Difficullt start for new participants?

[Paul Hexem]

1 hour ago, Fauve Aeon said:

@Paul Hexemi would take an afternoon and put all my shirts in a folder, sorted further into sub-folders if needed - and inventory thumbnails are supposed to be coming.

That won't make the inventory UI itself any cleaner, and won't help new people. It'll only help me know my shirts are shirts... Which I already know.

 

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

It won't magically make Second Life easy though. It won't even magically make every mesh shirt have a "mesh shirt" icon. It might crash old viewers when they see an asset that has an unexpected field though. When BOM was added it would have been nice to add channels to existing asset definitions, but viewers weren't cooperating.

Which is why updating, adapting, and deprecating is so important.

Also, saying "we can't make improvements, that might break old crap (that should get updated or deprecated)!" is fighting improvements.

[Theresa Tennyson]

46 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Which is why updating, adapting, and deprecating is so important.

Also, saying "we can't make improvements, that might break old crap (that should get updated or deprecated)!" is fighting improvements.

Your point was that the majik shirt icon was "only a net positive." If it requires deprecating older things it can be at least argued that it isn't.

Alright, if we're talking about improvements, there shouldn't be an icon for mesh shirts because the very idea of a mesh shirt is idiotic. I think we should just do away with the entire mesh body industry and have clothing and body meshes combined like most other similar environments. It would solve a huge number of problems and be a big performance boost.

Think anyone would fight me on that? Why should they? Remember, it's me who's saying this and I'm always right.

Or at least as always right as anyone else who posts on a forum.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Theresa Tennyson

[Rowan Amore]

Shirt is kind of generic.  We'd need a multitude of icons for pretty much everything.  Bra, undershirt, shirt, sweater, crop top, jacket, corset, pasties, etc.  Simply having a shirt icon is less helpful than having a description of the item.  That worked fine with system clothing but not so much with mesh but you still didn't know exactly what it was until you put it on.   I do like the thumbnail idea though.  Or maybe merchants could describe the item more accurately?

[Jaylinbridges]

2 hours ago, Christina Halpin said:

Men should get a simple, easy-to-use *****. (I hope Linden fixed that problem, but not as of last year.)

You should submit an LL Jira suggesting LL fix the problem of a hard to use free nus.  This is what the pron bot blocked, right?

Perhaps this is also why so many men in SL are women?  

Edited January 9, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Theresa Tennyson]

14 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Shirt is kind of generic.  We'd need a multitude of icons for pretty much everything.  Bra, undershirt, shirt, sweater, crop top, jacket, corset, pasties, etc.  Simply having a shirt icon is less helpful than having a description of the item.  That worked fine with system clothing but not so much with mesh but you still didn't know exactly what it was until you put it on.   I do like the thumbnail idea though.  Or maybe merchants could describe the item more accurately?

You could assign icons by attachment point - that would also make the "wear and replace" function a lot more reliable. Of course, it would require the clothing maker to not be a slackabones about the attachment point, and/or require a lot of fussy editing by the end user.

[Coffee Pancake]

16 hours ago, Fauve Aeon said:

@Paul Hexemi would take an afternoon and put all my shirts in a folder, sorted further into sub-folders if needed - and inventory thumbnails are supposed to be coming.

Inventory thumbnails is coming from Catznip (we put this in years ago).

It will show images/snapshots when you hover over them, or when you hover over a folder containing only one image.

Most items you buy come with an image of the item in the folder anyway  .. hopefully this feature getting wider adoption makes that practice the norm.

 

We did experiment with previewing BoM clothing later items rendered on the classic avatar body, however we found it less than useful. The generated image was rarely clear enough to be worth the time taken to render and show it. Was easier and faster to wear the thing and remove it.

There is no way to preview objects as to have them render they must be placed in world somehow which has unavoidable consequences. Scripts run and the attachment point used to place the object gets saved (we thoroughly explored ways to get the image, but there was no way around the consequences). This would require some special hacky magic from LL and would be prone to weirdness & breakage just due to how SL works with objects.

Previewing BoM items on a mesh is the perfect intersection of the above two problems .. it will always be quicker to add the item and then remove it.

[Fauve Aeon]

21 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

That won't make the inventory UI itself any cleaner, and won't help new people. It'll only help me know my shirts are shirts... Which I already know.

Since I don’t have the ability to change that part of UI, that’s what I’d advise a new person to do and from what I’ve read, is a common general advice from LL staff + others -  ‘sort your inventory in a way that makes sense to you and keep it in good order from the start (or do it as soon as possible), nesting the folders’.
So that’s what I’m doing and it’s working. 

