Viewer 2 really gets on my nerves

[Saii Hallard]

I do customer support daily, mostly by sending back answers via a notecard to people..

When trying to do that in Viewer 2, the new profile wont allow drop of inventory, so you have to click at least 5 times to send out a notecard.

When using viewer 2.7, i spotted 3 bugs in 2 minutes:

1) In world-about land, when the music url gets the focus the value gets cleared

2) when typing in a name in the map (CTRL-M), and hitting the enter key will result nothing, only clicking the search button works

3) the chat log file format has changed, where a space now must be a underscore... very annoying, since i got thousands of IM logs of people for over 5 years... had to quickly write a file conversion to be able to see the chat history in world

so, pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

took me an hour to get going with this horrible looking viewer, where there is so much whitespace in graphics, its really the worst interface i've ever seen. (well except maybe for blender)

at least it doesnt take 2 minutes anymore to open a large script. Although to be able to read the script without getting a headache i had to edit the fonts.xml to make the font larger.

Anyway, just writing off my frustration trying to use this viewer once again, since it's forced use now with the new search (which obviously is also not something to cheer about)

 EDIT:

Window position and size is not saved... so you have to resize every single notecard... AAAAH the annoyance!

Font cursor in notecards is not on the exact location, making edits very difficult.

*shakes head*

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

I'm not seeing the bugs you mention in 1 and 2. The music URL value is not getting cleared and when I press enter in the world map, the map shifts to the location typed, same as always.

I can't see any difference in chat logs either so perhaps you could demonstrate with examples what you mean (without breaking the TOS).

That's not to say this viewer isn't bugged, it is as we've seen on Answers. Personally, I can see Shadows is greyed out now while in previous viewers it worked perfectly.

 

[Saii Hallard]

I completely removed anything to do with Second Life, from all hidden folders to even registry entries... knowing this could lead to problems (another silly thing really, the wizardshield script should take care of such things)

So, before anyone says it could be due to an old install... it can't

The bugs i mentioned are there, and repeatable. Perhaps it's due to a OS difference that it is no problem at your side.

I'm using Vista 32bits

The file problem is not a bug, but just a change in how they store chat logs in files.In 1.x the files were stored as the avatar names, with appropiate case and spaces. Now they changed it to all lowercase and an underscore for the space.
Basically an up-yours to veteran users, or just not realizing people rely on logs in communication with customers.

In general I am surprised that i find very rudimentary problems within a few minutes after install. It makes me think there is something very wrong with the testing process, or it's not tested at all before release.

Do note that i have 30+ years experience in developing software and seen a lot of badly made software... but to see such basic things go wrong... come on... it's 2011, not 1980!

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit so perhaps those bugs are peculiar to Vista 32-bit. Hopefully others will comment and you can always open a Jira to make these bugs known to Linden Lab.

I understand what you mean now about the chat logs but it doesn't affect me so I never gave it a thought.

Don't think I would like to see the uninstall process removing the AppData folders. Yes, it could be convenient but on the other hand, Roaming contains the Settings files and chat logs so removing these in uninstall would mean having to reset these with every new viewer version and losing all your chat logs as well. Can't rely on people remembering to save these and replace them in the new folders on installing the latest viewer.

[Luc Starsider]

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Saii Hallard wrote:

I do customer support daily, mostly by sending back answers via a notecard to people..

When trying to do that in Viewer 2, the new profile wont allow drop of inventory, so you have to click at least 5 times to send out a notecard.

When using viewer 2.7, i spotted 3 bugs in 2 minutes:

1) In world-about land, when the music url gets the focus the value gets cleared

2) when typing in a name in the map (CTRL-M), and hitting the enter key will result nothing, only clicking the search button works

3) the chat log file format has changed, where a space now must be a underscore... very annoying, since i got thousands of IM logs of people for over 5 years... had to quickly write a file conversion to be able to see the chat history in world

so, pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

took me an hour to get going with this horrible looking viewer, where there is so much whitespace in graphics, its really the worst interface i've ever seen. (well except maybe for blender)

at least it doesnt take 2 minutes anymore to open a large script. Although to be able to read the script without getting a headache i had to edit the fonts.xml to make the font larger.

Anyway, just writing off my frustration trying to use this viewer once again, since it's forced use now with the new search (which obviously is also not something to cheer about)

 EDIT:

Window position and size is not saved... so you have to resize every single notecard... AAAAH the annoyance!

---

 Hey! Leave Blender out of this :matte-motes-evil-invert: 2.49 was a bit 'different', but 2.5 I find is really nice.

I'm with Nyll on point 1 and 2. I don't have the issues you have. Some local quirk is my guess. But how to fix it, I don't know. The file names on im logs have changed, though. That is true.

Viewer 2 is definitely a different beast than viewer 1.23 was/is. And takes a lot to get used to. Btw. You should be able to change the font size on (many parts of) the interface in preferences. Have you tried some of the alternatives based on v.2?

