#SL CHUI Quick Review

This is my first experience with the new Second Life(TM) Prohect Viewer: New #SL Project Viewer. Its just a quick look.

Download & Install

The CHUI Project Viewer is the standard download. The file is about 29mb.

The install places the viewer in its own program folder. The viewer has its own settings. So, you will have to run through the settings to get it the way you want.

However, my menu buttons came up just as my main SL Viewer. Which is kinda cool.

CHUI – Chat User Interface 10/2012 – Expanded Chat

Experience

The first thing I noticed is this viewer has the problem that first clicks on doors do not appear to open the door. It opens you just don’t see it open. You can see it the second time the door opens or closes.

It seems to have the Pathfinding Character render problem too.

Both of those are minor.

CHUI – Chat Minimal

The CHUI open with the standard bottom/side button or the top menu from Communications.

The CHUI is pretty nice. If you have liked the Third party chat panels with vertical tabs, you will probably like this chat panel too. It has lots of controls. It took may be two minutes to explore all the features… well… I may have missed something.

CHUI – Collapsed Panel

CHUI – Conversation Sorting Options

I can’t size the left half of the Conversation List that shows the conversations. It is either expanded or collapsed.  I would like something in between. I do like the easy selection of either expanded or compact chat. See the image above.

The panel collapses to the side of the viewer. I did not try it with buttons on the left or moving it to the right side. But, I do like how it contracts to the side. Group and individual icons form IM chats show.

CHUI – List of Nearby

On the right is the drop down with the sort controls and other options for controlling the chat panel. Below it is the list of nearby chat participants. This is the list that can be sorted various ways.

Chat Preferences drop down also has a link that takes you back into the Main Preferences Panel (Ctrl-P). Translation, Auto-Replace, and Spell Check controls are available from there.

Chat Target Selection for IM’s

All the buttons have been moved to the top. I think that is an improvement. They all have tool tips, hold the cursor over them and the tip comes up.

All in all, I think it is a nice improvement on the chat panel. I like that everything is in one place, way less clicking to get things done.

CHUI – Nearby Chat Participants in Search

It doesn’t help with group chat lag… well… that is a big problem with a high ‘ugh’ programming factor. So, it will likely be some time until that is fixed.

CHUI – All Buttons to the TOP

This image shows all the buttons being moved to the top of the panel. Personally I hate having to look at the top and bottom of panels to find buttons I’m looking for. So, I think this is a great idea. I also think it will make it easier for new users to learn chat. At least most of chat and the controls are exposed in the panel. They are out where people can see them and hopefully be curious. I think it way beats being hidden in a menu somewhere.

I tried it out in: Kuula region AGNI. Lots of new people chatting.

Let me know what you think.

3 thoughts on “#SL CHUI Quick Review

  1. I think this viewer could be the best moment to be able to sort contacts by group, appear offline/online for different groups, etc.. just like Windows Live Messenger. I know Firestorm have something like that, but not exactly what I meant. Could be included in the contact list directly and be able to expand and contract groups.

  2. @Nalates – nice first look review. The current CHUI viewer is built off a very old 3.4.1 dev build that was rather buggy. The CHUI elements are discreet and can relatively easily be dropped in to the current Viewer code when it is sorted (though LL does have a history of introducing regression errors when they do this). Of course basing it on a buggy viewer version may limit the time that people spend testing it.

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