I have been struggling with this on StarLight as well. My design approach was
to incorporate many of the debug settings that people seemed to like while also
keeping a fairly simple approach. The skill seems to be in allocating them
into
a sensible form - so in the end I settled for sub-tabs based on KirstenLee's
approach - with the main options separated from additional, specific options.
And can we please ditch ('can' for the Americans) the 'Advanced' tab - it is
just there for stuff that didn't fit in the other tabs and is hardly 'advanced'
- much better to give the option in sub-tabs for those that care to explore
more. Many of the debug settings don't work anymore so maybe it would be a
good
idea to ditch those first.
Hitomi
>one of the things that oz and q have been grousing (to use oz's word) about
>lately is that there are LOTS of preferences in the debug menu that really
>don't
>have debug functions but are preferences. Both oz and q feel that the
>>preferences bar is already kind of full though many users want to see more
>preferences.
>What I propose is kind of a compromise.
>Here's how it would work. We take the existing advanced preferences tab and
>turn
>it into a floater activated if you click on where the advanced tab is now. we
>then bump many of the preferences that are in the debug over. we >can do it
>in
>kinda a category form as the sketch here shows or break it up into tabs.
>
>This would give the ui more of an mmo like presences control which would not
>necessarily be a bad thing and give faster, very easy and intuitive access to
>the more advanced features for those that want them and yet also >allow us to
>keep both the preferences and debug consoles "clean." with some careful
>monitoring and feedback from the users we could then possibly narrow down what
>settings are not really needed and eliminate them off >this panel and
>conversely
>have a space to add new preferences as well.
>I'm sure someone is going to argue that this would just make things more
>complicated both in the short term and long term. I'm going to attempt to
>answer
>those as follows.
>
>As far as the short term, yes it would. I'm sure it would involve quite a bit
>of
>code reworking and discussion and stuff. It would also take users a bit of
>time
>to adjust to the changes.
>
>In the long term, I think it would actually be simpler this way and add to the
>new user experience. by setting up things this way we could add ui hints
>and/or
>tool tips that explain what these preferences do, and if this one >panel gets
>crowded, i don't think that most users will mind. in fact those used to mmo's
>will be kind of expecting it. in the mean time it gives us a place to part
>lesser used preferences from the prefences control, and clears >up the debug
>menu while also making it easier to both move more used features back into the
>preferences menu and setting up for eventually allowing us to pick and choose
>what preferences we want where.
>
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