A Batch of Hand-Crafted Artisanal UI Changes

[Prokofy Neva]

So, some forums regulars thought I wasn't on point with my comment about Blue Moons and Infinitely Distant Stars, i.e. trivial fixes and additions to the viewer as a placebo for fixing larger issues like search, but guess what, here we are again with a new patch and -- you can't make this stuff up! -- it says:

Viewer UI Project
In the first of several installments, we would like to introduce a small batch of hand crafted, artisanal, UI changes to bring harmony to your Second Life

So the browser viewer has now been first lightly sautéed in a button mushroom and crème fraiche sauce, then poured on toast with pan-seared croutons in Ghee encrusted with freshly-grated parmesan with a sprig of mint and apple shavings. We recommend a dry, white sparking wine with this dish.

When I read a statement like that, I think "Somebody's spent the pandemic on the Upper West Side buying a number and ordering from Stretch Pizza or Pies Upstairs.

Oh, dear. I know the devs have been hankering to tinker with landmarks and there was even talk at one point of eliminating them, and sure enough, instead of fixing search inworld, which has been broken for six months, they've hacked and sawed at inventory search, changing the UI, but not eliminating the problems it suffered from, i.e. slippage of the mouse cursor on exact searches so that you can't stop on the thing you need to reach and require multiple tries -- if you have a large inventory.

And what they've done to landmarks -- I can't believe this!

When you go to a place and save a landmark, instead of just putting it right into the "Landmarks" folder automatically, which was the old behaviour, it leaves that LM sitting up top the viewer, as if you are going to need it again (and can't open your LM folder to find it sorted on top? Huh?). These start to pile up mercilessly.

But don't click on them to try to close them and get them out of the view -- that sends you back to those locations.

So you study the damn thing and realize that now, there is no Xing out landmarks opened, there is "ok" on the area where they are open and you now have the additional headache of having to select "move" to get them off the top of the viewer and into the folder. My God, what were they thinking of?!

I'm not aware of any dialogues with residents or user surveys that preceded these unnecessary changes.

So I'm sitting on a Bellisseria sim with "inventory creation" problems and struggling with this. I don't mind if my cheese is moved, but not if it is irrational and makes more steps.

So I see what it is ALSO doing is putting some (all?) landmarks into "my favourites" although I didn't decide this and put them there nor did I have such a folder; it is now a system folder and it went in there on its own -- even as it it leaves the LM on the top of the viewer as well.

I have to "just know" that I have to right-click on it as if to edit it to see the option "move to landmarks folders" or show on map.

It strikes me that "Saved Locations" at the top of the screen IN ADDITION to the system landmarks folder and ON TOP OF ANOTHER folder called "My Favourites" is just insane overkill, creating more operations and content and more stress on the servers, no? 

Why?

There is also now an eye at the top which gives you the option to search trash. Of course, if you threw it out, you wouldn't need to search it, but sure, why not, let's at form for form's sake with unneeded functionality while not fixing search.

It has "search by creator" now as a function (did it have that before)?  Since I have spent years and years sorting inventory by the name of the item, this is of limited value but I suppose if you can't recall the exotic name of a thing the creator gave it but can recall the creator, that could be useful.

PS Don't click on the seemingly new thing called "Guidebook" which is just the Knowledge Base because you will struggle to figure out how to close it for some minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

what they've done to landmarks

had a little play with the new behaviour of landmarks

menu: World \ Landmark This Place

gives:

 

puts the landmark on Favorites bar which is the default action according to the Landmark location: dropdown list. Press Ok button to accept this

or in Landmark location: drop down box, pick Landmarks which puts it in Landmarks folder (and removes the landmark from the Favorites bar)

or can click "Create new folder" link: Which opens dialog: "Choose a name for the folder". Type in a name and press Ok button. This adds a sub-folder to the Landmarks folder, which can thereafter be picked from the Landmark location dropdown list

i think that the default: Add to "Favorites bar" is probably best for new users, while it does add an extra click (pick Landmark location: Landmarks) for experienced users

best meaning in the context of Linden trying to make the viewer more intuitively friendly for new users. Adding the Landmark to the Favorites bar by default makes it more visible to the new users

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by Mollymews
in typs

[Rolig Loon]

8 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

Adding the Landmark to the Favorites bar by default makes it more visible to the new users

It's also consistent with the way that favorites are commonly handled in web browsers and other apps that new SL residents are likely to have used  before, so it's a logical step toward helping newcomers learn how this place works.

[Prokofy Neva]

11 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

It's also consistent with the way that favorites are commonly handled in web browsers and other apps that new SL residents are likely to have used  before, so it's a logical step toward helping newcomers learn how this place works.

