User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2008-05-15

Transcript of Benjamin Linden's office hours:

[15:04]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hey Ben and Malbers!
[15:04]	McCabe Maxsted waves to benjamin and malbers
[15:04]	Benjamin Linden:	hi everyone
[15:04]	Kippie Friedkin:	Hi Ben & Malbers :)
[15:04]	Malbers Linden:	I just missed landing directly on Ben's head. Will have to try harder next time.
[15:04]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:04]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe
[15:04]	McCabe Maxsted:	I like the new av
[15:05]	Benjamin Linden:	how's everyone doing?
[15:05]	McCabe Maxsted:	very tentacly :)
[15:05]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	doin okee
[15:05]	Andy Evans:	Hi Ben... I sent you the email you requested...
[15:05]	Kippie Friedkin:	Good, good
[15:05]	Jacek Antonelli:	Doing well, although kinda busy today. Always worth it to come here, though :D
[15:05]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks Andy, I got it
[15:05]	Jessica Kabumpo:	title .5,.5,.5 Anim Glitch
[15:05]	McCabe Maxsted is happy. I have new megaprims to play with!
[15:05]	Benjamin Linden:	we did get some survey data from your group last fall
[15:05]	Andy Evans:	Yes and in January
[15:05]	Benjamin Linden:	which I believe Glenn Fisher worked with yo uon
[15:06]	Benjamin Linden:	very helpful!
[15:06]	McCabe Maxsted:	ahoy simon
[15:06]	Andy Evans:	We can chat later if you like...
[15:06]	Simon Kline waves, hi McCabe! :D
[15:06]	Benjamin Linden:	so any hot topics?
[15:07]	Jacek Antonelli:	Megaprims are hot :D
[15:07]	Benjamin Linden:	I saw some chatter on that. what's the scoop?
[15:07]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	yeah, too bad you stopped us
[15:07]	McCabe Maxsted:	the server stopped limiting prim size on creation for a while
[15:07]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehe, Benjamin didn't stop us. It was "The Man". Well, actually, the woman. Kelly Linden did the "fix". :)
[15:07]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehehe
[15:07]	McCabe Maxsted:	between a friend and myself we made about 1500 megaprims XD
[15:07]	Benjamin Linden:	wow
[15:08]	Benjamin Linden:	but that's been "fixed"
[15:08]	Jessica Kabumpo:	o.O
[15:08]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah
[15:08]	Jessica Kabumpo twitches
[15:08]	McCabe Maxsted:	feature's gone
[15:08]	McCabe Maxsted:	*tear*
[15:08]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[15:08]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hehe, I made a few hundred miscellaneous shapes myself, plus a huge octopus sculpty
[15:08]	Benjamin Linden:	cool Jacek :-)
[15:08]	McCabe Maxsted:	I saw your patch on sldev. Very handy!
[15:08]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	yeah, everyone needs to figure out who has what sizes now so we can make a mega collection of megas .... what was out there from before really limited our builds
[15:09]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'm definitely looking forward to when megaprims get all official and supported.
[15:09]	Nany Kayo:	me too
[15:09]	Kippie Friedkin:	It would certainly save a lot of time
[15:09]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah, same here. They're so incredibly userful
[15:09]	McCabe Maxsted:	*useful too
[15:09]	Nany Kayo:	I'd like to know why it is so diffcult to use written communication here, and if there are any plans to address that.
[15:09]	Jacek Antonelli:	One cool thing that came out of it -- a new UI feature, to specify the size of prims when you create them
[15:09]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	hard to do a huge circle without them
[15:09]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hey Stephany!
[15:10]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Hai Stephany!
[15:10]	Jessica Kabumpo waves her paw
[15:10]	McCabe Maxsted:	ahoy stephany
[15:10]	Kippie Friedkin:	Hi Stephany!
[15:10]	Jessica Kabumpo:	...*meow*
[15:10]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Stephany
[15:10]	Stephany Linden:	hi ben
[15:10]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	whenever someone asks me what they are good for I ask them how to make a 20 m diameter circle (I let them work out the prim savings bit for themselves)
[15:10]	Stephany Linden:	hi everybody :)
[15:10]	McCabe Maxsted:	out of curiosity how's the menu reorganization coming?
[15:10]	Benjamin Linden:	Nany, what did you mean about written communciation?
[15:10]	McCabe Maxsted:	or 30m torii!
[15:11]	Jacek Antonelli:	All the Residents pulled together, making patches and compiling viewers for each other, so we could all make megaprims. It was beautiful! *sniff, sniff*
[15:11]	McCabe Maxsted:	very useful for pirate ship bottoms
[15:11]	McCabe Maxsted:	*nods sagely*
[15:11]	Nany Kayo:	what we are trying to do right here is this chat window, Benjamin
[15:11]	Nany Kayo:	written communication
[15:11]	Benjamin Linden:	Mike can provide an update on the menu reorg; we're close to running a "card sort" study for that
[15:11]	Nany Kayo:	I believe the lack of support for written communication stifles the growth of this community. Some of these people are fairly literate. They'll loose patience with the inability to speak in full paragraphs pretty fast. the least you might expect for all the crap you have to go through to get an avatar moving in SL is the ability to make it speak.
[15:11]	Malbers Linden:	Still working on the menu reorganization. I might have a survey for you about it soon.
[15:11]	Nany Kayo:	Voice chat is not the solution. We need persistent written communications tools that we dont have to go out of world to use. it is ridiculous that SL Residents participating in SL competitions, like the Network Culture Project's SL and the Public Good Challenge I am working on now, have to resort to websites, blogs and email to effectively communicate with eachother in-world! We are struggling to copy and paste urls and complicated name spellings out of IM onto frigging notecards, all named New Note and dumped into the same crowded folder by default, without the benefit of even frigging cut and paste, let alone bolding or a tab indent.
[15:12]	Simon Kline:	g'day rob :)
[15:12]	Rob Linden:	howdy
[15:12]	Nany Kayo:	and this kind of garbled stuff
[15:12]	Jacek Antonelli:	Heya Rob!
[15:12]	McCabe Maxsted:	awesomepants! I was going through my reordered menu recently and there's some stuff in tehre that'd really be better in the preferences
[15:12]	Benjamin Linden:	hi Rob
[15:12]	Nany Kayo:	What's up with that?
[15:12]	Benjamin Linden:	Nany, do you mean like an SL email system?
[15:12]	Nany Kayo:	Thanks.
[15:12]	Rob Linden saw the perms problem on PJIRA, and figured I'd drop by and ask when the time was right
[15:12]	Nany Kayo:	: )
[15:12]	Nany Kayo:	yeah
[15:13]	McCabe Maxsted:	perms problem?
[15:13]	Nany Kayo:	or just a cut and paste menu
[15:13]	Nany Kayo:	heehee
[15:13]	McCabe Maxsted checks his hair
[15:13]	McCabe Maxsted:	looks good to me
[15:13]	Nany Kayo:	I'll wait for the bold and tab
[15:13]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hehehe
[15:13]	Benjamin Linden:	Rob, did you want to ask about megaprims? We were discussing that briefly
[15:13]	Nany Kayo:	do you have any idea how hard it is to conduct normal business communications in this environment?
[15:14]	Nany Kayo:	hahaha
[15:14]	Jacek Antonelli:	Nany, you can cut and paste from the notecards, you just have to use the keyboard commands
[15:14]	Benjamin Linden:	Nany, I agree that it's cumbersome to use notecards for written communication.
[15:14]	Nany Kayo:	oh, thats cool
[15:14]	Nany Kayo:	that will really help :)\
[15:14]	Rob Linden:	no, different topic, but I can wait until you're done with your planned agenda
[15:14]	Benjamin Linden:	we don't have a set agenda unless Stephany wants to continue the "what do I do now" discussion from last week. I do have a brief update on the landmarks project
[15:15]	Jacek Antonelli:	I definitely think the notecard editor window needs some menus of its own -- with cut, paste, search, replace, etc.
[15:15]	Nany Kayo:	Oh, its worse than cumberson, Benjamin
[15:15]	Nany Kayo:	lol
[15:15]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes. Isn't there a patch on the jira to add search and replace to notecards? I know there's an issue for it
[15:15]	Benjamin Linden:	You all remember Kippie from Vectorform talking to you a few weeks ago about landmarks.
[15:15]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yep :D
[15:15]	Stephany Linden:	/ I think we can hold on "What do I do now?"
[15:15]	Benjamin Linden:	They presented the roll-up of their research to us a couple days ago
[15:15]	Benjamin Linden:	and also their early design concepts
[15:15]	Stephany Linden:	/ Internally we'll ramp that up starting the first week of June, so expect more during June! :)
[15:15]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yay, Kippie + Vectorform ^_^
[15:15]	McCabe Maxsted:	oooh, input! input!
[15:15]	Kippie Friedkin:	:)
[15:16]	Kippie Friedkin waves
[15:16]	Jessica Kabumpo:	I'd like a better font with improved support for Unicode. Not all the misc. symbols (U+26xx) are supported.
[15:16]	Benjamin Linden:	it looks quite promising. stephany will be posting the report to pjira so you can peruse it at your leisure
[15:16]	Stephany Linden:	this is also in an email to sldev - but have to say, it was really great stuff from vectorform
[15:16]	Jacek Antonelli:	Awesome!
[15:16]	McCabe Maxsted:	great work kippie
[15:16]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'm looking forward to reading more
[15:16]	Stephany Linden:	I moved some PJIRAs this morning
[15:16]	Benjamin Linden:	oh hi Kippie, I didn't even see you sitting there :-)
[15:16]	Stephany Linden:	that will be evaluated and are looking good for completion as part of this
[15:16]	Kippie Friedkin:	Hi Ben :)
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	and I STILL have to upload design stuff but I swear I will
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	is wiki or pjira better?
[15:17]	Kippie Friedkin:	I can help with uploading if you'd like
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	any preference?
[15:17]	Jacek Antonelli:	Wiki is good for reading, but pjira is good for commenting and voting
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	I think they may look better on the wiki myself
[15:17]	Benjamin Linden:	yes, Vectorform did a great job of pulling a lot of relevant stuff out of Pjira that can be addressed in this project.
[15:17]	Benjamin Linden:	well it's a PDF
[15:17]	Benjamin Linden:	currently
[15:17]	McCabe Maxsted:	for distributing info the wiki, for actionable stuff the jira
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	Ben I think all of those tasks can be seen in NAV in pjira
[15:17]	Stephany Linden:	got it
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	so probably makes sense to attach to jira and link to it from wiki
[15:18]	Stephany Linden:	I will send an email to sldev when it's posted (or kippie will, one of the two of us)
[15:18]	Trinity Coulter:	what was the issue, Ben? with landmarks
[15:18]	Kippie Friedkin:	Sounds good
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	perfect, thanks Stephany.
