	McCabe Maxsted:	until skinning is able to modify components out of their xml files, I'd keep the ideas distinct; after that, I'd separate them only after you get enough to warrant it
[15:29]	Aimee Trescothick:	if I create a new gadgety whatever add on I want it to take on whatever appearance the user has with their current skin
[15:29]	Kerry Giha:	Like little widgits that would give you a analog clock for example could be an addon but if I wanted to make my comminucate button Zebra striped that would be skin.
[15:29]	Richard Linden:	right aimee, that's important
[15:30]	Jacek Antonelli:	Zebra strip skin, eh? :D
[15:30]	Charlette Proto:	Kerry zebra sounds so ugly
[15:30]	Kerry Giha:	example :)
[15:30]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe
[15:30]	Richard Linden:	hear that ben, they want a zebra striped UI!
[15:30]	Jacek Antonelli:	With leopard print buttons. :D
[15:30]	McCabe Maxsted:	for example, the skin I'm doing now ports LCARS (star trek ui) to SL� (I'm a geek, I know). I'd love to be able to add star trek functionality, but I can't due to the limits right now, so it's just a repaint
[15:30]	Aimee Trescothick:	and a vegan option
[15:30]	Kerry Giha:	for example hehe
[15:31]	Squirrel Wood:	if I want a squirrel shaped button.... that's skin. if I want it to honk on touch, that's addon ?
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe
[15:31]	Charlette Proto:	an overall scheme with overrides, but do we really need zebra widgets in GUI
[15:31]	Richard Linden:	squirrel, it's a fuzzy boundary
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	It's a joke, Charlette :)
[15:31]	Aimee Trescothick:	can just hear support saying "you need to click the cabbage, not the tofu"
[15:31]	Richard Linden:	because you could imagine assigning a sound to a button as part of the skin
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	(Yeah, squirrel widgets are a fuzzy boundary. *ba-dum ching!* )
[15:31]	Richard Linden:	:)
[15:31]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehehe
[15:31]	Richard Linden:	so how many here have tried to tweak our skins?
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	I have
[15:32]	Geneko Nemeth:	Does moving widgets so they fit translations a bit better count?
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	And not just tried, either
[15:32]	Squirrel Wood:	I gave up on it ^^
[15:32]	Charlette Proto:	how about leopard skin
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted has played around a little *grin*
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	A little, McCabe? ;)
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay, a lot
[15:32]	Aimee Trescothick:	bits and pieces :)
[15:32]	Richard Linden:	what was the biggest pain, other than not having a GUI to do it ?
[15:33]	Geneko Nemeth:	No specs, too much attributes....
[15:33]	Squirrel Wood:	100,000 graphic files, 200,000 lines of xml to crawl through?
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	Graphics being re-used in weird places and in unexpected ways
[15:33]	McCabe Maxsted:	not being able to reload edits on teh fly
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	Too many things sharing common colors
[15:33]	McCabe Maxsted:	change xml file, relog, change xml file, relog
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	Like -- I can't change the toolbar background without changing the floaters background!
[15:34]	Richard Linden:	ok, good...so far we're addressing a lot of those issues
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	and trying to work around the limits in the xml files... I've compiled a list
[15:34]	Charlette Proto:	doing it while onine is obviously the best, eg this could be bigger or needs to have some controls, would result in better results
[15:34]	Richard Linden:	the next milestone hopefully should improve things in all those areas, except for the auto loading of XUI files
[15:34]	Richard Linden:	sorry mccabe :)
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Skinning_How_To/Hardcoded_limits_in_the_xml_files
[15:34]	Jacek Antonelli:	Specs would be nice too. Instead of the groping in the dark and finding surprises
[15:34]	Charlette Proto:	sure, pu me off
[15:35]	Charlette Proto:	put* (I wasn't being rude)
[15:35]	Richard Linden:	ok, well part of the current work (most of it, actually) is to standardize and document uor attributes
[15:35]	McCabe Maxsted would love to have more ui options in the interface to play with.... ones that are more modular
[15:35]	Jacek Antonelli:	Also, for the more layout-focused area -- automatically resizable buttons for fitting text :o
[15:35]	Richard Linden:	the milestone after this should also have template-driven widgets
[15:36]	McCabe Maxsted:	ah yes jacek, that's important
[15:36]	Squirrel Wood:	see? we're not criticizing, we're not flaming. Instead we bounce ideas at your head ^^
[15:36]	Richard Linden:	so you can change the colors referenced by buttons, or even the layout of compound controls like comboboxes
[15:36]	Richard Linden:	mccabe what sort of optiosn do you mean?
