The Communication Hub User Interface (CHUI) has hit the beta viewer and will cause some major flak when it hits the main viewer, if it ever hits the main viewer. I’ll start off by saying that it has some really nice features, but they are going to be unfamiliar features and people will undoubtedly complain about the amount of screen space it takes up.
I’m not going to go into too much detail here, if you want more detail read the Second Life forum post from Viewer Linden, alternatively read Inara Pey’s blog post or watch Torely’s video, I’ll embed that at the end of the post. I’ve also edited my images to protect the innocent and not so innocent, so if it looks odd, it’s because I’ve blacked out text and names.
When you go into conversations, you get some previous chat and then today’s chat, as well as some options and it’s these options I’ll briefly touch on. There are four options:
- Open Conversations Window.
- Pop Up The Message.
- Flash Toolbar Button.
- None.
Now open the conversation window is going to get old fast because you’ve probably x’d the window to interact with the virtual world, if you’re in group chat or multiple conversations, you will soon get tired of the window opening back up. The conversation you’re in is green and any conversation with new chat turns orange:
A better option, and one I think I’ll favour, is “Flash Toolbar Button“. This simply flashes the chat button orange and leaves it orange until you click it, so you’ll know there’s new chat but the window stays closed:
I didn’t test “None” but I think it’s quite safe to assume none will do what it says on the tin and do nothing at all, leaving you blissfully unaware that there are new conversations going on. A better alternative for that will be “Pop Up A Message“. When that happens the conversations briefly pop up on screen, but they don’t stay there for long.
One thing that hasn’t change is group notices on login, they are still the same as they ever were:
Chui has a half decent Jira section, you can read other reports but personally I still find some frustrations with it, you still don’t get notified that a resolution has been found for your report, it gets imported internally and then they wave bye bye to you, but it’s a hell of a letter better than the regular Jira.
Overall, I can see some pain ahead, there are some really nice features here and Linden Lab have put a lot of time and effort into this, there are undoubted improvements in the interface when it comes to communications, but that screen space issue will causes some ructions, as will the removal of the chiclets, the chiclets are a really nice feature, it’s a shame they aren’t here.
I’ll leave you with Torley: