Mouse Navigation
Revision as of 11:23, 13 September 2007 by James Linden (talk | contribs) (New page: For a while I've been thinking about how to make SL easier for new users to navigate. In some user tests (circa 2005) I observed several users trying what I call "coffee cup" navigation -...)
For a while I've been thinking about how to make SL easier for new users to navigate. In some user tests (circa 2005) I observed several users trying what I call "coffee cup" navigation -- hold something in their left hand and try to navigate SL using just the mouse.
This doesn't work for several reasons.
- Click-drag on avatar rotates camera, but doesn't move it.
- Arrow keys are on the right edge of the keyboard, meaning right handed users move their right hand back and forth between arrow keys and mouse.
- Users new to 3D environments don't discover AWSD navigation.
- Once they discover AWSD navigation they make frequent errors with typing navigation input into chat and vice versa.
- Alt-Zoom requires two-handed control, yet is important for getting good views of many pieces of content.
- Left click on avatar walks forward
- Drag left turns left, drag right turns right
- Drag slightly back stops walking
- Drag more back walks backward
- Drag forward starts running
To help users discover this:
- Hovering over your avatar changes cursor to special "walking" icon
- When mouse is down on avatar, transparent arrows appear on screen representing forward/back/turn with the currently active arrow highlighted
- Arrows surround cursor position, suggesting dragging towards the one you want
- Of course, arrows can be turned off by advanced users
Flying
- Flying is hard because the mouse is a 2D input device, but flying is 3D
- Maybe just navigate in 2D, with on-screen widgets to go up and down?
Alt-Zoom
- Show explicit "tool" icons in the toolbar for arrow vs. zoom vs. orbit
- Holding down Alt highlights the zoom icon
- Mouse wheel switches between tools
- Thus you can both move avatar and move camera using only a wheel mouse
- Tool tip for zoom and orbit icons shows keyboard shortcuts
Go To Point
- This is hard because the most interesting place to walk is right in front of you, which you can't click because the avatar is in the way
- Double-click on ground does a stupid walk-to-point autopilot
- Users can tag objects as being "walls"
- Double-clicking a "wall" walks toward it
- Auto-pilot doesn't try to walk around objects. It turns off if it gets stuck.
- Auto-pilot is driven by the server, so motion is smooth in the face of network latency
Object Selection
- Right now you must do right-click of objects to select them and issue a command
- This limits the commands to what fits in the right-click menu
- For non-wall objects:
- Single click selects and shows highlight
- Objects can specify an "info window" to appear on the edge of the screen
- Info window can contain:
- Picture
- Buttons that issue chat commands to a script in the object
- HTML page?
- Information about creator/owner/script status, etc.