Why is the UI so crappy?

[Anna Carlberg]

Hello all,

 

When 8 months ago my laptop broke I have buy a new one a gamelaptop. But I must than download viewer 2.

At first I did know what happen to me it was so weird all. Iam playing SL since 2007 and only using the viewer 1.

But I thought I must try it nothing stay the same, so go for it. Now 8 months further it gives me still sometimes

headache. Still there are things that I cannot find. Iam not a technical person and properly more people are not.

They want play a game and want not have all kind of technical issues. Many has say to me go to another viewer.

But after all those months I get use to it. But there are some things I really don't understand in viewer 2 and 3.

I find everything slower. I have special bought a gamelaptop very fast one and have also a very fast connection, also the upload is fast. Iam playing role play and fighting with swords. But it is still not become faster. So I have stop that. Than I have go learn bowshooting become faster and faster, discover filming. But I find the screen not smoothly with filming so I have buy in July spacenavigator. It has work great. But than I get a upload 2.8.3 spacenavigator did not work more. The movie was not longer smoothly. In ultra I crash or could not move. So I have ask advice here. They could help me with that ultra issues but not with spacenavigator. Than I get an upload of viewer 3. But now I have more problems. Bowshooting is become slow when I come onlineIam a cloud for long time it take  along time before everything is raise. That was not before! I have the feeling that by every upload the viewer become for me worse! The screen is not steady more. And I know everyone would say my connection is not good or my laptop. But my drivers are uploaded I have even call HP they have take it over from distance to watch and install the latest driver for my graficcards. All my problems are started with that viewer 2.8.3. Many of my friends are going play other games like lords of the rings, I have myself also download that game. And I like sl a lot! I have learn a lot of sl. Learning building, texture, filming ,edit films, English. Iam now learning German. It is great game! But lately Iam only looking at forums to try to resolve my problems and I don't like that. I want play and have fun! So I think I must go for another viewer and hope I find my fun back for sl.

pffffff sorry I think I wrote too much :matte-motes-wink:

 

Bye Bye,

Anna Carlberg,

[Yoki Enoch]

---

Deej Kasshiki wrote:

Holy hell what's with the people who take it so

personally

when anyone says v2 ain't all rainbows and ponies and lollipops? You think it's perfecto, swell. Use it and enjoy. Why is it so hard to accept that a major portion of the userbase (over half) prefers something else and isn't cowed into keeping quiet about it?

No need to come into these threads spewing hate by telling residents to GTFO, build their own software and all that other nonsense. It would be one thing if someone was deliberately spreading patently false information and you wanted to "set the record straight" but, this is someone's opinion and as such just as valid as yours (especially when they can provide legitimate examples as to what they see as flaws in design).

Did you guys forget that Philip, Esbee, Q and now Rodvik Linden all basically apologized for the lack of resident input during v2 development and the major flaws that occurred as a result?

Or are they just "haters" too?

You guys want tolerance and choice? How about practicing what you preach?

 

---

This is what I do not understand. If LL has apologized for not getting resident input for the development of V2, why is it that LL seems still be ignoring resident input continually as a standard in this area? The developers of the TPVs seem  to thrive on user input and develop their viewers accordingly, whereas LL gives the appearance to regarding SL residents as being not even worthy of contempt.

[Miyo Darcy]

---

Keli Kyrie wrote:

You do know you can change you User Interface using

Starlight Skins,

don't you? You can even get rid of the sidebar.

 This is Viewer 3 using

Starlight.

.

---

Still looks completely horrible. I would not play with it. Exspecialy on top... I wonder why there are more them 4cm lost for the UI on top. This could be much smaller.

Also all the transparency would annoy me. I hope you can disable it.

 

[Deej Kasshiki]

Spewing hate? Oh I dunno, look at the gigantic font moronic diatribe above yours?

Also, try reading my very first post in this thread. I think it was more than fair.

Anyway I'm done with this insanity. You guys enjoy your kool-aid and your dying MMO.

[Tristizia Demonista]

Does the word "Preferences" mean anything to you?

A lot of your complains here are easily fixed by checking something here or unchecking something else!

Big and chunky ? I'm sorry but i really can't follow you here, otherwise if we have different opinions about the size, again, go to Prefs!

And Hair attaching to somewhere it doesn't belong to, that seems like a problem of some TPV Feature (like Multiple attachment stuff) not porting over to Official Viewer (or even newer TPV's). 

 

[Tristizia Demonista]

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

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Tristizia Demonista wrote:

Then they better come up with something that let's the User CHOOSE which interface he/she want's to use. 

---

They do.  It's called "fork the code and make your own UI" and preferably "submit a patch back to the Lindens."  The viewer's open source:  If you're complaining that it sucks, and not doing anything about it, you're part of your own problem.

---

Sure next time i try some kind of Software (after reading the fine print), i will of course first take some programming lessons.

Wouldn't have found out , if didn't point this out so kindly!  