Landmarks were visible just find in a folder called "Landmarks".

A lot of people don't use bookmarks on browsers, that is old-fashioned behaviour.

They just open up a lot of tabs of pages which they reach by typing the page into Google, like "Facebook" or "Twitter".

On Chrome these are remembered in search.

When you make a bookmark on Chrome -- if you bother with that -- it's not always going to be able to stay up top on the view, there are too many.

If you want to help new users, fix search so that there aren't thousands of returns on exact search terms.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

35 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

It's also consistent with the way that favorites are commonly handled in web browsers and other apps that new SL residents are likely to have used  before, so it's a logical step toward helping newcomers learn how this place works.

The essentially problem with this logic and pretense that it is "analogous" is that you can always reach a web page easily by Google. You tend to bookmark a page rarely -- it would really have to be a favourite. You simply don't use bookmarks that much on a browser on the Internet by comparison with how often you make landmarks in SL because you need them to physically go to a location.

In SL, the landmark is not a bookmark and not always a favourite, and most important, it is a MODE OF TRANSPORTATION. That's why the 2D web analogy simply breaks down.

"Here's your Uber," someone says to you when they invite you to a club or an event like Lab Gab. Those sims will be gone in a few weeks so that "Uber" is useless to park forever. It's not a real favourite, yet it went into favourites. It's excessive.

One of the frequent questions newbies ask when they land at the infohubs that I manage is "how did I get here" and "how do I go back there" and "how do I get out of here". They don't always grasp that they clicked on a device that gave them a random landmark and that landmark will bring them back to that location. And they don't know how to go back to that Help Island or to get out of this place where they are when they are done looking at it.  I don't see that it's a solution, piling book marks at the top upper right hand corner, the most important news of the day (the war news is always put there on a newspaper layout). If anything, chat should go up top instead of the bottom to start with.  "Go back to previous location" is what I tell people to look at, as well as landmarks.

I find another constant difficulty with newbies is that they can't find chat, especially to find the link in order top join a group after the click a group joiner.

There's also the confusion and seeming duplication of the name of the location which is at the top -- and the repeat of this name in a space that you don't know is a landmark.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Polenth Yue]

44 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

It's also consistent with the way that favorites are commonly handled in web browsers and other apps that new SL residents are likely to have used  before, so it's a logical step toward helping newcomers learn how this place works.

My web browser remembers the last place I put a bookmark and has that as the default next time I save one. If this is reverting to favourites every time, it isn't working like a web browser, and that'll add to the confusion. Now, if it can be made to remember the last option chosen, I see some uses in the folder thing. I could set a folder for a new event and have everything go there by default until I head somewhere else.

[MoiraKathleen]

I don't have a problem with the new window that pops up when adding a LM, especially because I often put LM's into specific folders within my Landmarks folder, and this new window I think will make that easier (rather than having to scroll to the bottom of the LM, clicking on "Edit" button and then selecting the folder I want to put it into). 

I also like the new LM button on the upper toolbar for opening the "Places" window.  That seems more convenient than the "Places" button on the lower toolbar.

I also noticed, in the Places window that the "Teleport History" tab has been renamed "Visited", which I think is a better name for that tab. 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

2 minutes ago, Polenth Yue said:

My web browser remembers the last place I put a bookmark and has that as the default next time I save one. If this is reverting to favourites every time, it isn't working like a web browser, and that'll add to the confusion. Now, if it can be made to remember the last option chosen, I see some uses in the folder thing. I could set a folder for a new event and have everything go there by default until I head somewhere else.

Why couldn't it just say "Recent" if it must exist?! I haven't made it a favourite, it's just where I am at this moment, and the place may not even exist tomorrow or I may not need to ever go there again. I really think a user interface should not be in the business of making decisions for you about your preferences and forcing "favourites" on you. I also think stacking them up on the top is useless when you have more than one.

[Jaylinbridges]

I just hope Firestorm does not adopt this "change".   Favorites are displayed as Instant TP buttons across the screen top in FS.  I can fit about 25 up there, or more if I rename the LM to something short. I use those all day and night to TP to my favorite sites in one click.  Putting every new LM up there by default would defeat the whole purpose of Favorites, and make searching my Favorites folder a nightmare.  I don't want my Favorites folder to look like my Landmarks folder:

39 Favorites (already too many) vs 2,845 LM's in 66 subfolder in Landmarks.

Change the default new LM to the Landmarks folder SL.  I don't use your viewer anyway - I guess it's only for newbies

 

 

[Solar Legion]

funnily enough, if Firestorm *did* adopt the change .... it wouldn't affect me much. I don't use the Favorites Bar nor do I peruse the Landmarks or Favorites folders in Inventory - I use the Places Floater.

