User Experience Interest Group/Transcripts/2009-06-25

== Topic & Summary ==
User Experience Interest Group Discussion for July 02, 2009.
Topic: Viewer Modes.
No summary is yet available for this meeting. Please edit this page to add one.
== Transcript ==
[15:21]	Jacek Antonelli: 	I wonder if Malbers is gonna show
[15:21]	Charlette Proto: 	was he going to?
[15:22]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Well, he was interested last week. Although he only appeared later in the session. Maybe he'll come by later.
[15:23]	Charlette Proto: 	the weird thing is how the viewer ver2 (2009) doesn't have anything new in it, looks like BigSpaceship didn't do a thing
[15:23]	Charlette Proto: 	maybe Benjamin wanted to pay them in L$
[15:23]	Charlette Proto: 	hi Garn
[15:23]	Jacek Antonelli: 	The leaked version isn't the final UI, Charlette
[15:23]	Aimee Trescothick: 	who knows, the one that Tateru found they said was just an early build
[15:24]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Hi Garn
[15:24]	Garn Conover: 	hey all, who's on snowglobe? hehe
[15:24]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Howard Linden said the real UI is very different
[15:24]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I am
[15:24]	Aimee Trescothick's glowsnobe 	Aimee Trescothick's glowsnobe
[15:24]	Charlette Proto: 	but Torley would have known if there was a new UI and yet he made a vid as is
[15:24]	Charlette Proto: 	ah OK
[15:24]	Jacek Antonelli: 	What do you mean, Charlette?
[15:25]	Charlette Proto: 	there is a vid on the new map zoomming capability
[15:25]	Aimee Trescothick: 	that's Snowglobe
[15:25]	Aimee Trescothick: 	not viewer 2.0
[15:26]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Yeah
[15:26]	McCabe Maxsted hasn't tried snowglobe yet 	McCabe Maxsted hasn't tried snowglobe yet
[15:26]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Totally different viewers
[15:27]	Charlette Proto: 	https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/technology/blog/2009/06/24/snowglobe-10-now-available
[15:27]	Charlette Proto: 	ah ok everyone is confused
[15:27]	McCabe Maxsted: 	hehe
[15:27]	Jacek Antonelli: 	I'm interested to se what they are working on for 2.0, though. I have to admit that their secrecy is discouraging. Although, given how much the SL community likes to get in an uproar over the smallest changes, maybe that's for the best that it's not publicized.
[15:28]	Charlette Proto: 	maybe, but this is one sure way to get criticized just the same
[15:28]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Talking about Snowglobe I asked Rob a question about patches for interop: "[14:31] Morgaine Dinova: One thing that popped up in Tuesday's AW Groupies meeting was the question of patches for interop. Is there likely to be opposition to patches submitted for interop purposes, given that you may not find any great interest in cherry-picking such patches for the main viewer?"
[15:28]	Garn Conover: 	would take em even longer fighting all those ppl lol
[15:28]	Morgaine Dinova: 	nd he replied: "[14:32] Rob Linden: Morgaine: if someone steps up to actually maintain the code, and the changes are generally consistant with what we're doing on OGP, and they don't break the production grid experience, then no problem"
[15:29]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I was hoping for that.
[15:29]	Aimee Trescothick: 	must say 2.0 is a bit of a disincentive to do any UI work at the moment
[15:29]	Charlette Proto: 	kewl
[15:29]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Aimee: yeah
[15:30]	Aimee Trescothick: 	who knows if it will get stomped on by whatever they're up ti
[15:30]	Aimee Trescothick: 	*to
[15:31]	Charlette Proto: 	just like all the patches, the work gets trashed and the inevitable resentment sets in
[15:31]	Charlette Proto: 	what the hell??? how did we get up to 203MB for Physics on this sim?
[15:32]	Charlette Proto: 	about 20MB is the norm
[15:32]	Aimee Trescothick looks as innocent as possible 	Aimee Trescothick looks as innocent as possible
[15:32]	Charlette Proto: 	we get 200MB in korea1 when someone is crashing the sim
[15:33]	McCabe Maxsted: 	haha
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli: 	!hehehe
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Okay, I suppose we should get to the topic
[15:34]	Charlette Proto: 	yup, what is it?
[15:34]	Morgaine Dinova: 	What are you looking at for the 203MB?
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Before we start going into Imprudent changes and opensim grid topics 	McCabe Maxsted nods. Before we start going into Imprudent changes and opensim grid topics
[15:34]	Jacek Antonelli: 	We're talking about "viewer modes" today -- that is, having different UI modes for different tasks, like building, scripting, etc.