We can also use rezzed prim boxes, a variety of inventory storage boxes, RLV folders, CTS Wardrobe or other purchased sorting solutions, or Catznip’s thumbnails to assist organization, sort by type, time, maker, etc - I don’t feel we lack ways to organize so much that ‘changed/added UI icons’ would significantly improve the organizational protocol for the majority of users (current or new) - but of course that’s just one person’s opinion.
 

Personally, I don’t think adding mesh shirts to the shirt icon or making a new ‘mesh shirt icon’ would make the UI ‘cleaner’ and I wouldn’t want my mesh shirts to suddenly have the existing shirt icon, because I like being able to differentiate my mesh shirts from system or BOM layer shirts in my ‘shirts’ folder since I often layer clothing, mesh piece over BOM, as many people do. I can currently tell them apart at a glance. Should mesh shirts all have the current shirt icon? If they are tank tops, should they get the undershirt icon? Mesh bras, the undershirt icon? Mesh tights the one for socks? Should waist-tie cardigans have the jacket icon? Or should they all each have a new ‘mesh clothing item icon’, possibly doubling the number of clothing icons? For me that would not be a cleaner UI look or present a less confusing method to new people.

‘unpopular opinion section’ (probably) but true for me - what helped turn the corner on my inventory chaos (as well as improved my SL time management and put the fun back in fashion) most for me was to stop freebie/cheapie chasing. Now I spend more $L but buy less often - spending mostly on more unusual things I’m amazed by - and to cull/box up stuff I didn’t really wear much anymore. After over a decade of virtual shopping, I rarely need anything that qualifies as a ‘wardrobe basic’ unless I find something amazing to replace a piece. These days I’m happy to spend more on tipping than on shopping, to attend more social events than shopping events.

[cunomar]

I lost a boat ?

Maybe it was called something sensible like "zugabob p4" and i'm spelling it wrong ? shrugs who cares its lost and gone forever because i have no intention of rezzing a few thousand things to find it .

What if i have bought about 50 things since then and so if i scroll down through my inventory it might be found in 51st place .

Nah too easy that it would confuse all the geniuses.

[Coffee Pancake]

5 minutes ago, cunomar said:

Nah too easy that it would confuse all the geniuses.

Catznip has auto sorting where your incoming purchases (not inc SLM) can be grouped into folders named by date, month and or location purchased (whatever you like really). Boxes are also unpacked in the same location as the original box. I haven't lost a purchase in years .. 

Not our fault everyone uses Firestorm like its pumpkin spice.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

On 1/8/2023 at 9:56 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Shirt is kind of generic.  We'd need a multitude of icons for pretty much everything.  Bra, undershirt, shirt, sweater, crop top, jacket, corset, pasties, etc.  Simply having a shirt icon is less helpful than having a description of the item.  That worked fine with system clothing but not so much with mesh but you still didn't know exactly what it was until you put it on.   I do like the thumbnail idea though.  Or maybe merchants could describe the item more accurately?

Icon ideas:

👙👚👗🩳👒🍆

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, cunomar said:

I lost a boat ?

Maybe it was called something sensible like "zugabob p4" and i'm spelling it wrong ? shrugs who cares its lost and gone forever because i have no intention of rezzing a few thousand things to find it .

What if i have bought about 50 things since then and so if i scroll down through my inventory it might be found in 51st place .

Nah too easy that it would confuse all the geniuses.

1)  Open the inventory panel.

2) Click on the gear icon button.

3) Turn off "Sort folders always by name."

In other words, one of those scary, scary options in the interface does exactly what you want it to do.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

31 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

one of those scary, scary options in the interface does exactly what you want it to do.

But there's too many scary options! The interface should always do exactly what I want, every time, without me having to ask!

More seriously: A big obvious "Sort-by" button/dropdown would be smart.

[cunomar]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

1)  Open the inventory panel.

2) Click on the gear icon button.

3) Turn off "Sort folders always by name."

In other words, one of those scary, scary options in the interface does exactly what you want it to do.

 

How will that help when i  have no idea what the boat is called ?

[Coffee Pancake]

4 hours ago, cunomar said:

How will that help when i  have no idea what the boat is called ?

 

Even with magical inventories, there is no way to programmatically account for half of the nonsense humans can accomplish. If you bought a boat, binned the containing folder, deleted all references to it, renamed a copy to "sdkljghsdfjkuhg" and deleted the original .. well .. you're sunk, and you did it all by yourself.

 

[cunomar]

I did none of them things , i used it once then just didn't bother with it for more than a year . Only thing i'm certain of is its not called a boat or a yacht or anything remotely nautical .

Its not about me anyway , when a new player tries on something new and doesn't like it ,then wouldn't it be nice if the thing they took off - their last purchase - was right there at the top of inventory .

Incidentally , my inventory system is to remember what its called and type it into the search box because i couldn't make head nor tails of where things went when i was new .

