[opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Martin Fürholz]

Hello,

 

I am right now looking at the test-viewer with Jonathan’s rearranged
graphics preferences

 
 Second_Life_Test_3_7_21_298332_i686_Setup.exe

 

As you can see in this screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/qzZbJVG.png what
previously fit into a single window plus a small floater with
hardware-options, now takes 3 pages, with an option to scroll.

 

This makes it really difficult to help less-experienced users in support or
even when helping friends, because I can’t easily exchange snapshots with
them, showing how they are supposed to set up their preferences.

 

And it simply looks untidy, cluttered and confuses the user.

 

There are some options added now, which were hidden in debug settings for a
reason before. Also the current version still has some bugs, but I’m not
going into details now.

 

I would ask you please not to mix up two completely different topics and
merge it into one, to promote Jonathans own preference about the
graphics-floater: the Jira-issue (title and description) is making us
believe, that Jonathan is just going to add an option to save and restore
graphics settings.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-2082? “Allow saving and loading of
graphic settings”

But the test viewer shows us something completely different (he deliberately
totally changed the layout and even the available options in the graphics
preferences floater).

 

I personally don’t like the changes. And if you all of you would take a look
at the Jira-issue, you will notice that other highly experienced residents
also dislike it. There is not a single comment supporting these changes
(assuming that LL’s action of deleting my own comments from that Jira
doesn’t count).

 

Nothing speaks against the option to save and load graphics settings, but
that’s really not what STORM-2082 is about. I’m curious what an UX-expert
would think of those changes.

 

Kind regards,

 

MartinRJ

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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Jonathan Welch]

Martin, I am sorry you are unhappy with LL's new UX design but this is
one of those cases where no matter what is done someone will be
unhappy.

I have an idea on how to address the "I want to see everything at
once" issue and will send it to Oz for evaluation.

How about describing what those bugs are (I am sure there are some to be found)?

-jonathan
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Niran]

" I’m curious what an UX-expert would think of those changes."

Do i really have to say something about this?

2015-01-24 14:04 GMT+01:00 Jonathan Welch :

> Martin, I am sorry you are unhappy with LL's new UX design but this is
> one of those cases where no matter what is done someone will be
> unhappy.
>
> I have an idea on how to address the "I want to see everything at
> once" issue and will send it to Oz for evaluation.
>
> How about describing what those bugs are (I am sure there are some to be
> found)?
>
> -jonathan
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Cinder Roxley]

Hi,

Is there any justification at all for rearranging everything into a single 
scrolling panel, or is this just change for the sake of change? There doesn’t 
appear to be any benefit to the user in making the change, and I haven’t seen 
any report that the current layout is hindering usability. It has certainly 
worked for people, as is, for the past ten years. 

There are also plenty of bugs that have been described in detail that have been 
given no acknowledgement on the jira issue itself. It doesn’t surprise me at 
all that Martin doesn’t want to spend time elaborating on something that very 
likely will be ignored especially given that a fair amount of them are 
regressions directly related to UI shuffling.

-- 
Cinder Roxley
Sent with Airmail

On January 24, 2015 at 6:04:20 AM, Jonathan Welch (jhwe...@gmail.com) wrote:

Martin, I am sorry you are unhappy with LL's new UX design but this is  
one of those cases where no matter what is done someone will be  
unhappy.  

I have an idea on how to address the "I want to see everything at  
once" issue and will send it to Oz for evaluation.  

How about describing what those bugs are (I am sure there are some to be 
found)?  

-jonathan  
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Niran]

I guess now i have to say something about this.

Where do i start...

__
Let's start with the really bad news.

I don't like it. I don't like it at all. LL's default is a nightmare and
not just in terms of available functions.

I don't like how this new layout wastes even more space than the old one in
several ways.
- Huge tab height.
- Overly huge labeled buttons.
- Weird and inconsistent alignment

I don't like how this new layout generally looks, it's horrible alignment,
space wasting, and inconsistency everywhere (which is present pretty much
everywhere in LL's UI) makes my eyes hurt. Not to mention this layout feels
like it was inspired by my own design for my preferences window but not in
a good way.