[15:34]	Charlette Proto: 	BTW is Imprudence based on 1.23 anywhere close?
[15:35]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Maybe that would be a bad idea -- that's one part of the topic, hehe
[15:35]	Charlette Proto: 	grat, I really think this is a way to go, including shareable custom user mode definitions
[15:36]	Charlette Proto: 	great*
[15:36]	Jacek Antonelli: 	But, it's interesting to think about how the UI could be changed, if you could focus on one particular type of task for the UI
[15:38]	Charlette Proto: 	could the toolbar be modal too
[15:38]	McCabe Maxsted: 	I reay like this idea. I think it'd solve a lot of the issues with having just so many different options in the menus for example. Shuntering off those to, say, a "build mode" would put less stuff in people's way
[15:38]	Charlette Proto: 	modal UI at large gets a lot of criticisms, but in Second Life™ I can't see a better way
[15:40]	McCabe Maxsted is curious what modes there could be 	McCabe Maxsted is curious what modes there could be
[15:40]	McCabe Maxsted: 	explorer mode? clothing mode? estate manager mode?
[15:40]	Charlette Proto: 	I always liked the idea of having a toolbar that like most apps isn't just a few menu items the way it is now
[15:41]	Charlette Proto: 	chatting mode too, text histories, voice etc
[15:42]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Major modes can be a disaster too, if a designer reckons that some feature is not relevant to a mode while users think otherwise.
[15:42]	Charlette Proto: 	even things like a history of closed IM boxes and recently muted residents, things like that
[15:42]	Jacek Antonelli: 	True, Morgaine
[15:43]	Charlette Proto: 	yup, but custom modes could cater for that - let people edit the toolba if this is what modes would be based on / expressed as
[15:43]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I'm wondering, what *IS* a mode, in this sense? Is it moving some things out of the way, or putting some things close to each other, or what?
[15:44]	McCabe Maxsted: 	good question
[15:44]	Jacek Antonelli: 	For example, it would not be a good idea to make it so you couldn't build and script at the same time.
[15:44]	Aimee Trescothick: 	Workspaces in Photoshop
[15:44]	Robin Cornelius: 	in other apps a mode is just a user defined view
[15:44]	Robin Cornelius: 	view including tool bar layout etc
[15:44]	Aimee Trescothick: 	exactly
[15:44]	Morgaine Dinova: 	It could be none of those --- it could be revising the UI altogether for given types of work.
[15:45]	Robin Cornelius: 	i may dock build tools and have a split 3d screen for buidling or just a single view for normal messing around
[15:45]	Charlette Proto: 	yep a toolbar with different content as well as coustom options
[15:45]	Jacek Antonelli: 	"Mode" is up for grabs, here. It could be small changes, or totally different UIs.
[15:45]	Aimee Trescothick: 	in photoshop, it generally highlights the menu items relevant to the mode, though all are still available
[15:45]	Robin Cornelius: 	in visual studio and mono develop i hae different modes that seem to change about one tool bar
[15:46]	Charlette Proto: 	I think dragging things to the toolbar (moved to the top) would make sense
[15:46]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Is skinning in our viewers mere decoration, or is that "mode" control too? (Does it move commands around, etc?)
[15:46]	Aimee Trescothick: 	Adobe uses it to have a "What's new" Workspace too
[15:46]	Aimee Trescothick: 	so anything that's new in the current version gets highlighted
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted: 	that sounds pretty nifty
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted: 	I've been sort of thinking of modes more like in VS as Robin suggested... different options that appear and can be added/removed from and customized
[15:48]	Charlette Proto: 	in order to make functions work better in a given mode it should be instantly available (eg toolbar) not just highlighted in the menu
[15:48]	McCabe Maxsted: 	nothing that would ever be kept far from people's fingers or uncustomizable. That's one type of "mode" I hate: when you can't change anything about it
[15:48]	Aimee Trescothick: 	I guess the issue I have with modes in SL would be that I'm rarely doing only one thing
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Right
[15:49]	Robin Cornelius: 	building is one thing though were you may need to concentrate for a while
[15:49]	Aimee Trescothick: 	which is what makes Adobe's approach appeal to me, as I can pick say "Building mode" and all the relevant stuff gets highlighted in place, but everything is still available to me
[15:49]	Robin Cornelius: 	so being able to flip in and out of a build mode would be useful
[15:50]	Robin Cornelius: 	but clearly not restricting so i could build as i do now outside build mode
[15:51]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Maybe instead of pre-defined modes, it'd be more similar to user-defined "workspaces"?