[15:18]	Rob Linden:	Stephany: you have this url in your sldev@ mail, but a couple of people pointed out they don't hav eperms: http://jira.secondlife.com/secure/BrowseProject.jspa?id=10060
[15:18]	Stephany Linden:	oh that's me screwing up permissions
[15:18]	Stephany Linden:	they seemd fine - guess the permission for vform is still there somehow
[15:18]	Stephany Linden:	sorry about that!
[15:18]	Rob Linden:	ok....meant to be public, but isn't yet
[15:19]	Jessica Kabumpo:	error on that link
[15:19]	Stephany Linden:	rob: that can be public now actually
[15:19]	Rob Linden:	no prob....just didn't want to go in there and make something public that I shouldn't
[15:19]	Stephany Linden:	go ahead! :)
[15:19]	Stephany Linden:	nothing private there
[15:19]	McCabe Maxsted can't see it. Secret LL takeover plans? I knew it!
[15:19]	Kippie Friedkin:	lol
[15:19]	Stephany Linden:	sorry mccabe - too busy to work on takeover too ;)
[15:19]	Rob Linden:	doh....McCabe's on to us
[15:19]	Jessica Kabumpo Laughs
[15:19]	Stephany Linden:	SOMEDAY
[15:19]	McCabe Maxsted:	hahaha
[15:19]	Simon Kline:	hahahha
[15:20]	Stephany Linden:	so - yes public rob, please and thanks :)
[15:20]	Rob Linden:	no prob....I'll fix it up now
[15:20]	Jacek Antonelli:	:D
[15:20]	Stephany Linden:	thank you!
[15:20]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks Rob
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	so - that's the status of landmarks and nav stuff
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	what do I do now will ramp up more in June
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	anything else to discuss is fine by me ;)
[15:21]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	or do you just not *want* us to think you are too busy to work on takeover plans? :)
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	if Ben says so
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	lol
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[15:21]	Stephany Linden:	muuwahahah
[15:21]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehehe
[15:21]	Jessica Kabumpo Laughs
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	Rob did you have something to discuss or was it the permission issue?
[15:21]	Rob Linden:	just that
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	ok
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	there's been talk of people wanting to suport two skins for the dazzle release
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	any plans for it?
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	skin-choosing most likely won't be included in 1.20
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	long term we do have plans to support it
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	although we haven't made any decisions on how many skins will be officially supported
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	it may not be more than one
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	as it's quite taxing to build and support multiple skins
[15:23]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'm curious, what does "officially supported" mean? More than just distributing them with the viewer?
[15:24]	Benjamin Linden:	there have been further delays on 1.20 due to stability fixes, so it's possible we can push to get skin-swtiching into 1.20, but I can't commit to that
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Tell me about it! People were grumbling at me because I accidentally colored the classic toolbar red
[15:24]	Dirk Talamasca:	It means it is tested and proven not to kill you or eat the assend out of your computer
[15:24]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Do what LiveJournal did - include support for multiple themes, then let the community create them.
[15:24]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Have a place where themes can be shared easily.
[15:24]	Trinity Coulter:	maybe the skin stuff could wait, its like how important is the skin of the Viewer anyway
[15:24]	Benjamin Linden:	Jacek, "officially supported" means we create and maintain a complete set of UI art and colors for every feature in the viewer
[15:25]	Benjamin Linden:	for each skin
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	/ we wanted to reduce the crash rate before releasing 1.20
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	about 11 (at least for me)
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	/ short answer
[15:25]	Jacek Antonelli:	(Good plan, Stephany :D)
[15:25]	Benjamin Linden:	and yes, that it gets distributed with the default download
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	I still think your crash statistics are dubious
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	my crash reporter hasn't worked in many releases
[15:25]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Yea, crashing 3-4 times a day and having to power cycle my machine because of SL about 1-2 times a week does need to be fixed.
[15:25]	Nany Kayo:	mine either
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	that's an idea for an office hour
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	open forum on crash stats
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	we can invite steve linden...
[15:25]	Stephany Linden:	not to volunteer him.
[15:26]	Benjamin Linden:	Jessica, we definitely want to support the community in creating custom skins
[15:26]	Benjamin Linden:	in fact there are already several available on the wiki
[15:26]	Benjamin Linden:	if someone has that link handy...
[15:26]	McCabe Maxsted:	plug me! plug meeeeee!
[15:26]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehe
[15:26]	Jessica Kabumpo:	I had SL crash earlier today .... was eating the processor at 198% usage
[15:26]	McCabe Maxsted:	http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Viewer_Skins
[15:26]	McCabe Maxsted:	yikes
[15:27]	Jessica Kabumpo:	only thing that was responding was Dock
[15:27]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks McCabe
[15:27]	Kippie Friedkin:	I had a few more crashes that usual today myself. I have a feeling that anti-aliasing was the cause though.
[15:27]	Jacek Antonelli:	I get something like that too, Jessica. Freezes up my whole computer for a few minutes
[15:27]	McCabe Maxsted:	aha!
[15:27]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay here's something I've been wondering
[15:27]	Benjamin Linden:	yes, hopefully the stability fixes we're pulling into 1.20 will help with that
[15:27]	McCabe Maxsted:	why does my viewer freeze for about a minute and a half every time I open the texture picker?
[15:28]	Jessica Kabumpo:	about once or twice a week SL takes my computer down HARD, like I can't even SSH in to reboot it remotely
[15:28]	Benjamin Linden:	so I have a proposed topic, which is sort of abstract and brainy
[15:28]	McCabe Maxsted:	my inventory is already cached; so where's the holdup?
[15:28]	Kippie Friedkin:	quantum astrophysics?