[Prokofy Neva]

Also I'm curious about the process for these changes. I realize that someone at my level will never know they are coming. But do those hardcore fanboyz who go to the Open Development User Group and other user groups know about it?

Did some of them in fact lobby for this change?

The JIRA no longer has the option to propose features, right? (Let along vote on them which was removed by Oz years ago).

What about the Firestorm devs? Do they get to opt in to this or is it sprung on them? Can they adapt it?

Is the entire thing brewed in secret?

[Prokofy Neva]

12 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I just hope Firestorm does not adopt this "change".   Favorites are displayed as Instant TP buttons across the screen top in FS.  I can fit about 25 up there, or more if I rename the LM to something short. I use those all day and night to TP to my favorite sites in one click.  Putting every new LM up there by default would defeat the whole purpose of Favorites, and make searching my Favorites folder a nightmare.  I don't want my Favorites folder to look like my Landmarks folder:

39 Favorites (already too many) vs 2,845 LM's in 66 subfolder in Landmarks.

Change the default new LM to the Landmarks folder SL.  I don't use your viewer anyway - I guess it's only for newbies

 

 

I never look at Places. I keep it parked over on the left hand side and don't drag it to the right side where I have inventory and search which are used constantly. Why? Because it has too many zillions of records in it because I have to go to so many places all day and night as you say. There are hundreds of them and it's pointless to look at them. I have a Landmarks folder with some subsets and I don't need anything else yapping at me from the interface.

[MoiraKathleen]

When you add a LM, this is the new pop-up window:

If you don't want it on your favorites bar, you can select a different folder from the drop-down, and it removes it from favorites and adds it to the folder you selected.  If you click "cancel" on this window instead of "ok" it removes the LM altogether. 

I actually like this, because it's easier for me to choose the LM sub-folder I actually want the LM to go into - I never liked all the LM's just going into the main level LM folder.   I do think for new residents this may be more intuitive. 

[Prokofy Neva]

Just found another annoying "artisanal" touch.

You can no longer click on your avatar to get "groups" in the menu and pull up a group. You have to go to the top of the screen.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 minute ago, MoiraKathleen said:

When you add a LM, this is the new pop-up window:

If you don't want it on your favorites bar, you can select a different folder from the drop-down, and it removes it from favorites and adds it to the folder you selected.  If you click "cancel" on this window instead of "ok" it removes the LM altogether. 

I actually like this, because it's easier for me to choose the LM sub-folder I actually want the LM to go into - I never liked all the LM's just going into the main level LM folder.   I do think for new residents this may be more intuitive. 

Moira,

The problem is that you have to do this AFTER it has automatically made it a favourites. You can then move it, sure, but it's an extra step. 

[MoiraKathleen]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Moira,

The problem is that you have to do this AFTER it has automatically made it a favourites. You can then move it, sure, but it's an extra step. 

You do have to select the folder, true, but that's something I always did anyway, so for me, I don't find it an extra step (and the 'automatic' favorite disappears on it's own if you choose another folder or click "cancel").    You and I have different workflows for how we added LM's, which is one of the reasons there won't ever be a "perfect" viewer where the viewer workflows are exactly what ALL the users want. 

[Solar Legion]

There is no "extra step" here. You tell it to add a landmark, it places it in a temporary location that is only finalized once you've hit the OK button. You control where the actual Landmark ends up and can cancel the whole process and have that temporary addition simply vanish.

[Jaylinbridges]

42 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I never look at Places. I keep it parked over on the left hand side and don't drag it to the right side where I have inventory and search which are used constantly. Why? Because it has too many zillions of records in it because I have to go to so many places all day and night as you say. There are hundreds of them and it's pointless to look at them. I have a Landmarks folder with some subsets and I don't need anything else yapping at me from the interface.

I don't know what Places are**. Must be some SL viewer term.  The Favorites buttons in Firestorm are called the Favorites Bar, and you can turn it on or off.  It uses about 8 pixels of screen rows, and does not yap at you at all.  If anything the buttons are too thin so I might miss one with my mouse pointer, but they are so handy when you must TP all around in seconds to work at different sites in SL as I do.

** Oh, I found Places in FS. It's a window that shows Favorites, Landmarks etc.  Never use it - need 2 extra clicks to let it cover my screen, then search the column and  another double click to transport. No thanks.  One click buttons for Favorites are much faster.  You mean the SL Viewer doesn't have one click buttons?

