Why do so many new players not get the inventory system?

[Orwar]

37 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

SL has 20 years of history on it's shoulders. Including many mistakes that can't be easily repaired.
People have to learn too much in a short time, if they want to do something sensible with SL. So a lot is learned only partly and sloppy.
That will not change any time soon IMHO.

   They don't 'have' to learn 'much' things in a short time, though. Patience is very much a virtue for any aspiring Second Lifer. If people come here expecting some in-between of Minecraft and Fortnite, they've misunderstood, and the platform probably wasn't really for them.

   I've been around for over a decade and I'm still learning new things - but then I also enjoy learning things. SL suits me perfect. 

   That's not to say that SL is perfect, it certainly isn't, and there are times you feel like screaming at LL to ask what the hey they were thinking. But even the doomsayers who've been claiming SL is dying for the past 19 years are still around, so things don't feel like they're that urgently bad. 

   As far as the inventory goes, though - I feel that a person who fails to comprehend how a simple directory system works probably have bigger troubles in life than 'SL is hard'. Perfect? No. Hard? Also no. Could be improved upon? Probably. By copying the UI of some random other video game based on 'is successful!1!'? Err, no thank you.

[AmeliaJ08]

29 minutes ago, Aethelwine said:

I remember being confused at the start trying to find things I had bought. Clothes you might think would be in the clothes folder.... but no not there... in outifts? maybe but no... then look in received items, objects and then find it at bottom in another new folder.

System clothes have icons to indicate what layer they are on... but sculpty clothes, mesh clothes appear as boxes in the inventory just the same icon as well boxes, vehicles, buildings, guns and other stuff. Knowing and living through the SL history I know why it is like that but that is a lot to understand for someone new.

It is so difficult to teach to noobies, I have found it normally takes a few long one-on-one sessions to really get to grips with inventory and all the idiosyncrasies of SL I know the technical answers to most of their questions but I'm not out to bore everyone and that first trip to a store and upacking demos is very often a painful one.

Metadata that encompasses Objects would definitely be useful and it's kinda silly it wasn't implemented years and years ago when mesh became the norm. Lots of little box icons doesn't help anyone. Really it should be something you can set on upload of any mesh item, a sort of required drop down box that tags the Object with one or more tags that would enable all kinds of useful inventory features to exist.

Edited March 18 by AmeliaJ08

[Persephone Emerald]

4 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Metadata that encompasses Objects would definitely be useful and it's kinda silly it wasn't implemented years and years ago when mesh became the norm. Lots of little box icons doesn't help anyone. Really it should be something you can set on upload of any mesh item, a sort of required drop down box that tags the Object with one or more tags that would enable all kinds of useful inventory features to exist.

It would be nice if prim objects, sculpted objects, and mesh objects could each have their own icon, but what if objects of different kinds are linked? Just show the icon for the root object maybe?

[Rowan Amore]

At least with the implementation of inventory preview pictures, every little box can show what is inside if the creator uses that feature.  I've been doing it quite a lot with new outfits, shoes, makeup, etc.  If you have already organized your inventory, it's a.piece of cake to add a pic.

[JeromFranzic]

5 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

It still needs to be there, improvements could be made in how it is (optionally) displayed however.

Nothing to do with DOS either, that's quite a silly comparison.

The SL\OS inventory system seems to function more like one created for a Unix based OS. It incorporates a fair amount of embedded linking and filing, which is still in use today in the modern BSDs, Linux and OS X.

[xXSuicidalIdolXx Candycane]

18 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Lots have people have little understanding of a hierarchical file system these days. Many devices people use every day completely obscure this from the user, many people don't actively browse their storage for things using Windows Explorer etc.

I know I know, of course many people do but the trend is very much towards interfaces that obscure this despite how normal it may seem to people like you and me.

SL is of course reliant on this type of inventory, there's so much stuff. Using SL for a few years will result in an inventory that looks like a hard drive you have been using since the 90s. I find it possible to navigate because I try to organize things and navigating this type of thing is just how I use basically every computer I have ever touched but - and I hate to be this person but I'm going to be - SL is the way it is because it isn't a game. It doesn't work like some people expect it to because it couldn't work the way they expect it to.