[Lysistrata Szapira]

Weird. I just create a folder called "boats" and shove anything that remotely behaves like a boat into that folder. If I'm feeling really energetic, I will rename the folder anything that acts like a boat came in but for some reason has a whack name that doesn't automatically make one think "boat" by adding, I dunno, the word "boat" to the folder name.  I rename folders all the time because some stores just have this dumb idea to be mysterious about what's in their folders. 

If I don't like something, I delete it. If I do, it goes in a named folder immediately.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

10 hours ago, cunomar said:

Its not about me anyway , when a new player tries on something new and doesn't like it ,then wouldn't it be nice if the thing they took off - their last purchase - was right there at the top of inventory .

That's basically what the mysterious, possibly Satanic "Recent" tab does.

[cunomar]

Lysistrata Szapira 

well done I'm sure you will make somebody a wonderful secretary . My own career kept me outdoors most of my life so i never did learn to type .

Theresa Tennyson

I explained earlier in this thread that a lot of things didn't work for me when i first started because inexplicably i had 5000 odd items in my inventory the very first time i opened it in my first or so of SL . Months later i learned by accident how to clear inventory cache and so things did start working .

I do use the recent tab now because i'm not new but at first stuff was there and then it wasn't - why ?

Oh right i can go into setting so stuff hangs about longer , but again - why ?

Why do i need a recent tab and an inventory when i only own 10 things because im a newbie ?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know how all of these things work so you can spend hours tuning things to your preference at your hearts content . 

Somebody who only signed up to have a look what its all about is not interested in fine tuning an experience they have yet to find .

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 hours ago, cunomar said:

well done I'm sure you will make somebody a wonderful secretary . My own career kept me outdoors most of my life so i never did learn to type .

You evidently enjoy living dangerously, don't you?

[Arielle Popstar]

15 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

That's basically what the mysterious, possibly Satanic "Recent" tab does.

You'd think that is how the Recent Tab should work and yet does not in several viewers. When I log in wearing a combination of body/head/clothes and then either remove or have a certain item knocked off by having added something else, the item removed should be listed in the Recent tab, but it isn't. It would be expected behaviour for the typical newcomer and even you apparently but yet it for some odd reason it does not work like that.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Arielle Popstar
added word

[Arielle Popstar]

On 1/10/2023 at 7:18 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

 

Even with magical inventories, there is no way to programmatically account for half of the nonsense humans can accomplish. If you bought a boat, binned the containing folder, deleted all references to it, renamed a copy to "sdkljghsdfjkuhg" and deleted the original .. well .. you're sunk, and you did it all by yourself.

 

The only magic required would be pictures that one can scroll through to find an item rather than having to rezz out every item that may be the one being searched for. A text based inventory system is simply not an efficient methodology for either the new person or the one with 10+ years and a 50k+ inventory.

[Coffee Pancake]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The only magic required would be pictures that one can scroll through to find an item rather than having to rezz out every item that may be the one being searched for. A text based inventory system is simply not an efficient methodology for either the new person or the one with 10+ years and a 50k+ inventory.

How exactly does having 50K+ pictures help anyone .. aside from it taking for-frikin-ever to load.

SL inventories are much bigger than IMVU. Stop trying to make IMVU happen. It's not going to happen.

[Arielle Popstar]

11 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

How exactly does having 50K+ pictures help anyone .. aside from it taking for-frikin-ever to load.

SL inventories are much bigger than IMVU. Stop trying to make IMVU happen. It's not going to happen.

It doesn't have to load all at once. And never mind Imvu, go look at the CTS inventory system as it somehow allows one to do the very things in S/L that you keep saying is not possible. That should really be default so maybe the Lab ought to consider buying that out like they did with Casper.

[Theresa Tennyson]

58 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You'd think that is how the Recent Tab should work and yet does not in several viewers. When I log in wearing a combination of body/head/clothes and then either remove or have a certain item knocked off by having added something else, the item removed should be listed in the Recent tab, but it isn't. It would be expected behaviour for the typical newcomer and even you apparently but yet it for some odd reason it does not work like that.

Cunomar was talking about something the newbie just bought. What you're describing wouldn't be what I'd expect from a "Recent" tab.

[Qie Niangao]

I always show my Inventory "Sort by Most Recent", "Sort System Folders to Top". I rarely organize inventory more than necessary to keep the top level item count below 10K for folders, which often means simple subfolders named by year. This all works fine for me (but then I never organize email either).

Fine, that is, until I update a body or head or something that's in many Outfits, and "Replace Links" results in all those outfits getting updated in some non-chronological order. That's messy.

Also, at some point I hacked a little script  that monitors changes in what (non-HUD) items I'm wearing and on demand pops up a browser table with the most recent 70 or so changes, in the order they occurred. Apparently I posted the source code at some point because it has my public domain notice from 2020, but anyway it's more a proof of concept than anything real people should be wearing around the grid.