We need better ways to organize our inventory

[Marianne Little]

I feel that it is a never ending battle to keep under 100 000. And now I am over that number again, despite deleting over 1000 items yesterday.

I come to SL to have fun and spend my leisure money. That means my inventory grows and grows. I have too much, but that is what LL want, is it not? You need us to shop. If we never buy new things, what then with the SL economy?

It is such a tedious work. To delete unpacker scripts, I have to filter on scripts and go in every folder and drag the scripts to the trash in another inventory window. It goes faster if I type in the first letters like "unp", the folders open up.

I still have to do it one by one. It is a risk that I drag too much over to trash. A typical folder can contain landmark, landmark to satelite store, unpacker script, thank-you notecard and a texture of the item. Of this, only the texture of the item is worth keeping.

And all the "read me" notecards. Maybe one in 1000 contain useful information. And it can be more than one notecard. It can be one "thank-you", one "how to tint" and one "Copyright". It can be an additional texture with the store logo. It can be a "hold" animation.

And numerous mesh body versions that I have to delete.

I have NO idea how to make a new inventory system. I am not technically capable to say how it should be done.  All I know is that I have to go in every single folder and get rid of junk, unless it builds up.

Is it not possible to get a new inventory window that can show all the things I filter? So all can be deleted in one swap? When typing in names like "Unpack" "Thank you" "Kupra"  "Slink" "GenX". All in one inventory window.

It should be easier ways to store stuff I want to keep. As it is now, I have to box it up. Why not have several inventories if we want? So we do not have to load it all.

It should be possible to open our inventory outside Second Life!

 

[JeromFranzic]

A inventory feature that Open Sim has within many of its hypergrids is a suitcase. This allows users to take a selection of items with them, while teleporting to different grids. It greatly reduces lag. The suitcase also makes it easier to change outfits at will.

It's labeled as My Suitcase, and it works with all of the Open Sim compatible viewers. Right now, that includes Firestorm, Cool VL and Genesis.

Edited October 20, 2023 by JeromFranzic

[Arielle Popstar]

In my opinion making the Inventory user interface more user friendly is the single biggest factor that would have a positive impact on the low user retention rate experienced by Second Life. That the Lab has not significantly touched it in 20 years in spite of that leads me to suspect that someone somewhere in the Lab just doesn't have a clue. I agree too that it would not be hard for the Inventory to be opened outside of the Viewer in a web page and manipulated from there, making the Inventory much easier to manage. In other SL clone platforms there are distributions that actually have that already like this though it could be taken further:

 

Even wearing and unwearing from the inworld avatar would be doable as the MP Wardobe app can do using the RLV functions. It would be childsplay for this to be default and accessible to everyone. It really is a wonder the Lab doesn't do this as it would have a much greater impact for residents then these other ideas they come up with and spend years perfecting like PBR, EEP etc that are only of benefit to a small segment of the populace.

[Marianne Little]

I suspect that employees in LL never think of Second Life as fun, just as a job. They have one outfit they wear at work inworld, and never need to make folders, throw out heaps of notecards, or look for a gown they bought in 2018.

[Rowan Amore]

New users HAVE no inventory per se so I'm not sure how that would impact new user retention.

[Orwar]

   I've managed to go from roughly 13,000 to 11,000 today. Still got a bunch to sort through though, I may have taken a little hiatus from keeping my inventory clean for .. A year or three. But then I do most of my shopping on my alts, 'cause of the whole .. There actually being stuff to wear.

[Nalates Urriah]

Reading through the forum and searching the blogosphere you'll find numerous tutorials and recommendations for organizing inventory. Some are good ideas and some are INCREDIBLY tedious.

SL inventory is essentially unlimited. However, there is a technical limit that depends on the computer and connection speeds. On average with current speeds, we are limited to about 5,000+/- items per folder. But you can put 5 folders in a folder allowing the top folder to sort of contain 25,000 items. So there is never a hard limit on the total number of items. So I see no point in cleaning out inventory just to keep the numbers down.

A large inventory has an impact on startup time and a minor effect on memory use. Both are small enough that it just is not an issue. See how long it takes your main AV with all their stuff to log in, 80k in my case. Then try with a poor neglected Alt with a bare inventory (6k). For me, it is a VERY small difference. I am not going to spend a day to save maybe 10 seconds at log-in.

That soft 5k limit per folder does mean we must organize to stay within the limit. Discarding things we know we'll never use is reasonable. But taking a day to find those items I consider a waste of a day. I also think it silly to put off organizing and letting things pile up. So when I buy something it goes in a "New Stuff" folder. When I open an item to use it, I file the box and item in places for those types of items. I stay well organized and generally know where to look for things.