They could make improvements certainly (greater use of metadata and tools to sort items using this) but ultimately we need that big ugly hierarchical file system.

 

bravo. that honestly has to be one of the best ways of explaing a second life system at least for me it made a lot of since and you hit the mark trying to explain. its something I will also agree on, it will be easier for those of us who know computers, probably why so many older residents are so passionate about sl because its like that 90s era of computers. filing system. tinkering etc. the way second life works just makes sense to me.

[ValKalAstra]

It's kind of funny that I still think of myself as a new player in Second Life despite being here since the end of 2020. Still, I feel like I can give some input into why people struggle with the inventory as I am still fighting it to this day. After a lot of starting woes, I think I'll break it down to three issues:

1. I'm a dum dum.
2. Inability to rename individual objects due to No Mod.
3. Decades of now outdated systems.

Obviously Second Life can't do anything about the first issue. To be precise, I've got enough knowledge about computer systems to know I barely know anything and I'm the gal that grew up toying with FTP servers, learned to code basic progams using libraries like NLTK or other ML stuff, I crashed computers with Gentoo and just overall messed with things in DOS back in the day. I should in theory be able to deal with it but something about the way it is structured makes it hard to bridge that knowledge. A big part of which is my chaotic scatterbrain. Another part is the inability to rename objects. 

I get it. No-Mod is the name of the game but the inability to rename an object is a killer for the way I would logically try to sort things. Let's say I've got this neat looking top:

RNES Ample Flower Spring ML EXP

I genuinely hope Random Non Existing Store (RNES for short) ain't a thing as I just made that stuff up but you get the idea. Point is, once that thing vanishes into the various subfolders, it's gone. I'm never going to find it again because I will never intuitively look for a top by typing out any combination of the words it is named. My instinct is to rename it to something I can make use of:

RNES Fatpack, Top, Flower Pattern, Open back, Maitreya

Only I can't do that. My options are to rename the folder or to create a notecard and drop it in that folder. Renaming the folder falls apart as I often buy outfits and dropping a notecard increases the already absurd amount of random junk in my inventory further. It can be done but very quickly reaches the point of "Nina can't be arsed to deal with this anymore". This then leads into the issue of decade old systems. It took me way too long to find out all the different ways people named their products over time. Take Maitreya.

• Lara
• Maitreya
• L-Exp
• Experimental
• M

Then there are skins and suddenly it's Evo, Evox, SLUV, Bom, Applier, Omega. You get to hair and start fighting alphas and flexi nightmares and you get the drift. The super cool creativity that has grown over the years and is one of Second Life's greatest strengths is also abit it's weakness as there is a stupid big learning curve to even just learn all the various terms for the same thing and to understand which technologies are outdated.

In short:

• There's a wild growth of different systems and divergent names for the same systems.
• I can neither name, tag or add proper indexable metadata to them properly without weird workarounds and character limits. Heck I might be able to and just never found out how and I looked!

Is it impossible to learn, nah. However it needs a lot of instutional knowledge to get going and systems like no-mod applying to names as well kind of throw a spanner into things. If I were to wish for an update:

I'd create an additional data field for every inventory object and split the name into: Internal, set by the creator and used for scripting purposes, External, user facing, can be set at will. To start off, the system would initially mirror the internal to the external name to cut down on work for creators during the implementation. And see, that's why I am not in charge of coding anything at LL because fuffing with an established database like that is a recipe for disaster and it might even break some legacy code somewhere that expects data to be returned a certain way. So obviously, not an easy solution. I just want the ability to properly add either metadata or rename objects without foldernames or notecards.