- Luc -

[Thinkerer Melville]

I agree there are problems in the Viewer 2 series that would not have been acceptable in work from computer science students in the 1980's (when I taught programming).  

On notecards, I also send to new people.  The IM window does take inventory drop, so that is what I use.  But there are problems  for copy-paste and clicking on embedded objects to copy them to inventory, because the edit cursor often gets misplaced.  That seems to happen most often with multiple edits of notecards.

I have given up on notecards for sending text--what I want to tell people is on my blog.   I put web links in the notecard I send.  People usually seem to be able to copy-paste and so read the post.  For commonly use items, I have the links available and put them into chat.  

To give objects, I have set up giver-boxes to  get away from the problems with embedded objects and the misplaced cursor.

TKR 

[Saii Hallard]

Regarding mentioning blender; It's the interface i saw two years ago.. which was the most unintuitive i've ever seen, but forgive me if it's changed for the better in the meantime.

I just find it too risky to use Phoenix with my main avatar (in terms of possible data mining... and yeah, i'm sure they don't, but better safe then sorry)

Aye, Thinkerer, of course there are ways of doing things differently as oppose to viewer 1.x.  But why should one have to bend in other ways with 2.x, just because the interface lacks easy accessible functions that were there in 1.x?

And no, i'm not adding more bugs to the JIRA. I did that at the beta, they yet have to fix the problem i described... and we're about 9 versions further.  With no feedback, no help, no direct communication, no reward, i'm not going to help fixing rudimentary problems that should not have been there in the first place.

I'm very sorry to be negative, i'd rather not be.

My hope is that in stead of releasing mesh import, which will fill the grid with meshes stolen from every game out there with 3d ripper, they would put that time into making a viewer that does not get you suffer from RSI when you have to work with it.

Idle hope...

*shakes head again and frowns*

 

 

[Steph Catseye]

 

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Anyway, just writing off my frustration trying to use this viewer once again, since it's forced use now with the new search (which obviously is also not something to cheer about)

 

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New search only works in this particular viewer right now, making changes to your SEO would be seen by 30% of the residents! Better wait and try to get a statement from the other viewer teams if they will follow or keep the old search result methods!

[Luc Starsider]

If you have an interest in mesh or 3d, the new version of Blender is worth having a look at. Your view on the interface is shared with plenty of people. I happen to like it, and was not really serious with my comment before.

Regarding mesh and ip infringement. I think LL are on the right path requireing people to have PIOF who wants to upload mesh. It won't stop infringement, but it will limit it. IP infringement exist today, too, with sculpties, so I'm not sure it will be that much of a difference.

I'm wondering when you say it is too risky to use Phoenix. That would apply to other TPV's I assume? Which leave you with a limited choice of viewers - Viewer 2 or viewer 1.23 - as far as I can see, meaning that you will have to, at some point in the future, get used to the interface of v. 2. The interface might have changed sufficiently by the time v 1.23 is removed that it won't be such a frustrating experience. But, what you see as a lack of easy accessible functions, like sharing things using drag & drop in an IM window, some people think is much easier than before. It is different, for sure, but not necessarily more complicated. It's all a matter of preference, I think, and I will agree that it would be good if we were able to personalize it more than we can now.

- Luc -

[Saii Hallard]

I got Maya in use for some time, which works perfectly. But when time allows, will have a look at Blender again.

Regarding mesh import; I think that is a debate on itself. You could try to police ip infringements, but it's practically impossible. Most of the people will not know if a particular mesh is ripped from a game with 3d ripper, or stolen content from one of the thousands 3D sites offered on torrentz.

And I say "most of the people" on purpose, because LL will not actively validate content, of course.. that is undoable. So it's up to the people to spot and report possible ip infringements.

Possibly could see large companies and/or 3d shops sueing LL for having copyrighted content. After all the TOS states that LL owns all content. But well, all depends on how crazy people get on importing stuff.

I understand the need to keep SL alive, and mesh import is a nice impuls for getting good and new content.

But if this is a good move for SL in the long run, I do not know. Time will tell.

Perhaps in time it will drive out the people who make and sell stuff with normal prims.. but we haven't seen that with sculpts too, so i don't know.

 

Yep, i have to get use to v2. I see it like to be forced driving a Trabant with a new mp3-player in it. You just have to open 5 hatches to be able to get it to play

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Agree with your comments on the V2 interface. It's improved dramatically and I hope it will continue to do so. I'm so used to V2 now I think I'd find 1.23.5 alien although I used it for years.

Kirsten's has the option to have the sidebar always visible or hidden with a button to activate it but oddly when she totally hid the sidebar with no option to have it always visible, there was an outcry and she had to implement the option again in the next version! I prefer to have the sidebar always visible too. I really missed it when it disappeared and was glad to have it back :smileyvery-happy:

Again, as you say, dropping an item on an IM window is simple and quick.