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted: 	what if modes could be additive, as in you could have as many or as few as you wanted open? So you could have say "build" and "explore" modes always up, so you could build whenever, but if you wanted to trim down you could remove one or the other
[15:51]	Charlette Proto: 	if you consider a toolbar solution instead of highlighting menu items, then you get the best combination of tools as well as standard menus in place
[15:53]	Charlette Proto: 	OK I'll put my toolbar aside since it didn't get even one response, BTW I don't even display the current toolbar because it is so lame
[15:53]	Charlette Proto: 	I prefare the extra pixels to the trash the current toolbar has
[15:53]	Morgaine Dinova: 	In the Zbrush-like interface that I'm always on about, a "mode" would be just a named UI set --- after dragging menus and folders and controls to a frame edge, you'd save the UI state to a named preset, and so have as many different "modes" as you want.
[15:53]	Charlette Proto: 	prefer*
[15:54]	Charlette Proto: 	sort of like tear-off menus saved Morgaine?
[15:54]	Jacek Antonelli: 	That's a good example, Morgaine
[15:55]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Charlette: the model doesn't really deal with tear-offs, not sure how that would work. It basically avoids having panels obscuring the 3D scene.
[15:55]	Robin Cornelius: 	in addition to just toolbars/functions i would like to see the ability to lock the view direction/zoom etc and also a multi view for X/Y/Z/3d directions as per 3D design software, saves flying the cam around builds constantly
[15:55]	Robin Cornelius: 	that gives me RSI
[15:55]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Robin++
[15:55]	McCabe Maxsted: 	yes!
[15:56]	Charlette Proto: 	if you want to avoid panels then the toolbar is the best way to do it I think
[15:56]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I hate the av or camera moving when I don't want them to move. Two locks would be great
[15:56]	Aimee Trescothick: 	I would LOVE multi-view
[15:56]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Aimee++
[15:56]	Morgaine Dinova: 	LOL
[15:56]	Charlette Proto: 	yup Robin, I've always wanted saved camera positions for previewing work
[15:57]	Aimee Trescothick: 	heh, I have been known to login a couple of alts, just to give other build views :D
[15:57]	Jacek Antonelli: 	haha
[15:57]	Charlette Proto: 	and multiple views like in CAD, plan, elevation, perspective
[15:57]	Charlette Proto: 	I do it when I build too (use alts)
[15:58]	McCabe Maxsted ponders. "There was a snapshot bug that used to do that... maybe it was a feature"	McCabe Maxsted ponders. "There was a snapshot bug that used to do that... maybe it was a feature"
[15:58]	Charlette Proto: 	obviously the alts should not be needed if we had multiple 2D and 3D cameras available
[15:59]	Charlette Proto: 	what did the snapshot bug do?
[15:59]	Charlette Proto: 	surely the first thing would be to have saved camera positions to choose from
[15:59]	McCabe Maxsted: 	oh just you'd take a snap and you'd get multiple views instead of one
[15:59]	McCabe Maxsted was just kidding around 	McCabe Maxsted was just kidding around
[16:01]	Charlette Proto: 	if multiple cameras (renering windows) are too hard saved camera positions would improve things a lot anyway
[16:01]	McCabe Maxsted is curious how workspaces would work in SL™ 	McCabe Maxsted is curious how workspaces would work in SL™
[16:01]	Robin Cornelius: 	oh yes, being able to single key flip to 3 different axises would be great
[16:01]	Charlette Proto: 	not only in building, but many things eg photography etc could use saved camera views
[16:02]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Can GL do multiple cameras?
[16:02]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Blender has a pretty interesting concept of workspaces (they call them "screens"). Totally customizable
[16:02]	Charlette Proto: 	it must since Truespace did and that was OpenGL
[16:02]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Morgaine: Yep. Although it would probably reduce the framerate quite a bit.
[16:02]	Robin Cornelius: 	i think each screen is a seperate GL model
[16:02]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Aha
[16:02]	Charlette Proto: 	woot a good feature in Blender hehe
[16:03]	Charlette Proto: 	well switching camera views in one window would be a good compromise
[16:03]	Aimee Trescothick: 	GL can, but it would need some pretty big changes elsewhere
[16:04]	Aimee Trescothick: 	i.e. SL is pretty much designed from the ground up assuming one viewer one camera
[16:04]	Charlette Proto: 	just save camera positions and trojectory as well as FOV
[16:04]	Aimee Trescothick: 	saved positions would be a lot easier
[16:04]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Yeah
[16:04]	Aimee Trescothick: 	there are HUDs for that now
[16:05]	Charlette Proto: 	that would be really simple and need only a dropbox and an entry field to name new ones
[16:05]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Well every "would be nice" but unnecessary change or extra feature means extra work for you at LL version change time, so think hard about major GL changes.