And this is where someone goes "but you can already do that, here is how, you dum dum"

[Orwar]

9 minutes ago, ValKalAstra said:

And this is where someone goes "but you can already do that, here is how, you dum dum"

   Yes, sometimes it feels as though things would be a lot easier if we could rename objects (at least within the inventory, I do get that for some people it's important that the brand and product name are there in case anyone scans you to go buy the same thing - which is fair, I guess, although with stuff sometimes being in all caps and total gobbledy*****, meh). My work-around has been to just put the desired name on the folder it's in, my inventory is very carefully structured (particularly my wardrobes) with a naming that just goes <brand name - product name - colour>. 

   So what the heck does the 'Aphrodite Top' look like? That's not a very particular description. Well, firstly, I look at it when I name the folder. Is it a tank top? Then I'll name my folder <brand name -  Aphrodite Tank Top - Black>. Then I also know, this goes into the sub-category of my 'tops' folder, 'tanks & crop tops'. It also means that if I'm wanting to match a pair of high-waisted trousers, that's probably where I'll find something that'll fit, whereas stuff in the 'shirts' folder probably are going to struggle with clipping. If there's a product advert that comes with it, great, I'll use that. If not .. Well I'll put it on and go 'nah' or 'ooh, yes' until I know what the top looks like. I could of course take my own snapshot of it, but at L$10 per upload that'd get expensive fast (although I believe the new FS inventory thing do it locally? I should really update my viewer and go have a try at it), ooor I could do what I once did with my hairs and just rip through the lot and take a pic with each in a local library on my PC so that if I feel I need a visual guide I could go look there ( .. but then I never did! Bleh. Also, keeping it updated .. More bleh.). 

   Other than that, I don't really know what it is people want. An AI sorting their inventory for them? A Create-A-Sims-like studio for getting dressed (which only actually concerns apparel and body parts anyway, it'll do nothing for builds or furniture or gadgets or vehicles or any of the other stuff)? I'm not necessarily shooting down ideas because I'm somehow anti-change, but it feels as if the majority of 'bright ideas' people have to improve SL tend to be quite sh!te if you think about it for a few moments. I also don't think that change for the sake of change is going to magically increase SL's retention. 

[Janet Voxel]

It may have to do with essentially having two inventories: inventory and wearing. You can take things off in your wearing, but at the same time you can take things off and put things on from inventory.

I know when I’m helping the newbies of newbies, they struggle with that. It’s like you almost got it, now take off your shoes! *five minutes pass* They’re like….I can’t find them!
 

Its because they’re looking through their inventory instead of removing it from wear.

[Persephone Emerald]

SL Inventory management is very hands-on, user dependent. Some of the problems for a newbie are:

1. Everything is named haphazardly, following whatever formula a creator decides to use when they make something. A creator might even change their naming formula, such as AK-ADVX or AK-EVOX for the same kinds or heads.

2. Unpacking and folder creation can work in all kinds of different ways, even including unpacking or animation scripts inside the folder. If the package includes No Copy items, the user won't even be able to get them out of the package without rezzing it inworld. Sometimes packages just named Object, so there's no way to know what's in them or even if something is inside them.

3. One of the only consistent aspects is that a folder for an unpacked item will not automatically go into the system folder where it should go. The user will have to drag or cut and paste the folder into a system folder, or else end up with an incredibly long unmanageable list of folders at the bottom of their inventory.

4. It's very easy to accidentally put an item or folder into the wrong system folder or subfolder. It's easy to accidentally delete items and folders too.

5. Items purchased on the SL Marketplace don't even go into the regular inventory, but go into their own folder. This is fine if one knows to look in that folder, but it's easy to overlook.

6. A user needs to rename the folders for their purchases and move them into an appropriate system folder, personally created folder, or subfolder ASAP or systematically in order to avoid having a confusing inventory and being unable to find items. Using inventory search helps for finding items and outfits in a chaotic inventory, but the inconsistent naming of items can defeat this function.

[Arielle Popstar]

7 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Yes, sometimes it feels as though things would be a lot easier if we could rename objects (at least within the inventory, I do get that for some people it's important that the brand and product name are there in case anyone scans you to go buy the same thing - which is fair, I guess, although with stuff sometimes being in all caps and total gobbledy*****, meh). My work-around has been to just put the desired name on the folder it's in, my inventory is very carefully structured (particularly my wardrobes) with a naming that just goes <brand name - product name - colour>. 