[15:28]	Benjamin Linden:	but lately there's been a lot of discussion internally about how cluttered and confusing the top-level UI is
[15:28]	Benjamin Linden:	and what we can eliminate to make it simpler and more streamlined
[15:28]	Benjamin Linden:	this is particularly important as we talk about adding yet more 2d chrome with things like the back button/location history
[15:29]	Jacek Antonelli nods
[15:29]	Benjamin Linden:	the esoteric question is, what is the baseline set of functionality that should be exposed on the top-level UI
[15:29]	Benjamin Linden:	clearly we can't have just an empty screen
[15:29]	Jessica Kabumpo:	also, I have a lot of CrashReporter logs for SL, and SL's reporting app is broken (quit unexpectedly)
[15:29]	Benjamin Linden:	or can we? ;-)
[15:29]	Jessica Kabumpo:	so is there a place we can send in CrashReporter logs manually?
[15:30]	McCabe Maxsted:	I've been thinking about that lately, actually. There's a lot of top level stuff a new user won't need in even say their first week or month in sl
[15:30]	Malbers Linden:	for example, can we get rid of the menu bar altogether?
[15:30]	Stephany Linden:	I'm asking jessica
[15:30]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	well, when you have your im window and your chat window combined (which I always do, one less window to manage when there is no convo) you have 2 buttons (local chat and communicate) that do pretty much the same thing
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	The menu bar? Eeep! *clings to my menu bar* You'll have to pry it out of my cold dead polygons!! .... or provide a viable alternative.
[15:31]	Nany Kayo:	Who do I talk to about this writing tool mess? It is a blocking condition for me in effectively using and creating in SL.
[15:31]	Nany Kayo:	since you seem to be vering that way
[15:31]	Jessica Kabumpo scrolls back
[15:31]	Trinity Coulter:	Benjamin, couldn't you have several options for people, where a click of a button or a dropdown shows different user-centered options, like a chat-focused mode, a build-focused mode, ultimate mode, etc?
[15:31]	Kippie Friedkin:	I love that idea
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	Nany, my suggestion would be to write up a feature request in Pjira
[15:31]	McCabe Maxsted:	really you could junk half the menu bar if you wanted (not including advanced). The hard part seems to me where do you go from the basic bare bones ui that everyone needs in sl, like chat, friends list, inv
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	and provide as much detail as possible
[15:31]	Nany Kayo:	Pjira
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	and other residents will be able to comment
[15:32]	Kippie Friedkin:	UI that centers around the tasks different types of users set out to accomplish
[15:32]	Nany Kayo:	I'll check it out.
[15:32]	Nany Kayo:	thanks!
[15:32]	Trinity Coulter:	yes, exactly, Kippie
[15:32]	Malbers Linden:	right, what is the "bare basic" UI that needs to exist
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	The blessing and curse of the menu bar is -- you can see everything that there is to do, almost
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted:	there's been a feature request for preferences presets for ages for that very reason, heh
[15:32]	Dirk Talamasca:	I agree that althought they are not needed or we may assume they are not needed, when issues arise and THEY DO frequently, the only way to address the issue is to access the advanced tools
[15:32]	Malbers Linden:	or is it based on task (as suggested)?
[15:32]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Mccabe, I'd like us to think about what that "bare bones" set of things is
[15:32]	Nany Kayo:	really nice house...
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	It's definitely not possible to just scrap the menu bar right now -- too many things are accessible only through it
[15:33]	Trinity Coulter:	task might make more sense to people, than just hiding things until people are "ready"
[15:33]	Benjamin Linden:	has anyone here used eclipse
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	But if there were other ways to access those things, then the menu bar would be less important
[15:33]	Kippie Friedkin:	Sure have
[15:33]	Jessica Kabumpo:	would it be possible to move the menu bar out of the client and into the system menu bar for Mac clients?
[15:33]	Benjamin Linden:	it has "views" based on the type of work you're doing (coding, debugging, etc)
[15:33]	Kippie Friedkin:	I develop with Eclipse all the time
[15:33]	McCabe Maxsted:	well if I were to design a bare bones ui it would have the chatbar, communicate window (I've grown used to it! grr), map, and inv. Everything else could be accessed by widgets or shortcuts
[15:34]	Benjamin Linden:	it's interesting to think about "UI overlays" that you could slide across the screen, that would display various types of "heads-up" data depending on what you're working on
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	there is a lot of stuff you don't need to always see
[15:34]	Benjamin Linden:	what about movement controls?
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	like video or music when its disabled, like it is on this parcel; that's wasted space
[15:34]	Stephany Linden:	ok jessica: for manual crash reporting, " create a PJira, tag it with 'crash' (and preferably put 'crash' in the description), and attach the SecondLifeCrashReport.log file"
[15:34]	Benjamin Linden:	we have some data to suggest new users find the movement controls helpful
[15:34]	Stephany Linden:	from our crash hunters
[15:35]	Stephany Linden:	and yes that's a real team here
[15:35]	Kippie Friedkin:	McCabe...agreed.
[15:35]	McCabe Maxsted:	interesting. I've found the camera controls really useful, but have never used the movement controls
[15:35]	Trinity Coulter:	Benjamin, do you mean the little HUD-like arrows?