[16:05]	Aimee Trescothick: 	and it shouldn't be too hard to do in the viewer, probably be able to hack something into the flycam code without too much trouble or something
[16:05]	Robin Cornelius: 	sounds like a snowglobe feature
[16:05]	Robin Cornelius: 	;-p
[16:06]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Hahaha
[16:06]	Charlette Proto: 	hehe
[16:06]	Aimee Trescothick: 	does :D
[16:06]	Charlette Proto: 	snowcrash
[16:06]	Charlette Proto: 	avalanche
[16:06]	Aimee Trescothick: 	we will of course get further vilified for killing the inworld business of selling the HUDs
[16:06]	Aimee Trescothick: 	but shadow governments do that sort of stuff by nature
[16:06]	Robin Cornelius: 	hahah
[16:07]	Charlette Proto: 	another thing along this path would be to save animated camera positions to make repeatable machinima camera pans and tilts etc
[16:07]	McCabe Maxsted grins 	McCabe Maxsted grins
[16:07]	McCabe Maxsted: 	have to advance the socialist uprising somehow
[16:07]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Ohhhhh
[16:07]	Charlette Proto: 	we could call this feature 1984
[16:08]	Robin Cornelius: 	ok i need to head to bed, catch you all later
[16:08]	Charlette Proto: 	byee Robin
[16:08]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Take care Robin
[16:08]	McCabe Maxsted: 	sleep well Robin
[16:08]	Robin Cornelius waves and poofs 	Robin Cornelius waves and poofs
[16:08]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Which viewer do the machinima peeps use by preference?
[16:08]	Aimee Trescothick: 	night Robin
[16:08]	McCabe Maxsted: 	thanks for coming :)
[16:08]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Cyu Robin
[16:10]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Modes intersect with camera modes too I guess.
[16:10]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I'm surprised that we manage with just one ctual camera mode + a broken mouselook.
[16:10]	Charlette Proto: 	some people also like the idea of point to point navigation of the avie, so it may be worth to think of the same UI being shared by the camera trojectory for machinima
[16:10]	Morgaine Dinova: 	When EverQuest1 had 5 camera modes
[16:11]	Charlette Proto: 	well there is the gun mode mouselook too hehe
[16:11]	McCabe Maxsted: 	has anyone played with the camera in 1.23?
[16:12]	McCabe Maxsted: 	I heard zoom level actually works now?
[16:12]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Oh, I didn't know it had extra features, cool
[16:12]	Charlette Proto: 	how do you mean McCabe, I fiddle with it all the time if that is what you mean
[16:12]	Morgaine Dinova: 	What's zoom "level"?
[16:12]	McCabe Maxsted: 	setting follow distance for example
[16:12]	Charlette Proto: 	yup the FOV in preferences finally works like a lens
[16:13]	Morgaine Dinova: 	You can zoom the minimap far more now, in Snowglobe anyway. I think Aimee did that :-)
[16:13]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Oh, trying it
[16:13]	McCabe Maxsted: 	she rocks the minimap :)
[16:13]	Charlette Proto: 	this is a great improvement except it is burried so deep in the UI
[16:13]	Aimee Trescothick: 	:D
[16:13]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I could crash, as UI Size and fullscreen both crash my Snowglobe
[16:13]	Charlette Proto: 	nice
[16:14]	Aimee Trescothick: 	you're probably making it too big to fit in the glass dome
[16:14]	Jacek Antonelli: 	lol
[16:14]	Aimee Trescothick: 	hmm, maybe Snowglobe should have a round window :D
[16:14]	Jacek Antonelli: 	hehehe
[16:14]	McCabe Maxsted grins 	McCabe Maxsted grins
[16:14]	McCabe Maxsted: 	just one button on the toolbar: shake?
[16:14]	Jacek Antonelli grins 	Jacek Antonelli grins
[16:15]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Simple UIs are best, right?