   So what the heck does the 'Aphrodite Top' look like? That's not a very particular description. Well, firstly, I look at it when I name the folder. Is it a tank top? Then I'll name my folder <brand name -  Aphrodite Tank Top - Black>. Then I also know, this goes into the sub-category of my 'tops' folder, 'tanks & crop tops'. It also means that if I'm wanting to match a pair of high-waisted trousers, that's probably where I'll find something that'll fit, whereas stuff in the 'shirts' folder probably are going to struggle with clipping. If there's a product advert that comes with it, great, I'll use that. If not .. Well I'll put it on and go 'nah' or 'ooh, yes' until I know what the top looks like. I could of course take my own snapshot of it, but at L$10 per upload that'd get expensive fast (although I believe the new FS inventory thing do it locally? I should really update my viewer and go have a try at it), ooor I could do what I once did with my hairs and just rip through the lot and take a pic with each in a local library on my PC so that if I feel I need a visual guide I could go look there ( .. but then I never did! Bleh. Also, keeping it updated .. More bleh.). 

   Other than that, I don't really know what it is people want. An AI sorting their inventory for them? A Create-A-Sims-like studio for getting dressed (which only actually concerns apparel and body parts anyway, it'll do nothing for builds or furniture or gadgets or vehicles or any of the other stuff)? I'm not necessarily shooting down ideas because I'm somehow anti-change, but it feels as if the majority of 'bright ideas' people have to improve SL tend to be quite sh!te if you think about it for a few moments. I also don't think that change for the sake of change is going to magically increase SL's retention. 

People who may have never tried anything other then SL are probably not aware of how other dress up games handle it like one popular on many are aware of that has an inventory like this:

 

Where at a quick glance one sees and can select the hair that will look best. Included on each of those tiles, one can click a corner to bring up a link to the MP ad, select a drop down menu from which on could theoretically choose style and another for colour. Compare that to having to read the name on several hundred folders to select one and then after opening the folder (if you've remembered how it looked) then have to select the hair, load the color hud if you wish to change it, select and load another hud to change the style.

On the left is a number of other categories and to change to another is fast because it is all loaded into cache already. Up above you see buttons for Undo or Redo so if you selected the wrong hair you can step back to a previous one or conversely step forward to one you tried before. You have a search bar as well as some other forward thinking features that make the SL inventory look like something pre millennial and yet we have some here who think the text based hierarchal type inventory of the SL viewer is the best thing since they invented sliced bread!

 

 

 

 

[Persephone Emerald]

9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

People who may have never tried anything other then SL are probably not aware of how other dress up games handle it like one popular on many are aware of that has an inventory like this:

 

Where at a quick glance one sees and can select the hair that will look best. Included on each of those tiles, one can click a corner to bring up a link to the MP ad, select a drop down menu from which on could theoretically choose style and another for colour. Compare that to having to read the name on several hundred folders to select one and then after opening the folder (if you've remembered how it looked) then have to select the hair, load the color hud if you wish to change it, select and load another hud to change the style.

On the left is a number of other categories and to change to another is fast because it is all loaded into cache already. Up above you see buttons for Undo or Redo so if you selected the wrong hair you can step back to a previous one or conversely step forward to one you tried before. You have a search bar as well as some other forward thinking features that make the SL inventory look like something pre millennial and yet we have some here who think the text based hierarchal type inventory of the SL viewer is the best thing since they invented sliced bread!

Actually, with an increased use of free inventory management pictures for items, it might be possible to show multiple pictures within a system subfolder like in the picture above. 

I sure wish creators would include pictures with their products, btw. Why don't they do this if they already have an ad picture for the product?

Edited March 19 by Persephone Emerald
Spelling typo

[Arielle Popstar]

6 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Actually, with an increased use of free inventory management pictures for items, it might be possible to show multiple pictures within a system subfolder like in the picture above. 