Basically, I spend a few minutes organizing when and after shopping. So I no longer spend days or hours dealing with inventory management. Small doses.

Having the Lab change how inventory works would likely mess me up. So I like things as they are. 😳

One can get more inventory management tools by using the Catznip Viewer.

As to user retention... that has been studied by numerous researchers in various fields. The primary factor in retention is user interaction with other users. That single factor is far ahead of any other factor.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

New users HAVE no inventory per se so I'm not sure how that would impact new user retention.

I guess if most "new users" are Alts, then you get less "new users" if they never figure out inventory...?

[Arielle Popstar]

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Edited October 20, 2023 by Arielle Popstar
whatever

[Casidy Silvercloud]

I just ctrl highlight, right click, delete (or hit delete on keyboard) in a single window. 

A good example is when I go to a store and get a bunch of their freebies. A lot of times, the packages have lms in them. I don't need five hundred of that, or even one, I can find the place myself, lmao. So I type in the name of the place (or whatever I'm deleting), in the drop down select only lms, and then bam, all the lms, within the folders are right there. I just go down the whole inventory ctrl and clicking each one as I go, then delete. If I feel I've highlighted too many or I'm a bit laggy, I hit delete before moving on to the next batch. I do the same with scripts, notecards and anything else. Sometimes I don't have a specific thing to search so I just go with notecards in the dropdown, scroll through them quickly to see if necessary. If not into the trash they go. It's how I've done things since day one. 

I have never dragged anything to the trash folder, or opened two windows to delete things. Even if I'm just deleting one item, I either right click and delete, or highlight and delete on keyboard. Either way works fine and doesn't require me dragging anything (potentially grabbing anything else in the drag, my mouse being the peculiar rodent it is). Before I empty the trash folder I double check to make sure I didn't chuck anything I want to keep. It takes me almost no time at all, and I have a pretty big inventory atm, bigger than it should be for sure.

I do think there are better ways to sort inventory and make it more user friendly, but deleting things isn't something I'd consider user unfriendly, it's pretty straightforward and has been since at least when I joined. Other parts of inventory are definitely not user friendly, but I too don't have the answers for that. 

[Arielle Popstar]

5 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

New users HAVE no inventory per se so I'm not sure how that would impact new user retention.

They have the Library folders. Manipulating those and wearing items from there is already not so intuitive. Would have been lovely if they had of included an actual picture of the avatars it contains instead of having to wear each one to see what it looks like.

[Arielle Popstar]

6 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Reading through the forum and searching the blogosphere you'll find numerous tutorials and recommendations for organizing inventory. Some are good ideas and some are INCREDIBLY tedious.

Yes there are plenty of hacks, tutorials and workarounds to make up for what the Lab failed to make more intuitive to begin with. Why does every folder and file just get dumped to the bottom of the inventory rather than being given a choice to where it goes as opposed to relying on the drag and drop method used? Might have been fine in early days but surely they could use a little better methodology in 2023. 

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I also think it silly to put off organizing and letting things pile up. So when I buy something it goes in a "New Stuff" folder. When I open an item to use it, I file the box and item in places for those types of items. I stay well organized and generally know where to look for things.

Sure one should start doing it immediately but fact is many don't know how to start with it at the beginning and neither realize this isn't being done by default as is common in other worlds. Whether one does it piecemeal or in a long drawn out session of organizing, there is a considerable amount of time one has to spend sorting it all. Operating systems nowadays have a "move to" function allowing one to dictate where a new item or folder should go if not by default, rather then having to search the inventory for the file or folder and then drag and drop it to its desired location.

 

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Having the Lab change how inventory works would likely mess me up. So I like things as they are. 😳

You been here a long time and had the advantage of learning the inventory system when it was much simpler then it is today plus had the time to read up and experiment with different tutorials and workarounds. How about those of us who simply don't have the time to spend on all of this and treat it like a full time job?  Why would you object if they made it easier? I would venture you would have many more ideas on what could be done to make it simpler. Surely there is better workflows to not make inventory management such a tedious and frustrating experience.

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As to user retention... that has been studied by numerous researchers in various fields. The primary factor in retention is user interaction with other users. That single factor is far ahead of any other factor.

Then why have these ideas not been incorporated because I am not seeing any overall increase in concurrency. Is it possible the experts are wrong?

Edited October 20, 2023 by Arielle Popstar

[PheebyKatz]

Realize, of course, that having saved outfits (even if you haven't copied all of the items for each) counts in your inventory tally. Each and every item linked and saved in an outfit counts as another separate item.

Every time I see my inventory is over 15,000, I look and see what outfits I have saved that I don't really bother wearing anymore, and when I get those cleared out, I'm back in the 14,000s, which is fine.

Bear in mind also, that it's really easy for stuff to just pile up, and for copies of things to stray and add to the count.

