So, the dev dailies revealed a glimpse of what our new v3 experience may be yesterday. It’s not a big ol’ departure, but, the sidebar is pretty much gone. (O.o)
Instead, we get a collection of buttons which can be placed out on the edges of the window and set up with or without text. I’ve already customized it to a layout I’ve grown familiar with since the advent of the sidebar. (^_^)
But… The sidebar… (._.)
People who liked the pre-V2 interfaces will be rather happy to see everything back in size adjustable floaters. Which, is okay, but I’ll admit that I liked the ability to work in a pre-formatted stack of items which didn’t have the opportunity to pop up in oddly random corners of the screen. (O.o)
Either way, it’s a change, someone’s gonna complain… If they ain’t already. =^-^=
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… At least it didn’t crash at launch… (>.>)
Ditching the sidebar in favour of free-floating windows is a return to a more usable UI. It’s amazing much longer it takes (and how many more mouse-clicks it takes) to get anything done in a tabbed sidebar where you can’t see two things at the same time.
As long as they manage window position correctly (like saving window positions and letting the user reset to default positions), then the floating windows will work just as well as they did before.
I just hope they also move away from tiny, cryptic buttons and hidden menus. Those are annoying. I’ve been with SL for over 8 years, and sometimes I can’t find the simplest things now.
You can enable and disable button text for all buttons around the screen via a right-click dialogue. Also, the overall customization capabilities become more apparent. (^_^)
Also, it’s kind of a U.S. thing to prefer text over symbols. Rod, being from across the pond, may need some vocal convincing. =^-^=
Symbols are preferred because text is language-specific and requires work to not only translate but to acquire the rights to fonts and also tweak everything so that the text fits in buttons regardless how long that word is in a given language. Symbols are universal.
That said, I’m gonna miss the bottom bar with integrated chat and the sidebar.
There may be movement enough in getting the docked chat console back. Other than that, Rod’s take on the sidebar pretty much guarantees its demise. (._.)