[15:36]	Aimee Trescothick:	dockable components \o/
[15:36]	Jacek Antonelli:	We're replacing the font for our project (since this one is proprietary), but if the font is too big text gets cut off or else overflows
[15:36]	Charlette Proto:	autofit toolbar on the top for sure instead of the fixed buttons wasting the bottom of the screen
[15:37]	McCabe Maxsted:	like for example different ways to input text. Right now you can only use the line editor. and scrollable panels have been long needed
[15:37]	Geneko Nemeth:	The current font used has problems anyway, bullets are not at the codepoints they suppose to be
[15:37]	Benjamin Linden:	I completely echo Jacek and McCabe's issues with the current skinning capabilities. Very excited to hear those issues are getting addressed Richard.
[15:37]	Benjamin Linden:	McCabe, I would LOVE to see your LCARS skin!!
[15:37]	McCabe Maxsted:	adding sounds to buttons, stuff like that
[15:37]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hehehe, it's pretty cool
[15:37]	McCabe Maxsted grins. I'll send you a screenshot when it's done!
[15:38]	Benjamin Linden:	please do!
[15:38]	Charlette Proto:	yes the font is a bummer and occasionally overflows the single line if the size is too big
[15:38]	Richard Linden:	mccabe, we have scrollable panels, like we use for the appearance editor and the inventory
[15:38]	Squirrel Wood:	button / widget properties ^^
[15:38]	Squirrel Wood:	scroll step size, sound, color, font, ...
[15:38]	Charlette Proto:	even seen a the scroll arrows when overflow occurs
[15:38]	Squirrel Wood:	mouse cursor shape
[15:38]	McCabe Maxsted:	that's a panel within the floater... try to make a new panel scrollable even by embedding it and it breaks the functionality
[15:39]	Richard Linden:	ok mccabe, that sounds like a bug
[15:39]	Charlette Proto:	doc it
[15:40]	Richard Linden:	so do you guys have any more questions for me?
[15:40]	Squirrel Wood:	do you have more questions for us? ^^
[15:40]	Geneko Nemeth:	Do you like beef porridge?
[15:40]	McCabe Maxsted was trying to add a scrollable selection to the skins list, heh. I can file a jira if you'd like
[15:40]	Charlette Proto:	antialiasing of menu text would help with some environments too
[15:40]	Richard Linden:	please do mccabe
[15:41]	Richard Linden:	geneko: boy do I!
[15:41]	Richard Linden:	charlette, our fonts are antialiased
[15:41]	Richard Linden:	perhaps not enough?
[15:41]	Geneko Nemeth:	Or are you using Japanese UI?
[15:41]	Charlette Proto:	they just look rough if too small on my screen
[15:41]	McCabe Maxsted:	is it possible for you to update http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Skinning with some time lines? And what do you use to edit your xml files?
[15:41]	Geneko Nemeth:	(or some other kind of language)
[15:41]	Charlette Proto:	many screens
[15:42]	Benjamin Linden:	someone mentioned sounds, that's an interesting point
[15:42]	Richard Linden:	mccabe: I hope to do so after Steve gets back from vacation
[15:42]	Benjamin Linden:	will users be able to "skin" the UI sound, Richard?
[15:42]	Richard Linden:	I'm just the tech lead, not the schedule person :)
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	omg yes, I almost forgot!
[15:42]	Richard Linden:	and I use Visual Studio or notepad++ to do XML editing
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	font selection needs to be included in skinning
[15:42]	Richard Linden:	I haven't really found a good editor
[15:42]	Jacek Antonelli:	Oh, yes
[15:42]	Squirrel Wood:	I like TextPad
[15:43]	Benjamin Linden:	I love TextPad Squirrel!