[15:35]	Jessica Kabumpo:	I was thinking more like the logs from ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/
[15:35]	Benjamin Linden:	yes, that's a good point Mccabe
[15:35]	Malbers Linden:	trinity -- yes
[15:35]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Trinity
[15:35]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hrmm. Movement controls are helpful for new users, but personally I find it a nuisance to have to close them every time I start up the latest RC
[15:35]	Benjamin Linden:	View->Movement Controls
[15:35]	Benjamin Linden:	and View->Camera Controls
[15:35]	Trinity Coulter:	yes, before I knew how to use the camera controls with the keyboard and mouse, i used those
[15:35]	Dirk Talamasca:	I think one thing that can be done is to make it very clear that the advanced tools are only needed in very specific instances. The Advanced bar should not be hidden away in mystery either. The advanced menu could say advanced ON or advanced OFF.. And when the advanced menu is off, anything accessible via keystroke there should be disabled
[15:35]	McCabe Maxsted:	the camera is really one of the ways SL shines
[15:35]	Benjamin Linden:	Jacek hopefully once 1.20 ships you won't have to keep re-closing them
[15:36]	Benjamin Linden:	there's something wrong with the way 1.20 sets preferences
[15:36]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, I noticed that... I've lost my preferences about 20 times this week, switching back and forth between the RC and 1.19 ;_;
[15:36]	Trinity Coulter:	Benjamin, after you get finished with this topic, I have a new suggestion
[15:36]	Benjamin Linden:	Dirk, we were *just* talking about keyboard shortcuts in the advanced menu
[15:36]	Benjamin Linden:	and what a pain they are for new users
[15:37]	Stephany Linden:	if said users are even aware of them (hence part of the problem)
[15:37]	McCabe Maxsted:	it'd be simple too to hide parts of the toolbar that aren't being used on a parcel, like build, although that would mean fixing the bug where parcel owners can't see the build button enabled if build is set to group. You could junk most of the tool bar too if you watned. A short row of icons along the bottom left and right corner, vertical, would suffice (I'd be interested to see how users feel about vertical orientations in sl, actually)
[15:37]	Dirk Talamasca:	Yes there are many instances where they are punched by accident.. Heck I even do it myself if I am surprised by a knock at the door or a phonecall etc..
[15:38]	Malbers Linden:	a lot of new residents accidentally turn on Show Updates cause the hshortcut is easy to hit
[15:38]	Kippie Friedkin:	ha..interesting
[15:38]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes and beacons! oh the accidental beacon turn ons@!
[15:38]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yes
[15:38]	McCabe Maxsted:	see it all the time on help island, and in mentors chat. "help! everything's red!"
[15:38]	Malbers Linden needs to change Show updates shortcut...
[15:38]	Jacek Antonelli:	And how about "Teleport Home"? I must hit that about 5 times a week when I meant to toggle the chat history
[15:38]	McCabe Maxsted:	I realyl think those should be moved into Advanced
[15:39]	Jacek Antonelli:	And I've been using SL for 2 years!
[15:39]	Kippie Friedkin:	lol
[15:39]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:39]	Kippie Friedkin:	It seems all of those menu items could use an overhaul
[15:39]	Jessica Kabumpo:	removing (or at least relocating) the "Release Keys" button. I keep accidentally hitting it when I go for the "Communicate" button
[15:39]	Kippie Friedkin:	There are items in each that could be better grouped
[15:39]	Stephany Linden:	I've done that too jessica
[15:39]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah. We talked about getting rid of "Release Keys", or making a menu for it
[15:39]	Dirk Talamasca:	I'd like to see the beacons just show me right where the stuff is with a big colorful sphere instead of a wireframe box that is not readily visible from a distance
[15:39]	Jessica Kabumpo:	its annoying, because then I drop out of flight, and sometimes drop under the land
[15:39]	Crieti Clip:	loading sucks..
[15:39]	Crieti Clip:	;p;
[15:39]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	use nicholaz! can remove 'release keys'
[15:39]	Jacek Antonelli:	Anything been done about that?
[15:39]	McCabe Maxsted:	http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7060
[15:39]	Jacek Antonelli:	or investigated?
[15:40]	McCabe Maxsted:	I have a jira for everything ;)
[15:40]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe
[15:40]	Jacek Antonelli:	One JIRA to rule them all
[15:40]	Benjamin Linden:	McCabe is a jira quick-draw
[15:40]	Benjamin Linden:	Malbers is working on a project to revamp the viewer information architecture
[15:40]	Jacek Antonelli:	yay!
[15:40]	Benjamin Linden:	we're hoping to make that happen this quarter
[15:40]	Kippie Friedkin:	awesome
[15:40]	Benjamin Linden:	obviously we all agree it's hopelessly complicated
[15:41]	McCabe Maxsted:	a bunch of those realy should be in preferences too (http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-7229 hehe) but that's short term
[15:41]	Crieti Clip:	do you work on the maps ad such benjamin?
[15:41]	Jacek Antonelli:	Oh -- also something that I remember from my menu-hacking days... menu items are the only things that seem to have keyboard shortcuts?
[15:41]	Benjamin Linden:	including the advanced menu there are over 300 menu items!!
[15:41]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not sure about that Jacek
[15:41]	Jacek Antonelli:	I don't think you can even make a keyboard shortcut for a button. I could be wrong, though
[15:41]	McCabe Maxsted:	as far as I know jacek yeah; should experiment with that
[15:41]	Jessica Kabumpo would like "Hide Release Keys button" option in prefs
[15:42]	Jacek Antonelli:	That would definitely need to be investigated and/or fixed before the menus are taken out back and shot
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	and editable keyboard shortcuts have been a must for too long
[15:42]	Dirk Talamasca:	What about making beacons generally used for navigating vehicles popup when you engage a vehicle and hide the others in the advanced menu?