Example of my preferences: Picture


I would recommend a similar design, drastically reduced available options,
"Show Advanced Options" checkbox and removed quality/performance slider.
Let me explain:

It is unavoidable that at some point we will either have multiple tabs or a
scroll-able panel, the preferences window has a fixed width/height and we
can only put a certain amount of well labeled and designed options into it
before we run out of space, i have to give Jonathan that but i think the
pictured way is a wrong move, we should not any tabs in preferences,
especially not with a 40 pixel height, instead i think we should have a
"Basic" panel that contains the options the LL default one does as well in
a similar layout (drastically cleaned up and realigned of course) with
maybe 1-2 more important options that might be missing, then there should
be a "Show Advanced Options" check box (no button, we don't need more
buttons than necessary), enabling this check box will hide the "Basic"
panel and show the "Advanced" panel (similar to what's default currently),
this "Advanced" tab will contain all options from Basic and will offer a
lot of customization options for these basic ones (example: Depth of Field
resolution, field of view, circle of confusion, focal length etc) organized
similar to what I've done in my preferences window where everything is
batched together in packs for the corresponding master option (there's a
major option -> Deferred Rendering , which has sub options like shadow
resolution, show shadows of X etc). The "Basic" panel just with additional
fine tuning options right beneath them so to say. Then, the next and most
important thing to change, get rid of the Quality/Performance slider, ever
since this thing was in there it felt horribly buggy, unreliable and it
also locks out options in certain cases which a preset slider should NEVER
do, since you are going to implement a preset function, why not removing
this ancient leftover of forsaken times and add them as stock presets that
will come with the Viewer to load, that way you can still have those
presets without sacrificing a lot of space for a stupid slider that is
basically just a crippled version of what you are trying to implement right
over it.

I'm sorry if i missed something but that should pretty much cover and solve
all mentioned problems, make it much better, cleaner, allow more
customization, easier adding of more graphical options in the future and it
still allows you to see your "important" options at one glance.

I can design you an example if you want.

2015-01-24 16:25 GMT+01:00 Cinder Roxley :

> Hi,
>
> Is there any justification at all for rearranging everything into a single
> scrolling panel, or is this just change for the sake of change? There
> doesn’t appear to be any benefit to the user in making the change, and I
> haven’t seen any report that the current layout is hindering usability. It
> has certainly worked for people, as is, for the past ten years.
>
> There are also plenty of bugs that have been described in detail that have
> been given no acknowledgement on the jira issue itself. It doesn’t surprise
> me at all that Martin doesn’t want to spend time elaborating on something
> that very likely will be ignored especially given that a fair amount of
> them are regressions directly related to UI shuffling.
>
> --
> Cinder Roxley
> Sent with Airmail
>
> On January 24, 2015 at 6:04:20 AM, Jonathan Welch (jhwe...@gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
> Martin, I am sorry you are unhappy with LL's new UX design but this is
> one of those cases where no matter what is done someone will be
> unhappy.
>
> I have an idea on how to address the "I want to see everything at
> once" issue and will send it to Oz for evaluation.
>
> How about describing what those bugs are (I am sure there are some to be
> found)?
>
> -jonathan
>
>
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Darien Caldwell]

I saw a picture of this earlier, and only now seeing this thread did I even
realize there *was* a scroll bar. And that's the big problem with this.
It's far too easy to miss the bar and think the options displayed are all
the options available.

Even if you can't fit all of the options into a single pane, Adding a 3rd
pane with "Advanced Part 2" would be preferable.

I was about to have an aneurism thinking this was all the settings that
were going to be available going forward...

 - Dari
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Henri Beauchamp]

On Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:38:01 +0100, Niran wrote:

> I guess now i have to say something about this.
> 
> Where do i start...
> 
> __
> Let's start with the really bad news.
> 
> I don't like it. I don't like it at all. LL's default is a nightmare and
> not just in terms of available functions.
> 
> I don't like how this new layout wastes even more space than the old one in
> several ways.
> - Huge tab height.
> - Overly huge labeled buttons.
> - Weird and inconsistent alignment
> 
> I don't like how this new layout generally looks, it's horrible alignment,
> space wasting, and inconsistency everywhere (which is present pretty much
> everywhere in LL's UI) makes my eyes hurt.