I sure wish creators would include pictures with their products, btw. Why don't they do this if they already have an ad picture for the product?

Because SL doesn't require it?

[diamond Marchant]

What works for me is...

1. Unbox gifts/purchases immediately and delete unwanted items

2. Sort into numerous well-named folders

3. Take a photo of anything I really care about (clothes, hair, christmas trees, pumpkins, etc)  and store on a hard drive... use a thumbnail program to locate stuff

4. Save every outfit in Avatar>Outfits

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

sure wish creators would include pictures with their products, btw. Why don't they do this if they already have an ad picture for the product?

One top hair creator only puts the picture in the demo so you have to remember to move it to the Full product.   Why is it not in both or at the least, in the full.product?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I sure wish creators would include pictures with their products, btw. Why don't they do this if they already have an ad picture for the product?

To be fair, the inventory preview feature is still very fresh, it always takes time for knowledge to spread and people to adapt.

I don't think 98% of people realize that everything - inventory items and folders can have images attached to them.

And probably 80% of that knowledgeable 2% might not have realized that you can add your own picture even to no-modify items.

Edited March 19 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

To be fair, the inventory preview feature is still very fresh, it always takes time for knowledge to spread and people to adapt.

I don't think 98% people realize that everything - inventory items and folders can have images attached to them.

And probably 80% of that knowledgeable 2% might not have realized that you can add your own picture even to no-modify items.

Too bad my understanding is that creators can't include a "preview" attached to the folder, each user must add the preview image to their own inventory.

Anyway, it's nice that you don't have to pay to "upload" that inventory preview photo.

I use it a LOT lately, forming good habits.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Too bad my understanding is that creators can't include a "preview" attached to the folder, each user must add the preview image to their own inventory.

Anyway, it's nice that you don't have to pay to "upload" that inventory preview photo.

I use it a LOT lately, forming good habits.

Just tested it with an alt: Sending a folder to someone with an image attached to it will transfer the image as well. That's how I would've expected it to work too, so that's good!

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Just tested it with an alt: Sending a folder to someone with an image attached to it will transfer the image as well. That's how I would've expected it to work too, so that's good!

Awesome!  Great for an undocumented feature..!

But I assume there's no way to associate it with a folder while "giving" contents of an item, right? (Like if you buy something.)  It would be very cool if they add that capability someday / somehow.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

59 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Awesome!  Great for an undocumented feature..!

But I assume there's no way to associate it with a folder while "giving" contents of an item, right? (Like if you buy something.)  It would be very cool if they add that capability someday / somehow.

Oh yeah, I don't think llGiveInventoryList has any way to include an image. BUT folders will also show first texture in the folder, if it contains one.

Marketplace listings can give out folders with images though... I'm 99% sure. Can't test right now.

Edited March 19 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

BUT folders will also show first texture in the folder, if it contains one.

I didn't see that for setting "default images" (on the official viewer)..maybe it's only that way on Firestorm?

Or did you mean when giving a folder?

 

[Sid Nagy]

52 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I don't think 98% of people realize that everything - inventory items and folders can have images attached to them.

Yes I'm one of the 98%.  I didn't know that.
With my next listing on the marketplace I will certainly experiment with a image attached to the folder.
But I don't think I will adjust all the listings that already exist.
I don't have an extra work fetish.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I didn't see that for setting "default images" (on the official viewer)..maybe it's only that way on Firestorm?

Never mind, I might be confusing some things. I'll get back to you when I have more time to figure it out. 😋

15 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Yes I'm one of the 98%.  I didn't know that.
With my next listing on the marketplace I will certainly experiment with a image attached to the folder.
But I don't think I will adjust all the listings that already exist.
I don't have an extra work fetish.

I was able to add an image to the product folder in the viewer's "Marketplace Listings" window, and it was redelivered from Marketplace just fine.

[CaithLynnSayes]

Quote

Why do so many new players not get the inventory system?

 

 

 

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

25 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

 

 

 

 

 

I blame phones and it becoming the norm that kids  have phones!! \o/

Edited March 19 by Ceka Cianci