[15:42]	Jacek Antonelli:	(Really, the keyboard shortcuts should be refactored out of the UI elements altogether)
[15:43]	Crieti Clip:	yes, that I would too, I have enough huds cluttering my screen, and at 1280*800 I could use the space yself
[15:43]	Caitlyn Clawtooth:	has anyone ever actually pressed the 'release keys' button on porpoise?
[15:43]	McCabe Maxsted:	never
[15:43]	Trinity Coulter:	you know, it might be just me, but most of these suggestions feel like more advanced user things, and not things your average person would even notices
[15:43]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehe, never
[15:43]	McCabe Maxsted:	it removes useful things
[15:43]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Trinity
[15:43]	Trinity Coulter:	*notice
[15:43]	Crieti Clip:	one thing I'd like to know, is why is none f the debug stuff perminant?
[15:43]	Benjamin Linden:	we tend to quickly move off topic and into advanced user land :-)
[15:43]	Nany Kayo:	haha
[15:43]	Jacek Antonelli:	Good point, Trinity. We should kidnap some users from Orientation Island and interrogate them here
[15:44]	Trinity Coulter:	well, since we're off topic, i'll try and bring my idea up :)
[15:44]	Crieti Clip laughs out loud
[15:44]	Dirk Talamasca:	They aren't until the average avatar mistakenly swipes out a keystroke combination
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	back to the original question, it sounds like there is concensus that we need access to Chat/Communicate and Inventory
[15:44]	Jacek Antonelli:	yes
[15:44]	Trinity Coulter:	one thing almost all new users ask when they arrive is, "what do i do here?"
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	movement controls?
[15:44]	Crieti Clip:	1.20's suck
[15:44]	Malbers Linden:	/looks around for Stephany
[15:44]	Nany Kayo:	thats easy, Trinity
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	Trinity, that was the topic of our last two office hours
[15:44]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes, chat is your main focus, and should be in prominence; it'll be what all users use most often
[15:45]	Benjamin Linden:	what about the talk button?
[15:45]	Nany Kayo:	we talk to eachother, duh
[15:45]	Trinity Coulter:	yes, well i have a simple idea for that
[15:45]	Benjamin Linden:	and the active speakers button?
[15:45]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hmm. Movement controls on by default, but not forced
[15:45]	Nany Kayo:	or try to
[15:45]	Jessica Kabumpo:	I have a chat idea - make it a bit more like WoW where you can adjust the length of time the text stays on screen when you don't have the Communicate window open.
[15:45]	Crieti Clip:	and camera fixed, please..
[15:45]	McCabe Maxsted:	(out of curiosity is there any point ot the talk button flyout? I haven't seen one yet)
[15:45]	Trinity Coulter:	you can do that Jessica
[15:45]	Dirk Talamasca:	make them go away totally if voice is disabled or voice is not available on the parcel
[15:45]	Jessica Kabumpo:	...*meow*
[15:45]	Crieti Clip:	jessica: you can, it's in text chat
[15:46]	Jessica Kabumpo:	O.o
[15:46]	Kippie Friedkin:	the active speakers button is useful so you know who around you has voice. But It's an unlabeled button, so new users aren't sure what it is.
[15:46]	Jacek Antonelli:	hehehe. If Jessica didn't know that, there are other people who didn't either... needs better design :D
[15:46]	Jessica Kabumpo:	then its not an obvious setting
[15:46]	Trinity Coulter:	but Jessica makes a GREAT point... maybe things are too complicated
[15:46]	McCabe Maxsted:	I see talk as a toggle; you really don't need to see it, just need easy access to where you can change it; it could be placed really anywhere
[15:46]	Benjamin Linden:	McCabe, which flyout
[15:46]	McCabe Maxsted:	to the right of talk
[15:46]	McCabe Maxsted:	click the arrow
[15:46]	Benjamin Linden:	the one that shows you which voice channel you're in?
[15:46]	Kippie Friedkin:	It would be lovely to have talk controls fly out like chat when clicked.
[15:46]	McCabe Maxsted:	and a uselessthing pops up
[15:46]	Benjamin Linden:	it also lets you hang up a 1:1 call
[15:47]	Crieti Clip:	um.. if I can be rude to the general public for a moment..
[15:47]	Jacek Antonelli:	How about a "voice" widget, with a big button you can press to talk, and a fly-out list of active speakers? And you can drag it and reposition it... oooh so sexy.
[15:47]	Crieti Clip:	we're supposed to be adults, shouldnt we know how to find information?
[15:47]	Nany Kayo:	let people format their text so you can quickly tell who is talking and visually pick out sections
[15:47]	Trinity Coulter:	what information, Crieti?
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted:	ohhh so that's what it does. Eh, we could get rid of that too!
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted shaves the toolbar bald
[15:48]	Crieti Clip:	anything we need, leaning UI, diferent functions, ext
[15:48]	Kippie Friedkin:	Well...you have to think about the different types of people who interact with computers. Some have manual readers and information seekers...otherwise are intimated and scared to even click a button.
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli:	Crieti: even if you know how to find information, it's not always made easy to find
[15:48]	Jessica Kabumpo:	custom chat colors, like in other IM apps
[15:48]	Kippie Friedkin:	some are, rather
[15:48]	Crieti Clip:	all in text chat..
