Some Feature suggestions: Keyboard Shortcuts & save/load preferences,

[Elsie Broek]

Have no idea how hard or easier these would be, but how about...

 

• Redefinable keyboard shorts
  The user would be able to redefine the binding of commands to keys. Almost anything (maybe ^P would always be "Preferences") on the viewer menus could be bound to a a combination of Control/Shift/Alt (or option)  and other key. Maybe this could be done on the fly within the viewer, but if not, perhaps a separate application would be run to do so, changing a set of files that the main program reads every time it's run. Predefined shortcuts would be able to be deleted or reassigned to other commands (e.g. Reset View goes from Esc to Shift-Esc).
  
  Users could configure the shortcuts to maximise their use of the viewer. Are you a builder that uploads a lot of textures? Then maybe add a shortcut to load images. Or maybe you want to add a shortcut for setting the Sun position to Midday (or Midnight), or top Stop animations. In short it would save time going through menus, and add access to uses who may not have access to full use of their hands (there are such users, just check out Virtual Ability).
  
  
• The ability to save and restore (some or all) viewer preferences
  One of the first things done after installing a new or different version of the viewer is to set the preferences they way you like them. This can be a tedious and annoying process, especially if you forget some options and have to go back into Preferences to change them (or maybe you installed the update and get all the "noob help" popups. But what if you could save those preferences and later reload them in one go? That would save a lot of fussing around and side benefit would be being able to load the preferences on different computers where you might also have the viewer installed. (e.g. your laptop as well as your desktop).
  
  I think this would work by creating and readiong an XML file. Anything that could be set or changed in Preferences could be saved and restored from from that file. Each field or setting would have its own field in the XML file, and if such a file were loaded with fields that didn't apply (perhaps to an earlier version of teh viewer or 3rd part viewer using the same system) it'd just be ignored. Likewise any setting not saved to the XML file would not be altered when it was restored.

Both these suggestions would only affect the quality of use to the end user, being a convenience for saving keystrokes and alterations. Both could be done using external applications, which altered or interrogated the data within the viewer, so  they need not complicate the viewer much more, or impose on users who don't want or care about such abilities (like say, the side bar did).

[Perrie Juran]

for anyone interested, here is the complete list of keyboard shortcuts:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/All_keyboard_shortcut_keys

I agree, having a way to save/restore preferences would be awesome.