[Keli Kyrie]

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Miyo Darcy wrote:

---

Keli Kyrie wrote:

You do know you can change you User Interface using

Starlight Skins,

don't you? You can even get rid of the sidebar.

This is Viewer 3 using

Starlight.

.

---

Still looks completely horrible. I would not play with it. Exspecialy on top... I wonder why there are more them 4cm lost for the UI on top. This could be much smaller.

Also all the transparency would annoy me. I hope you can disable it.

 

---

Yes you can make the top smaller. That is set at 1.0 you can go all the way down to .75 and as for as the transparency goes that is set at about %65 you can make it so there is no transparency at all if you want.

[Ishtara Rothschild]

---

Keli Kyrie wrote:

Yes you can make the top smaller. That is set at 1.0 you can go all the way down to .75 and as for as the transparency goes that is set at about %65 you can make it so there is no transparency at all if you want.

---

I found that it helps a lot if you hide the favorites bar. But I can't warm up to all the cryptic icons and hieroglyphs, which used to be buttons with easily readable captions in plain English. And the IM window is a mess, imho. No skin or third party dev team seems to be able to fix it.

Not to mention the crashes... v2/3 works fine for some people, but others crash three times per hour. The interface reacts more sluggish too compared to v1. In an interview with Tateru Nino, Rodvik didn't seem to be aware of any of these issues. He leads a very shielded life at the Lab, apparently, so I doubt that these things will ever be fixed.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

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Ishtara Rothschild wrote:

I found that it helps a lot if you hide the favorites bar. But I can't warm up to all the cryptic icons and hieroglyphs, which used to be buttons with easily readable captions in plain English. And the IM window is a mess, imho. No skin or third party dev team seems to be able to fix it.

---

The icons approach is adopted by StarLight and the TPVs Firestorm and Kirstens - Viewer 2/3 keeps them as words as that will undoubtedly be easier for new users.  Many other games adopt the same icon (with hovering tooltip) approach on complicated interfaces.

There does seem to be a disconnect between the experience that LL staff have with SL and that of ordinary residents - sometimes I think this may be because their equipment/technical knowledge/usage/connection is not typical of SL residents.  And it may help being a lot closer to the servers too.

[Baloo Uriza]

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Yoki Enoch wrote:

This is what I do not understand. If LL has apologized for not getting resident input for the development of V2, why is it that LL seems still be ignoring resident input continually as a standard in this area?

---

Because feedback for open source projects depends on people sending in patches.  You're not sending in patches.

---

Yoki Enoch wrote:

The developers of the TPVs seem  to thrive on user input and develop their viewers accordingly, whereas LL gives the appearance to regarding SL residents as being not even worthy of contempt.

---

Because the TPV developers are receiving patches.  Maybe you should convince your favorite TPV developer to give their upstream (the official SL viewer) some love as a thank-you for supplying their initial codebase.

[Baloo Uriza]

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Tristizia Demonista wrote:

---

Baloo Uriza wrote:

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Tristizia Demonista wrote:

Then they better come up with something that let's the User CHOOSE which interface he/she want's to use. 

---

They do.  It's called "fork the code and make your own UI" and preferably "submit a patch back to the Lindens."  The viewer's open source:  If you're complaining that it sucks, and not doing anything about it, you're part of your own problem.

---

Sure next time i try some kind of Software (after reading the fine print), i will of course first take some programming lessons.

Wouldn't have found out , if didn't point this out so kindly!  

---

I know you're being sarcastic, but you do have the right idea.  The best programmers tend to be self taught and learn at their own pace.  Khan Academy has some starter courses, but I strongly suggest browsing archives and lurking on mailing lists about the languages you're specifically working with.

[Canoro Philipp]

they do, some TPV developers send patches to the official viewer, contribute in Jiras, and Linden Lab work with them to backport features.

Rodvik Linden said that he checks third party viewers, and he ask permission to the third party viewer developers to implement the features LL likes in the official viewer.

[Yoki Enoch]

---

Canoro Philipp wrote:

they do, some TPV developers send patches to the official viewer, contribute in Jiras, and Linden Lab work with them to backport features.

Rodvik Linden said that he checks third party viewers, and he ask permission to the third party viewer developers to implement the features LL likes in the official viewer.

---

If that is the case, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, why are the Linden produced viewers still so poor? Even some newbies, when they are exposed to TPVs, are wondering why the official Linden viewer is so bad.

[Baloo Uriza]

---

Canoro Philipp wrote:

they do, some TPV developers send patches to the official viewer, contribute in Jiras, and Linden Lab work with them to backport features.

---

If these people aren't getting special thanks in About Second Life, they should.  This is wonderful news!

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Canoro Philipp wrote:

Rodvik Linden said that he checks third party viewers, and he ask permission to the third party viewer developers to implement the features LL likes in the official viewer.