[15:48]	Crieti Clip laughs out loud
[15:48]	Nany Kayo:	come up wih some kind of persistent messageboard, with subtopcis or subgroups, for group IM'
[15:48]	Nany Kayo:	with a spellcheck
[15:48]	Nany Kayo:	lol
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli:	Nany: sounds like the beginnings of a wonderful JIRA feature request :)
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted:	I love the idea of a voice widget jacek; something that could have a repeated face placed into different interactions, like when you open an IM or chat history,yet could be displayed on its own
[15:49]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'd vote for it!
[15:49]	Nany Kayo:	tech has been around for about a decade now jeez
[15:49]	Trinity Coulter:	I think I might be lost as to what the topic is now
[15:49]	Jessica Kabumpo:	yea, bring the system spell checker into SL
[15:49]	Nany Kayo:	lol!
[15:49]	Jessica Kabumpo:	its annoying to Google something just to spell check it
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted:	hahaha
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted does that too
[15:49]	Nany Kayo:	I want html in chat too
[15:49]	Kippie Friedkin:	UI organization and layout help to reduce the number of questions a person needs to ask...and make any apps usage feel more intuitive and natural.
[15:49]	Nany Kayo:	lololol!!!
[15:49]	Crieti Clip:	I do have a request though. we can all see I am an action player on SL. it would be nice to have a way to hide onscreen popups in mouslook with a butto
[15:49]	Crieti Clip:	button*
[15:49]	Jacek Antonelli:	The topic right now is "Shout out anything you feel like saying", I think. Just a guess :)
[15:49]	Dirk Talamasca:	Perhaps there should be another tab in preferences for the toolbar that allows you to enable or disable what you'd like on your UI at any given time.
[15:49]	McCabe Maxsted:	hahaha
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	thats how IM workde
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	works
[15:50]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Dirk, that would be awesome.
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	its a shout out system
[15:50]	Crieti Clip:	amen to that!
[15:50]	Crieti Clip laughs out loud
[15:50]	McCabe Maxsted:	well, if we had a widget based UI we wouldn't need more preferences
[15:50]	Trinity Coulter:	fresh cabbage!
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	its a pain in the ass too
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	just like me
[15:50]	Jessica Kabumpo:	still, I like the idea of allowing us to use custom colors for our text in chat
[15:50]	Crieti Clip:	I'd also love to recollor the UI, without using HTML
[15:50]	Nany Kayo:	me too
[15:50]	Jacek Antonelli:	Widgets would be nice. Then you could have localized preferences, instead of having one huge monolithic PREFERENCES window
[15:50]	McCabe Maxsted:	there's already a lot of advanced preference settings (and a dearth of some useful ones)
[15:50]	Malbers Linden:	Clip, do you mean you'd like to have fewer things popu up on screen when in mouselook?
[15:50]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Then I could have my #ba55d3 text in SL, too.
[15:50]	Crieti Clip:	I can't write html, but I hate that ugly blue on 1.20
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	what's the keyboard combination for removing ALL the UI?
[15:51]	Trinity Coulter:	alt enter
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ctrl-Alt-F1
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	ctrl-alt-f1
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	yes thanks Jacek
[15:51]	Dirk Talamasca:	alt ctrl f1
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli:	(Don't try it on Linux :P )
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	but chat doesn't work does it?
[15:51]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Opt-Enter toggles fullscreen
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted:	is thatSTILL broken? damn
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	hmm it works but you can't see it
[15:51]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[15:52]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ctrl-Alt-F1 is a system shortcut for Linux. It takes priority over all applications
[15:52]	McCabe Maxsted:	but it'd be a two minute fix!
[15:52]	McCabe Maxsted:	two minutes!
[15:52]	Jessica Kabumpo:	Speaking of fullscreen, is it possible to drop focus while fullscreened, so I could, say, use my browser on my second display?
[15:52]	Dirk Talamasca:	doesn't kill the titlebar if you are in windowed though
[15:52]	Jacek Antonelli:	Two minutes to fix, two months to find what shortcut to fix it to
[15:52]	Kippie Friedkin:	I'm heading out for the night, folks. Great meeting!
[15:52]	Jacek Antonelli:	Take care Kippie!
[15:52]	Jessica Kabumpo:	...*meow*
[15:53]	Crieti Clip:	lata
[15:53]	McCabe Maxsted:	see ya kippie
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	by Kippie!
[15:53]	Kippie Friedkin:	Cheers for now!
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks for stopping by
[15:53]	Stephany Linden:	bye kippie!
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	what about search?
[15:53]	Crieti Clip pulls his bow from his back, gripping it tightly in his left hand, quickly but silently pulling an arrow from his quiver.
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	shouldn't that be on-screen somewhere for new users?
[15:53]	Crieti Clip fastens his bow back onto his quiver, sensing the danger having passed
[15:53]	Jacek Antonelli:	(It used to be Ctrl-Alt-1 I think, but they changed it because that shortcut interfered with non-US keyboards)
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	whoa my menu bar disappeared when I did ctrl-alt-f1
[15:54]	Jessica Kabumpo:	there is a search bar in teh menu - top right corner
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	or maybe it was alt-enter that did it
[15:54]	Jacek Antonelli:	Hehe exactly, Benjamin
[15:54]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ctrl-Alt-F1 -- UI-B-Gone
[15:54]	Dirk Talamasca:	But that can be disabled Jessica
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	no I mean like it won't come back
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	the menu bar
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	everything else did
[15:54]	Jacek Antonelli:	Oh. Neat! You found a bug!
[15:54]	Benjamin Linden:	lol
[15:54]	Jessica Kabumpo:	problem with the search bar in the menu, is some people may not see it
[15:55]	Benjamin Linden:	should the fly button be on-screen?