Edited June 25, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Prokofy Neva]

12 minutes ago, MoiraKathleen said:

You do have to select the folder, true, but that's something I always did anyway, so for me, I don't find it an extra step (and the 'automatic' favorite disappears on it's own if you choose another folder or click "cancel").    You and I have different workflows for how we added LM's, which is one of the reasons there won't ever be a "perfect" viewer where the viewer workflows are exactly what ALL the users want. 

Moira, you can change the folder, but it is not something you can change permanently so it defaults to "Landmarks" on every save instantly and not "Favourites". You have to *keep doing that change* for every save. It goes to Favourites and you have to move it out of there.

Again, I'm not aware of any mass resident demand for changes to landmarks. I'm not even aware of some lobby of geeks who think this is the ideal work flow that got the ear of the devs in the user meetings. But enlighten me. 

[Rowan Amore]

First thing I did was lose the favorites bar.  Frequently used LMs go in favorites.  When I want to go somewhere, I hit alt h to.pull up TP history.  It has the favorites tab right there.  It also has a recent tab which I like too.  I never open inventory to find an LM.  Haven't for years.

[Jaylinbridges]

 No Favorites tab on my Teleport history.  Must be for newer versions of FS.  One Click TP to my most used LM's is faster than bringing up a window, and as my screenshot shows, the Favorites Bar in FS uses very little screen space at the top.

Alt-H brings up Teleport History. From there you can not go to Favorites. 

Places has Landmarks and Teleport History, and Places window you get using the Bottom toolbar button. Still easier to just click one button on the Favorites Bar for me, and off I fly.

 

 

   

Edited June 25, 2021 by Jaylinbridges
corrected first sentence by crossing it out :)

[Solar Legion]

18 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

 No Favorites tab on my Teleport history.  Must be for new versions of FS.  One Click TP to my most used LM's is faster than bringing up a window, and as my screenshot shows, the Favorites Bar in FS uses very little screen space at the top.

Pictured below are the Places and dedicated Teleport History floaters - it is the former that combines one's favorites with the History.

ETA: The present dialog - in FS at least - when you go to add a Landmark shows you the parcel image (if any), parcel information, region information, gives an option to title the Landmark and presently only has two options for where to place it: Landmarks or Favorites. It defaults to Landmarks and has no option to cancel unless you hit the drop down to select either location (meaning that if you hit it accidentally and close out the floater without opening the drop down, you've just made a Landmark anyway).

Yeah, I'll take the new behavior - once it makes its way to TPVs - over that.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Maitimo]

Like @Solar Legion I tend to use the Places floater in Firestorm, I only ever go into Landmarks in inventory when I'm filtering to delete all the ones that accumulate in folders with purchases. Or when I'm sharing with someone else, which only works from Inventory.

It still matters though, because Places draws its LMs direct from the inventory (except for the Teleport History tab, which is what I use the most)

[Rowan Amore]

6 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

 No Favorites tab on my Teleport history.  Must be for newer versions of FS.  One Click TP to my most used LM's is faster than bringing up a window, and as my screenshot shows, the Favorites Bar in FS uses very little screen space at the top.

Alt-H brings up Teleport History. From there you can not go to Favorites. 

Places has Landmarks and Teleport History, and Places window you get using the Bottom toolbar button. Still easier to just click one button on the Favorites Bar for me, and off I fly.

 

 

   

Alt H brings up teleport history but I just noticed it is, as Solar showed, called Places.  Never paid attention to what the floater was called.  You CAN go to favorites from the Landmarks tab.

I have A LOT of places in my favorites.  Having them all squished together in a Favorites bar would make it  (for me) harder to find which one I wanted as they'd have to abbreviate to fit 20-25 places up there.

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Alt H brings up teleport history but I just noticed it is, as Solar showed, called Places.  Never paid attention to what the floater was called.  You CAN go to favorites from the Landmarks tab.

I have A LOT of places in my favorites.  Having them all squished together in a Favorites bar would make it  (for me) harder to find which one I wanted as they'd have to abbreviate to fit 20-25 places up there.

Quantity aside (lots of Favorites!) I've personally always found the Favorites Bar to be ... irritating to say the least.

For the longest time, I used the more vintage looking Firestorm skin, only in the last year or so swapping to the modern look. I still cannot stand that particular piece of continually on screen (when active) clutter.

The above is an Interface inclusive snapshot of my normal screen, chat blurred out (though you can still see a bit of the way I color tings at the bottom - that bit of blue is my own text).

I do not like the Favorites Bar, the newer Location Bar and other such things. I have plenty of things set as toolbar buttons (the things I use the most or need fairly quick access to) and I do keep the Local Chat window open most of the time, along with the Camera Floater.

So uh ... Yeah.