[15:43]	Charlette Proto:	EditPlus 3
[15:43]	Kippie Friedkin:	jEdit is quite good too
[15:43]	Richard Linden:	benjamin, that's a good point, we should be able to add custonm per widget sounds
[15:43]	Richard Linden:	quite easialy
[15:43]	Benjamin Linden:	I've been using it for like 15 years
[15:43]	Richard Linden:	easily
[15:43]	Charlette Proto:	LSL Edit is the best for LSL work
[15:43]	Squirrel Wood:	default sounds with override per widget sounds ?
[15:43]	Richard Linden:	I used to use textpad when doing HTML by hand
[15:43]	Richard Linden:	aaah, the good ol days
[15:43]	Kippie Friedkin:	I use TextMate for just about everything these days though.
[15:43]	McCabe Maxsted:	ah, I've been using komodo... benjamin suggested it to me IIRC, it's been working realy well. Still longing for an editor to work directly with SL� (it's a long list to remember: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Skinning_How_To/The_XML_files_and_what_they_do )
[15:43]	Benjamin Linden:	I would imagine for people that really get into skinning they would want a whole new "sound pack" to go with their skin
[15:43]	Aimee Trescothick uses TextMate too
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	McCabe's LCARS skin for example
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	would really benefit from different sounds
[15:44]	McCabe Maxsted:	sound and font packs would really make it shine :D
[15:44]	Charlette Proto:	especially for the visually impaired
[15:44]	Richard Linden:	thats a good idea, we could possible break out images and sounds as separate resources
[15:44]	Squirrel Wood:	sound packs could in the simplest form just be lists of UUIDs ^^
[15:44]	McCabe Maxsted:	that's a great point charlette
[15:44]	Squirrel Wood:	which you refer to via index
[15:45]	McCabe Maxsted:	an accessiblity skin would really benefit from sounds
[15:45]	Aimee Trescothick:	ooh, mouseover sounds for the visually impaired
[15:45]	Kippie Friedkin:	Yeah...I would keep them separate from a skin. That way you can use different sound packs with different skins.
[15:45]	Charlette Proto:	yes precisely more sound clues if the user needs
[15:45]	Kerry Giha:	The Skin assets could be downloaded from SL when the skin is activated and kept on the local machine to improve client loading. Another Idea for SL Trading of Skins.
[15:46]	Richard Linden:	great, a bunch of good ideas
[15:46]	Geneko Nemeth:	This calls for the dreaded loading bar.
[15:46]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, the skin should refer to sounds by... hrm, "type". Like "button pressed" rather than "squeaky frog toy sound"
[15:46]	Charlette Proto:	yes i like the idea of trading skins inworld
[15:46]	Richard Linden:	so do you think that we should package layout, textures, and sounds separately?
[15:46]	Squirrel Wood:	Geneko... I want a loading foo!
[15:46]	Jacek Antonelli:	I think so, Richard
[15:46]	Richard Linden:	and you can mix and match like we do with *gasp* outfits? :)
[15:46]	Kippie Friedkin:	I do
[15:46]	Aimee Trescothick:	the loading bar is fine, but I can never get served a drink :(
[15:46]	Geneko Nemeth:	Maybe a better name would be "event", like "toolbar.snapshot_button.mouseover".
[15:47]	Geneko Nemeth:	Skins would be able to define their own event.s
[15:47]	Squirrel Wood:	hmm.. named sounds and custom sounds
[15:47]	Geneko Nemeth:	*events
[15:47]	Squirrel Wood:	named work for all skins, custom may require specific skins
[15:47]	Jacek Antonelli:	With fall-backs, Squirrel -- like fonts in HTML. Ooh :D
[15:47]	Charlette Proto:	well events in LSL could dowith some work too for HUDs
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted:	installed separately, yeah, so we can change sounds on a skin; being able to distribute fonts/artwork/sounds/layout all at the same time would be a great package *ponders*
[15:47]	Geneko Nemeth:	HTML has fallbacks everwhere.