As for a better way to organize, well, do you need someone to do it for you? I don't see a need. Just make folders and subfolders, put things in the places they seem to go best, and you're organized. If they did it all for us, there would be something wrong with it, and everyone would be complaining about that, too. It's bad enough when I check my Received Items folder for something that got sent to my Objects folder.

An example of how I organize my stuff: my Body Parts folder has subfolders in it for avatars, pieces parts that go with more than one kind of avatar, and old stuff I never use anymore but want to keep. My Clothing folder has subfolders for each of the avi bodies I keep a wardrobe for, a folder for BoM layers and things that go with multiple avatars, etc. My main avi body's subfolder has all of the clothing arranged in subfolders too: Tops, Bottoms, Delicates, Full-Body, Footwear, Dresses, and such.

Below the system folders, I have folders named Attic, Playroom, Garage, Footlocker, Closet, Workshop, etc. I'll bet you can guess what these folders are used for. I would be ashamed of myself if someone asked me about my motorcycle or some ordnance, and I couldn't find anything for them right then and there!

When I get anything new, I sort it. After that I always know where everything is.

And it helps that I take anything I never really use and shove it all into big boxes, and store them in my Backups folder. That turns hundreds of items at a time into a single object. Just have to remember not to delete the backup boxes, and take them out now and then and look inside them to see if there's anything in there that I want back currently.

Edited October 21, 2023 by PheebyKatz

[Marianne Little]

It is only a matter of preference if I drag from one window to another or right-click and delete, I have done both. After that, I found out what feels faster for me. Select and right-click and delete is not failproof either, if it is a risk to delete too much.

It is that I have to go into every single folder and do it, that I feel is unecessary.

Can we not have the opinion, to show all we search for in a separate window, so it can be deleted in one go? Like I said, filter for scripts named unpacker.

And not only to delete, but to sort in new folders.

I search the name of a store or a product. Like Kraftwork or boots - all found by that search come up in a separate window, and I can make a folder of them directly, without going folder by folder, item by item.

It would be so much faster to create new folders.

All the worlds tips and tricks does not change that it takes time. It is boring, it suck up my time. To delete 1000 notecards I have to do the same action 1000 times.

To make more folders/subfolders, yeah, great idea! I do it tomorrow... I work hard on it two hours and I have just done a little bit.

And you know what's the worst? I do this already. I have many folders and subfolders in them. I have folders for furniture and subfolders for each store in that folder, I have other subfolders for the boxes it came in, just in case I must rez a new item. Same with accessories, boots, shoes, makeup, hair, bodyparts I don't use but will not throw away.

I delete thousands of items seveal times, every year. If I did not, I bet I would have had a million now. I am not joking.

I t is so slow and tedious the way it works. Every time I have worked on my inventory, I get so frustrated.

Perhaps Firestorm developers can make more options for the inventory?

 

[PheebyKatz]

54 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Can we not have the opinion, to show all we search for in a separate window, so it can be deleted in one go? Like I said, filter for scripts named unpacker.

I could totally fall in love with something like this, especially if you could see all of them, select all but one, and then just poof all of them. Like, click on something and have a menu entry for Find Duplicates. That would be amazing.

[Conifer Dada]

My inventory hovers around the 11,000 to 12,000 mark, which isn't huge but my ambition is always to get it below 10,000.

The one big thing that would make my use of inventory easier would be to allow sub-folders in "My Outfits". That used to be possible - I still have a few subfolders as proof, but it's not possible any more. 

[Arielle Popstar]

58 minutes ago, Conifer Dada said:

The one big thing that would make my use of inventory easier would be to allow sub-folders in "My Outfits". That used to be possible - I still have a few subfolders as proof, but it's not possible any more. 

You still can in Cool viewer and a couple of other tpvs other than firestorm. If you create the subfolder in Cool you can see it in firestorm and the official viewer but if you wear that outfit that is in the subfolder, in appearance it'll be titled as no outfit. 

[Lord Pole]

Counting links as actual items falsely inflates inventory item counts. 
 

I know that some 3rd party viewers do not include links in the inventory item count - that’s a good idea. 

[Ceka Cianci]

19 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I suspect that employees in LL never think of Second Life as fun, just as a job. They have one outfit they wear at work inworld, and never need to make folders, throw out heaps of notecards, or look for a gown they bought in 2018.

I think there is a few of them that were members before they were lindens, Like Strawberry for instance..  I remember watching her videos and being like, how did I let my inventory get such a mess.. LOL

It took me a good bit to finally get mine organized and I am still just really bad at keeping it as clean as I would like.. If second life was my job I know mine would be in a lot better shape than it is.. It's so easy to just let it go and become a disaster again..