These are some of the many problems with the v2/3 UI... From day one, I
hated it. It looks like Playmobil toys with oversized, screen-estate
wasting elements all over with very little information density (making the
whole thing even more space-wasteful).

In comparison, the v1 UI is so much more "professional" and functional
that v2/3 viewers look like a (failed) caricature of a viewer...

If you want to see some high density and yet clear/logically organized/explicit
preferences layout, have a look at the Cool VL Viewer Preferences floater.

'nuff said.

Henri.
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence)]

On 2015-01-24 03:29 , Martin Fürholz wrote:
I would ask you please not to mix up two completely different topics 
and merge it into one, to promote Jonathans own preference about the 
graphics-floater


To be clear - Jonathan is implementing rearrangements of that floater 
specified by the UI designers at the Lab; he's made suggestions and 
refinements, but the design is ours. So, by all means share your 
perspectives, or even continue to vent and rage if you feel the need, 
but don't blame Jonathan.


In order to add controls for the presets that are at the core of this 
change, we needed to make room in the graphics panel, and that lead to 
the redesign.


It's also true that in the process we're reevaluating the usefulness of 
some of the settings, including hiding some we don't think are useful 
enough to justify inclusion and exposing others that we think are. Civil 
well reasoned commentary informing those judgements are most welcome 
(here, by preference). We have read and considered the feedback in the 
issue, and significant changes have been made as a result. It is not 
inconcievable that we'll make more changes as more people give this 
feature a try.


When discussing any change, please bear in mind that all UI decisions 
are to some extent a matter of taste and individual judgement. We have a 
style that we prefer, and it's actually not the end of the world if that 
isn't the style you prefer. I'm neither surprised nor distressed by the 
fact that some of you disagree with the choices we're making; indeed, I 
consider the chances of getting unanimous support for any UI change at 
all to be zero. We welcome your perspectives, and really do consider 
them. However, accept this friendly advice - in this, as in most 
discourse, hyperbolic language like "nightmare", "horrible", and even 
"hate" do not make your case more persuasive.


Fortunately, most of you objecting are quite capable of creating UI 
replacements of your own and won't have to suffer for too long with ours.


--
*Oz Linden (Scott Lawrence)* | /Engineering Director, Second Life/
Email or Hangouts o...@lindenlab.com  | Second 
Life Oz Linden 

Linden Lab| Makers of Shared Creative Spaces 
Check out what we're working on! 
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Re: [opensource-dev] Jonathan's attempt to rearrange the graphics preferences

[Niran]

I hope you read the rest of my mail, i attached an example picture of my
own preferences window and explained long and broad how i would picture a
new graphic preferences tab.

2015-01-24 17:51 GMT+01:00 Henri Beauchamp :

> On Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:38:01 +0100, Niran wrote:
>
> > I guess now i have to say something about this.
> >
> > Where do i start...
> >
> > __
> > Let's start with the really bad news.
> >
> > I don't like it. I don't like it at all. LL's default is a nightmare and
> > not just in terms of available functions.
> >
> > I don't like how this new layout wastes even more space than the old one
> in
> > several ways.
> > - Huge tab height.
> > - Overly huge labeled buttons.
> > - Weird and inconsistent alignment
> >
> > I don't like how this new layout generally looks, it's horrible
> alignment,
> > space wasting, and inconsistency everywhere (which is present pretty much
> > everywhere in LL's UI) makes my eyes hurt.
>
> These are some of the many problems with the v2/3 UI... From day one, I
> hated it. It looks like Playmobil toys with oversized, screen-estate
> wasting elements all over with very little information density (making the
> whole thing even more space-wasteful).
>
> In comparison, the v1 UI is so much more "professional" and functional
> that v2/3 viewers look like a (failed) caricature of a viewer...
>
> If you want to see some high density and yet clear/logically
> organized/explicit
> preferences layout, have a look at the Cool VL Viewer Preferences floater.
>
> 'nuff said.
>
> Henri.
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