[15:47]	Squirrel Wood:	html fallback: if unknown, ignore ^^
[15:48]	Charlette Proto:	ignore that we know the viewer support here
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli:	Oh -- is there any work going on to improve or change the XUI format to be more friendly?
[15:48]	Richard Linden:	what do you recomment jacek?
[15:48]	Benjamin Linden:	yes please
[15:48]	Richard Linden:	define "more friendly" :)
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli:	Less intimidating to edit / less "omg wall of text eyes going blurry" :D
[15:48]	Richard Linden:	is it simply a matter of documentation?
[15:49]	Richard Linden:	aaah, well the current work will get rid of a lot of attributes that just set the default value
[15:49]	Richard Linden:	so there should be a fair amount *less* xml
[15:49]	Jacek Antonelli:	Goodie
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted:	documentation goes a long way
[15:49]	Richard Linden:	what form of documentation works best for you, a wiki like the LSL one?
[15:49]	Charlette Proto:	See the LSL Edit for a great authoring tool including lots of help
[15:49]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hrmm. How about more robustness / errors when there's malformed XUI? Right now the client just goes kaboom :(
[15:49]	Aimee Trescothick:	comments in the files :)
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe yes....
[15:50]	Charlette Proto:	again see LSL Edit
[15:50]	Richard Linden:	jacek, we've improved that a bit, but I suppose there is mroe we can do
[15:50]	Richard Linden:	aimee, that's interesting
[15:50]	Jacek Antonelli:	It took me a week to figure out why my client was crashing when I opened the chat bar, finally McCabe spotted a bad XML line
[15:50]	McCabe Maxsted:	if you have artwork you loaded in textures.xml but isn't in the right directory, or if you make a typo in colors_base.xml, crash, with no meaningful error message
[15:50]	Kerry Giha:	It would be nice to, for example click on a button in certain way and be able to define its texture and then have the client remember it.
[15:50]	Squirrel Wood:	one file which has the complete definitions for each element....?
[15:50]	Charlette Proto:	LSL Editcompiles as well as give live clues in editing tasks
[15:50]	Richard Linden:	should we be commenting in the XUI files what the various attributes mean?
[15:50]	Charlette Proto:	yes
[15:50]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes, comment headers that tell what part of the ui it belongs to, too
[15:51]	Aimee Trescothick:	well, a few comments to define the sections of the file would be good
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, more about sections and stuff. "Here's the Chat button", etc.
[15:51]	Richard Linden:	ok, that sounds reasonably I suppose
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted:	there's a lot of similarly named xml files that do different things... like teh script editor layout
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted:	trying to remember which xml file controls the top and bottom is really awkward
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli:	A central document with the attributes and descriptions would be more useful than littering the XML files with that stuff
[15:51]	Aimee Trescothick:	like floater_tools.xml for example makes your eyes hurt trying to find stuff
[15:51]	Geneko Nemeth:	Try menu_viewer.xml
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli:	Say... a wiki page :D
[15:51]	Aimee Trescothick:	lol yeah
[15:51]	Charlette Proto:	precisely and things which are good to customise within a given design (options not implemented at the time)
[15:51]	Geneko Nemeth:	Or maybe the appearance window!
[15:52]	McCabe Maxsted:	btw, why is the script editor laid out the way it is?
[15:52]	Richard Linden:	what do you mean mccabe?
[15:52]	Squirrel Wood:	Ooo!
[15:52]	Charlette Proto:	script editor should be able to be replaced with LSL Edit as a user option
[15:52]	Squirrel Wood:	scripts opened from inventory still need a mono checkbox
[15:53]	Charlette Proto:	like the Web Browser can
[15:53]	McCabe Maxsted:	using five xml files
[15:53]	Geneko Nemeth:	Do they?
[15:53]	Richard Linden:	charlette, that is something we're looking into, but I don't know if/when it will happen
[15:53]	Squirrel Wood:	they do methinks
[15:53]	McCabe Maxsted:	it's very hard to edit
[15:53]	Charlette Proto:	great
[15:53]	Charlette Proto:	the current editor is a joke
[15:53]	Geneko Nemeth:	Hmm... why is there a console in the script editor...