I've been looking into that RLV wardrobe thing and thinking of just doing that and really just getting rid the things that I never use anymore and putting their boxes in the dresser addon for that..

I need some kind of visual on my inventory items, which I know they are getting soon.. But still have to wait for that to come to the third party viewers..

[sirhc DeSantis]

Dear SL Inventory

I have been a Resident for 16 years but only have 50k - what am I doing wrong?

Signed 'am I doing enough - concerned'

[Flea Yatsenko]

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z

There were a lot of articles talking about how younger people had problems understanding files and folders because they grew up on search. Older people grew up when search was terrible or didn't even exist, you had to organize your files because search was super slow or missing and didn't work half the time. But with iOS and Android you don't even really use folders other than selecting a place to give permissions for an app to read and write to.

Just my two cents but a simple directory tree layout that the inventory browser uses is totally foreign to a lot of people. There are a bunch of articles covering this subject, and the only criticism people seem to have is "I know lots of older people that don't understand folders and files either."

People's inventories become a mess because they don't organize. I do it too. Nothing wrong with people who do that. It's just that the structure and behavior or folder based inventories cause problems. SL has always attracted more tech affluent users, and even those "well above average" users struggle with a lot of stuff in SL. I hope they do something cool with inventory for the mobile viewer. It's far from ideal in the mainline viewer but I think if it were changed it would make a lot of people frustrated.

[Casidy Silvercloud]

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

It is that I have to go into every single folder and do it, that I feel is unecessary.

Can we not have the opinion, to show all we search for in a separate window, so it can be deleted in one go? Like I said, filter for scripts named unpacker.

I think I understand now. I guess I never really pay attention to the fact that they're all in individual folders, because they just all pop open and I do it so quickly it's become second nature for me to not even notice the folder they're in. I just scroll through, highlight, delete and keep moving.

I just had to do this back in the summer when I went a little crazy after getting the atenea body and gathered up as many freebies as I could find in just a short time (my first mesh body it was fun). It was madness and my inventory easily grew by 10s of thousands in that time. So I had to go through and delete all the bodies I didn't need, lms, ncs, scripts. I can see why that would be very tedious at times. I just run through the process so fast, I probably don't even notice how irritating it might be for some people. 

If they all popped up in a new window, for whatever reason people needed, deleting or organizing, I can see where that could be very helpful. 

[Eowyn Southmoor]

Not sure about other viewers, but in Firestorm you can type something in the inventory search bar (like "Unpacker"), then filter it by scripts.. and bam,  that's all it will show. You can then use ctrl+click or shift+click to select groups of those displayed items you want to delete and then delete them.

It's not very labour intensive at all, unless you've just let your inventory build up into a giant mess for 6 months and have hundreds of these items to delete.

Maybe it's not so much an inventory issue as it is a creator issue, supplying too many un-needed items with each purchase. 

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Eowyn Southmoor said:

Maybe it's not so much an inventory issue as it is a creator issue, supplying too many un-needed items with each purchase. 

   Outdated landmark, check.

   Texture of the store's logo, check.

   Notecard with outdated CSR contact info, check.

   Alphas that don't actually fit because they figure bodies use the same UV maps and therefor must be universally applicable, check.

   The unpacker script from the box, check.

   A boxed backup in case you mess up (even though the box you just unpacked serves just that purpose), check.

   A random holding animation that deforms your avatar so that you'll need a skeleton reset when you wear the box to unpack it, check.

   The script to run said holding animation when attached, which also gets unpacked, check.

   A sound file to play a little fanfare when you unpack the box, check.

   And a script to run that sound file, check.

   An attachable prim with a script to give you a subscriber link, check.

   An attachable prim to ping their delivery system for updates to the product, check.

   .. But did they include the advert picture for the product so that you can quickly see what it is without having to wear or rez it? Nope!

[Love Zhaoying]

50 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Outdated landmark, check.

   Texture of the store's logo, check.

   Notecard with outdated CSR contact info, check.

   Alphas that don't actually fit because they figure bodies use the same UV maps and therefor must be universally applicable, check.

   The unpacker script from the box, check.

   A boxed backup in case you mess up (even though the box you just unpacked serves just that purpose), check.

   A random holding animation that deforms your avatar so that you'll need a skeleton reset when you wear the box to unpack it, check.

   The script to run said holding animation when attached, which also gets unpacked, check.

   A sound file to play a little fanfare when you unpack the box, check.

   And a script to run that sound file, check.

   An attachable prim with a script to give you a subscriber link, check.

   An attachable prim to ping their delivery system for updates to the product, check.

   .. But did they include the advert picture for the product so that you can quickly see what it is without having to wear or rez it? Nope!

Adding: original box, folder created by unpacking, empty box once unpacked, and actual item all have the exact same name.