[15:55]	Jessica Kabumpo:	when I do web development, I use the 5% rule - people tend to not see anything within 5% of the edge of the screen
[15:55]	McCabe Maxsted:	hmm, that's a good question on search. How would users be guided to it? There could be something like the search bar in teh upper right, but actually useful and in a place of prominence
[15:55]	Benjamin Linden:	snapshot?
[15:55]	Jacek Antonelli:	Regarding the search bar -- I'm far from a new user, so I can't speak for them, but... I've never used it, except once to try it out
[15:55]	Benjamin Linden:	how could it be more useful, McCabe?
[15:55]	Dirk Talamasca:	I never use that at all Benjamin..
[15:55]	Benjamin Linden:	or rather, why do you think it's not useful
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	do you think it's because you've trained yourself to use the Search button, Jacek?
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	well the upper right is pretty far away, there's already a far more useful way to search by opening the search floater, and the text field is so small you can only search for really simple things if you wanted to use it regularly
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	it's an odd fit where it is
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	in browsers it'st here because of its closeness to the url entry field
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	interesting point on the size of the field, McCabe
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	in the sl viewer, the placing feels arbitrary
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	I wonder what the average length is for searches
[15:56]	Jessica Kabumpo:	we don't have URLs here, though
[15:56]	McCabe Maxsted:	exactly
[15:56]	Jacek Antonelli:	Partly it's because I don't search that often. Also because when I do use Search, I hardly ever use Search: All. So it's just not useful to me. Plus, I hardly ever notice it's there.
[15:57]	Dirk Talamasca:	Perhaps just making the search button more prominent? Different color, Interesting Icon?
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	we will have URLs with the new location bar
[15:57]	Jessica Kabumpo:	my average search length is about 18 chars
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	which search do you use Jacek?
[15:57]	Kousotu Wingtips:	damn crashes..
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	wow Jessica, that's scientific
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	do you log your searches? ;-)
[15:57]	Stephany Linden:	I'm interested in tab usage - places is the highest statistically
[15:57]	McCabe Maxsted:	here's another thought benjamin, before you have to go
[15:57]	Jacek Antonelli:	Whatever I'm searching for -- if it's a person, I search People. If it's a place, I search Places.
[15:57]	Jessica Kabumpo:	heh, my computer-like brain tends to record some odd stats about my day
[15:57]	Trinity Coulter:	Benjamin, its also the placement, that makes it feel like you have to type less, its like driving on a road where they are doing construction, and you feel like you're about to hit those little walls, even tho the lane is still just as wide, you feel like you have less room
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	why don't you use All Jacek?
[15:57]	McCabe Maxsted:	I noticed that the viewer has UI logging enabled, so you can track clicks etc
[15:58]	Trinity Coulter:	I don't use the Search/All much either
[15:58]	McCabe Maxsted:	have you guys considered a pilot program where people can enter and just ... use the viewer then send you all their clicks?
[15:58]	Kousotu Wingtips is crei
[15:58]	Jacek Antonelli:	I have the impression that it's less useful / relevant results. And partly because I'm an old-timer used to searching with the other things ;)
[15:58]	Benjamin Linden:	yes McCabe we are talking about that
[15:58]	Benjamin Linden:	client instrumentation
[15:58]	Saijanai Kuhn:	all ur clicks belong to us...
[15:58]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:58]	Benjamin Linden:	:-)
[15:58]	Dirk Talamasca:	Places is probably so high because you can now place so much in the description that it behaves much more like a free classified ad
[15:59]	Benjamin Linden:	that might be a good topic for a future meeting
[15:59]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes; the description is pretty much a classified, hehe
[15:59]	Benjamin Linden:	ok folks I have to run
[15:59]	Trinity Coulter:	could I IM one of you Lindens with that idea I was mentioning earlier about new residents?
[15:59]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay benjamin
[15:59]	Nany Kayo:	I missed how you can tell what the topic is. obvioulsy
[15:59]	Nany Kayo:	heehee
[15:59]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks for your feedback, I think this discussion is worth continuing
[15:59]	McCabe Maxsted:	I like this free flowing of ideas style
[15:59]	Jacek Antonelli:	Thanks for hosting, Benjamin and Malbers
[15:59]	Dirk Talamasca:	Take care Benjamin
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	and Stephany :)
[16:00]	McCabe Maxsted:	would be great for a mailing list!
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	haha McCabe
[16:00]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Trinity, that would be great
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yes, IT would be _perfect_ for a MAILING LIST.
[16:00]	McCabe Maxsted:	couldn't resist ;)
[16:00]	Nany Kayo:	is the topic listed somewhere?
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	Perhaps a USER EXPERIENCE MAILING LIST.
[16:00]	Kousotu Wingtips:	one thing I would like to see added, is a mark for land you own, and land you're benned ffrom
[16:00]	Benjamin Linden:	lol yes yes
[16:00]	Benjamin Linden:	we will get a mailing list!!
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	:)
[16:00]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehehe
[16:00]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay take care!
[16:00]	Benjamin Linden:	thanks again everyone
[16:00]	Kousotu Wingtips:	banned*
[16:00]	Jacek Antonelli:	Ciao!
[16:00]	Stephany Linden:	bye!
[16:00]	Rob Linden:	bye all
[16:00]	Nany Kayo:	bye
[16:00]	Stephany Linden:	thanks for coming!
[16:00]	Malbers Linden:	bye everyone
[16:00]	Dirk Talamasca:	Bye Malbers
[16:00]	Kousotu Wingtips:	lata
[16:00]	Nany Kayo:	byebye