[16:15]	Charlette Proto: 	yup and the avies would fall from the sky
[16:15]	Aimee Trescothick: 	heheh, I already have some evil plans for Easter eggs, if I can persuade Rob
[16:15]	Aimee Trescothick: 	and ever get round to writing them that is
[16:15]	Charlette Proto: 	use the accelerometers like in the iPhone
[16:15]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Well I didn't crash of FoV change :P
[16:16]	Morgaine Dinova: 	But sucks that it has no 1.0 position
[16:16]	Aimee Trescothick: 	heh, laptops often have accelerometers too
[16:16]	Charlette Proto: 	yes all PC and Apple laptops have them in the HD
[16:16]	Aimee Trescothick: 	Macbooks do, there's an application called Smackbook that allows to switch virtual desktops by tapping one side of the screen or the other
[16:17]	Morgaine Dinova: 	lol
[16:17]	McCabe Maxsted: 	haha
[16:17]	Jacek Antonelli: 	nice :D
[16:18]	Charlette Proto: 	Lenovo laptops have a dispaly gadget showing the current orientation the machine is in
[16:18]	Charlette Proto: 	I think even external drives have this info available
[16:19]	Charlette Proto: 	we could have one strapped to each limb
[16:19]	Charlette Proto: 	I did some cool shit with WiiRemotes that worked like that
[16:20]	Charlette Proto: 	but WiiRemote is a bitch to connect to Vista PCs
[16:20]	Charlette Proto: 	Microsoft Enumerator (Bloetooth Stack)
[16:21]	Charlette Proto: 	hi Code
[16:21]	Charlette Proto: 	ah Tech sorry
[16:21]	Charlette Proto: 	my memory failed just then
[16:22]	Charlette Proto: 	Codewolf if you need another alt Tech
[16:22]	Aimee Trescothick: 	Blowtooth, is that what you do when someone hits you in the face with a mobile for hijacking it to web surf?
[16:22]	Charlette Proto: 	hehe Bluetooth*
[16:23]	Techwolf Lupindo grins 	Techwolf Lupindo grins
[16:24]	Charlette Proto: 	what have you been up to Tech? as an excuse not to attend ontime
[16:24]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Let's get back to viewer modes for a bit. I'm curious what changes to the UI people might have for, say, building mode
[16:25]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Easy. One button, and it's built ;-)
[16:25]	Jacek Antonelli: 	In other words, what UI would you only need while you're building?
[16:25]	Charlette Proto: 	I'd have the tabs in the Edit floater locked to the TAB key
[16:25]	Techwolf Lupindo: 	After six months of sielence, I got two calls in two days in a row. Some money, but will take a few weeks to collect. (service calls)
[16:26]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Charlette: Interesting!
[16:26]	Techwolf Lupindo: 	I was crashing earler today. So I plop my self down there and crash in my den.
[16:27]	McCabe Maxsted: 	okay, I have to run
[16:27]	Charlette Proto: 	sometimes I find the burried options become more visible if you can flip through with one key instead of clicks
[16:27]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Take care MCCabe!
[16:27]	Charlette Proto: 	byee McCabe
[16:27]	McCabe Maxsted waves. See you all next week :) 	McCabe Maxsted waves. See you all next week :)
[16:27]	Morgaine Dinova: 	See you McCabe!
[16:27]	Aimee Trescothick: 	bye
[16:28]	Charlette Proto: 	I know there is an opion in Advanced > Debug to limit the TAB key to a given window, but that is not a convenient way to switch UI modes
[16:29]	Jacek Antonelli: 	What option is that, Charlette?
[16:30]	Charlette Proto: 	let me look, in a building mode one could limit the TAB to the edit floater
[16:30]	Morgaine Dinova: 	Well I use my two Windows keys for nothing (being on Linux) and same for the 3 keys to the right of the space bar --- could be useful to do something with those.
[16:31]	Aimee Trescothick: 	hmm, I think that's a sign I should be in bed
[16:31]	Aimee Trescothick: 	I read that as the "edit toaster"
[16:31]	Jacek Antonelli: 	*laughs*
[16:31]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Sleep well, Aimee :)
[16:31]	Charlette Proto: 	TabToTextFieldOnly, so it isn't very practical but similar thing
[16:31]	Aimee Trescothick: 	night :)
[16:31]	Morgaine Dinova: 	NN Aimee :-)
[16:31]	Charlette Proto: 	byee Aimee
[16:32]	Charlette Proto: 	this TabToTextFieldOnly made me think this approach would help with a modal UI
[16:33]	Morgaine Dinova: 	I've just baked a spelt loaf and it's about to pop out of the breadmaker, so I'll pop off too shortly.
[16:33]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Sounds like a good time to wrap up the meeting, then
[16:33]	Jacek Antonelli: 	Take care everyone, and see you next week!