---

Excellent!  This is definitely good news.  One thing that would help, then, is if the TPV developers would consider innovating in the UI as well, rather than adding spokes to the same wheel.  Surely, something closer to what the users expect would be in order.  I have noticed the Wine community has gone a long way in their efforts to make their software easier to use, so it's not like casual coders can't get things into various projects.

 

 

[Baloo Uriza]

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Yoki Enoch wrote:

If that is the case, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, why are the Linden produced viewers still so poor? Even some newbies, when they are exposed to TPVs, are wondering why the official Linden viewer is so bad.

---

Based on what I've seen from certain viewers, while innovation might be more readily present, the code quality is often lower on a lot of the added features.  Being responsible for the core code that most TPVs use, plus being the code base for the official viewer, it would be counterproductive to introduce code that hasn't been thoroughly tested, is poorly documented or hasn't had a whole lot of peer review.  In the open source world, software development and medicine have more in common; as opposed to the proprietary software model, which has more to do with product development.  If you want to be a guinnea pig and do some testing, I encourage you to check out the development branch from bitbucket, compile it and file some descriptive, detailed bug reports (or contribute details to existing ones).  I don't recommend this if you're a casual user without taking the caveat that the code you'll be running isn't necessarily ready for prime time and you will probably experience pitfalls, and if you're not on Linux, the tools to build the binaries may be expensive (not familiar with the windows toolchain personally).  If you do go this route, use the beta grid to sandbox lossage away from your live account.

[Canoro Philipp]

Linden Lab dont take all the features from third party viewers, some are too controversial, like Restrained Life, they are selective to what features they want to add to the official viewer and when they do, evolve them at the lab before presenting them to us, I can think of regional windlight settings, body physics, multiple attachments.

the lab have been working with third party viewers to get the new search working for them, and search of marketplace items, maybe you will see those features in third party viewers, maybe some TPV have them already working.

why the official viewer is not as enhanced as the third party viewers? because thats what third party viewers developers do, they take the official viewer and add their features to it.

[Erwin Solo]

Agreed.  I've only been using 2nd Life a year and a few months, though I'm an Engineer working in information technology--so I've used quite a few software programs and programmed a few myself.  With my background, V1 just seems weird.  Its like an abandoned language used by some isolated tribe.  V2 seems like a normal interface.

I think those that want to perpetuate the V1 interface are going to have to find programmers to work for free.  V1 is just too far off the beaten path.  People don't get paid to do weird stuff like that anymore.

[Nakisha13]

I hope LL makes it so it'll download with 64 bit Windows 7 soon cause time is running out. I'm only able to run Phoenix. Firestorm viewer my inventory doesn't load and the search function doesn't work. What's the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit that the viewer will not download?

[WeeWillian Wylie]

I realy can't tell you the difference in relationship to the viewers (32 or 64) but I have been able to use the official sl viewer with 64 bit windows 7 since I changed over to Win7 64bit. Kristens also works fine with me...although when I got the computer back after the change over I had nothing sl related on the computer and started with clean installs...in the past I have found (esp. when I started having multiple viewers on my computer) that cleaning out everything sl related and starting from clean installs and doing 1 at a time( including coming into world and allowing your complete inventory to load and do all your settings) before moving on to another viewer. Time consuming pain in the you know what...but it generally solved any problems I had in the past.You might want to try it as a last resort..

[Yoki Enoch]

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Canoro Philipp wrote:

Linden Lab dont take all the features from third party viewers, some are too controversial, like Restrained Life, they are selective to what features they want to add to the official viewer and when they do, evolve them at the lab before presenting them to us, I can think of regional windlight settings, body physics, multiple attachments.

the lab have been working with third party viewers to get the new search working for them, and search of marketplace items, maybe you will see those features in third party viewers, maybe some TPV have them already working.

why the official viewer is not as enhanced as the third party viewers? because thats what third party viewers developers do, they take the official viewer and add their features to it.

---

I wasn't thinking in particular of specific features, but rather good user interface that is intuitive as well as logical and rational. I tried V2 three times last year and gave up in utter frustration, each and every time. So I stuck with V1. However, recently I started using Firestorm. It fit like a glove, and I will probably stick with this Viewer. Due to my past experience with V2, I would never look at it again.

[Anaiya Arnold]

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

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Both.  Commission a freelance coder.  Unemployment's high right now so you can probably commission it relatively inexpensively on Amazon's Mechanical Turk or bribe a friend who codes with beer and doritos.

 

Aha, that's all nice and well in pie in sky world.  In reality, the kind of user LL is courting either finds what they want, or they take their time (and money) elsewhere.  There are many entertainment offerings on the internet competing for their attention and they do not need to waste their limited leisure and relaxation time on offerings that require they find out what "forking code" means, or commission someone to tailor end-user access tools, particularly since for most such people, these activities are anything but relaxing and how they wish to spend their limited leisure time.

What part of out "out-of-box user" goes over your head?