[15:53]	McCabe Maxsted:	and the default look is pretty awkward, at least on my screen
[15:53]	Jacek Antonelli:	Geneko: for compile feedback
[15:54]	Geneko Nemeth:	It could be hidden when it's not compiling.
[15:54]	Jacek Antonelli:	True
[15:54]	Richard Linden:	geneko, that's true
[15:54]	Richard Linden:	mccabe, I don't know why the xml is set up that way, I'm looking now
[15:55]	Kippie Friedkin:	Has anyone played with Doxygen at all?
[15:55]	Richard Linden:	I'm guessing you're referring to script_preview vs. script_ed_panel?
[15:55]	McCabe Maxsted:	one trouble I've had that also relates to that is that edits that look fine at one resolution will be totally screwy at another; I usually send any skin edit off to several people to test
[15:55]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah, the way the menu, editor, and buttons are all smushed together in different files
[15:56]	Kippie Friedkin:	It takes your inline code comments and docs and extracts them into a browsable/searchable HTML documentation package. I was using it today for a project and it works quite well.
[15:56]	Charlette Proto:	esternal editor should be the altimate objectives so the problem of building a great editor is not really top priority
[15:56]	Kippie Friedkin:	Perhaps something like that would work nicely for documenting XUI
[15:56]	Aimee Trescothick:	yes, I tend to run with UI scale at about 0.925 and forget that when arranging stuff
[15:56]	Richard Linden:	mccabe, as best as I can tell, it's to reuse the same script UI in different contexts
[15:56]	Charlette Proto:	80% here
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	where else is it used, other than the editor?
[15:56]	Charlette Proto:	I use laptops
[15:56]	Geneko Nemeth:	The inventory script properties?
[15:56]	Richard Linden:	there is a known problem with fonts at different UI scales
[15:57]	Richard Linden:	so sometimes your labels will be clipped when you change the scale
[15:57]	Charlette Proto:	yes horrible
[15:57]	Aimee Trescothick nods
[15:57]	Richard Linden:	the only solutions are to use a more heavily antialiased font that appears blurry to some
[15:57]	Richard Linden:	or move everything to dynamic layout which is very time consuming
[15:58]	Richard Linden:	but we will probably go that way bit by bit
[15:58]	Charlette Proto:	yes and a choice of fonts would help to match to the video card driver too
[15:58]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Yeah, the dynamic layout's a big task; necessary though
[15:58]	Charlette Proto:	html dynamic layout is the best example here
[15:59]	Geneko Nemeth:	Um... not in my opinion...
[15:59]	Richard Linden:	unfortunately most HTML does a poor job of dynamic layout
[15:59]	Grant Linden:	we are coming up tot he end of this hour
[15:59]	Richard Linden:	it's not easy to do well :(
[15:59]	Grant Linden:	thanks to Richard Linden for joining us
[15:59]	Squirrel Wood:	Thanks for being here Richard ^^
[15:59]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ah, how time flies. Thanks a lot, Richard! :)
[15:59]	Charlette Proto:	perhaps you are used to crappy HTML design and don't know the capabilities of HTML
[15:59]	Aimee Trescothick:	thank you :)
[15:59]	Richard Linden:	thank you everyone
[15:59]	Grant Linden:	if you have any suggestions for topics that we might need to discuss in the future, please let me know
[16:00]	McCabe Maxsted:	thanks richard; some good feedback and info
[16:00]	XLR8RRICK Hudson:	I have a question
[16:00]	Geneko Nemeth:	Yeah, but to make something nice in HTML take a lot of effort.
[16:00]	Squirrel Wood:	do not be afraid to ask ^^
[16:00]	Geneko Nemeth:	So we may not want to get XUI go that way.
[16:00]	Charlette Proto:	not if you understand HTML
[16:00]	Richard Linden:	go ahead XLR
[16:00]	Grant Linden:	thanks to all
[16:00]	Grant Linden:	I need to run off ot my next meeting
[16:00]	XLR8RRICK Hudson:	what does this mean --->Partial Disabling of iframe Functionality in SLURLs
[16:00]	Kerry Giha:	Thanks for the good office hour :)