[Ansariel Hiller]

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Saii Hallard wrote:

3) the chat log file format has changed, where a space now must be a underscore... very annoying, since i got thousands of IM logs of people for over 5 years... had to quickly write a file conversion to be able to see the chat history in world

---

Hey, at least they now save the history under the loginname and not under the (regularly changing) display name. As for the UI: I have to concur: It's the most clunky, rediculous, unusable UI I ever encountered! If you plan to use a V2-based viewer, you might have a look at the first beta of Firestorm that has recently been released. Not all annoyances have been fixed yet and everything is still being under development, but way better than this... thing...

[Luc Starsider]

@Saii. If you're used to Maya, then you may not like the new version of Blender after all. I have never used Maya, but from what I hear, it is still very different to Blender. Worth having a look at, though.

I agree that mesh will be good for SL. It is new, though, and very much up in the air still, so it will take some time before the full picture starts to form. I'm not so sure it will be very different than now when it comes to copyrighted content.

@Nyll. I too logged in using 1.23 the other day and was completely lost. I agree about the sidebar. I'm used to it, and would miss it. I have the keyboard shortcuts in my fingers, so it is really quick to get to the pane I need. What I would like to see, though, is a way to split each pane in two, and have like the inventory and the nearby list open at the same time. I know I can undock the tabs, but they are to big when they are undocked, and overlap.

@Ansariel. I didn't know im logs used the display name as a file name. Regarding the UI. What I mostly want is an officially supported skinning option, and some changes to the area where group notices, IM toasts, system messages and object menus pop up. It's like a whack-a-mole game the way it is now. Too much information fighting for the same space.

- Luc -

[Ansariel Hiller]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

 

@Ansariel. I didn't know im logs used the display name as a file name. Regarding the UI. What I mostly want is an officially supported skinning option, and some changes to the area where group notices, IM toasts, system messages and object menus pop up. It's like a whack-a-mole game the way it is now. Too much information fighting for the same space.

- Luc -

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V2 now has a skinning option: Basic mode and advanced mode. Technically that's nothing else than a minimized skin.

[Luc Starsider]

That's true. Perhaps I should have used a different term than skinning - I was more thinking of the color scheme of the viewer. (I guess 'color scheme' would have been better than 'skinning' ) I really want something else than the drab dark gray available now. The Starlight skin has a different color scheme, from what I understand, but it is not officially supported. I think that is important.

- Luc -

[Saii Hallard]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

@Ansariel. I didn't know im logs used the display name as a file name. Regarding the UI. What I mostly want is an officially supported skinning option, and some changes to the area where group notices, IM toasts, system messages and object menus pop up. It's like a whack-a-mole game the way it is now. Too much information fighting for the same space.

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I do agree. I think that you mean to say to modify the skin yourself, which would be a good idea.

Though it would have been better to make a tabular window where you can mount several windows to your leisure. The clunky sidebar is just plain shïte. The ability to undock the windows is a small improvement, but indeed take up too much space and I personally keep trying to click an X (close) button, which results in minimizing the window. I don't see the point in minimizing it, if at all, it should dock back again.

An option to rearrange the screen-layout, like almost all current MMORPG's have at the moment, would be good to set where you want to see menu popups, IM popups etcetera.

 

Anyway, I won't spend more time venting my frustration with this viewer. In conclusion, the interface is a bad design, the colors are grave and not inviting, graphically it uses too much space, there is no consistency in interface elements, some font types are distorted (specially in the notecard/scripts) meaning that characters overlap, making it unreadable.. and it still got basic gui bugs.

Pay me a few months, and i'll make a viewer that conforms to the current standard MMORPG gui, that everyone can use without scratching their head

 

[Ansariel Hiller]

Did you already give Phoenix Firestorm a try: http://www.phoenixviewer.com ?

[Steph Catseye]

 

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Ansariel Hiller wrote:

Did you already give Phoenix Firestorm a try:

http://www.phoenixviewer.com

?

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I did just now!

while i love the thoughtfulnes of making it almost look like i want, bringing back the favorites bar which was one of the best things Viewer 2 ever invented, i am disappointed to a medium level. No Copy/ Paste buttons in the building window, which has become the most useful feature ever for me and the shaddows behave the same way as they do in Viewer 2, they don't display on prims only on Linden Ground and Water. I realize that my graphics card is not supported and Firestorm is in Beta so I will be patient and trust them to to write a bug fix for that (a trust i don't have in LL) What annoys me most about it is that they have taken over the new search because now we gonna have a real mess with search results, for which viewer are we gonna optimize? At this point all the developers should agree on one search result version!

[Ansariel Hiller]

The favorites bar should be there. You probably need to make it visible (right-clicking on the status bar). Yes, copy&paste in the edit window is not yet available, but as you already said: This is the first beta at all. It's still not feature complete yet.