So a few weeks back Philip Linden was on SecondCast talking about stuff and one of the things he mentioned was how they were trying to figure out how to fix the problem of newbies getting boxes on their head and items out of boxes. This happens when sellers of items put objects in boxes and then the resident buys the box and doesn’t know how to get the item they wanted to buy out of the box, they often end up wearing it on their head. So first I’ll discuss my ideas for fixing the boxhead problem, then I’ll give some ideas for how to improve the inventory a bit. 1.9.1 does add a very nice feature that helps with this with the new Left-Click functionality for Object Contents. I want to improve further on this though.

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My first idea is to make more use of double clicking items in the Inventory.

Currently when you double click an object you get this window:

Now not only is that a bit confusing of a window, the options don’t look anything like the Edit window or Properties window, but it’s also pointless, we have the Properties window which looks better, has more in it and is fully functional. So I think this window really has no reason for existing.

So my idea is that instead of getting that ^ window when you double click an Object in your Inventory, you get the new “Object Contents” window that is in 1.9.1 which is a very nice simple interface with two buttons “Take to inventory” and “take and wear”. This window shows what’s inside the object, so you could easily see “Oh, theres two shoes in there.” and most people are familiar with double clicking things to open them. It would be natural if double clicking an object in your Inventory opened up the “Object Contents” window.

Another possible addition is to have it so you can mark an item unwearable. So thus people wouldn’t be able to wear the objects on their heads to begin with. I’m not compltely sure about this addenedom, but it’s just something else to consider that may prevent embarassing situations.

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Now for the Inventory improvements…

The first idea is to help give people a more visual clue that they have recieved an item. I think two things could be done:

1) When an inventory item is recieved the Inventory button on the toolbar blinks (like your IM button does) and/or maybe a “New Inventory” button appears for those who have the toolbar closed.

2) If the toolbar is visible, have an animated graphical cue such as this:

But animated, with the arrow or the inventory icon (this example uses a Object icon, but others would use Script icons, etc.) moving down towards the inventory. This would appear for a few seconds then go away or maybe appear once with the cube going towards the Inventory button then going away. The inspiration for this comes from how in WoW when you get a new item an icon of that item goes and shrinks to your Backpack thingy. A visual cue like this would help new residents to understand “Hey I got a new Object/Script/whatever”.

The second idea for inventory improvement is adding some color and other visual cues.

1) Object Permissions and “Worn” positions currently are white, the same color as the object name, now this presents a problem if I name an item “Oz Pants (no modify)” but it actualy is modify, the user has no idea looking at that item in their inventory if it really is no modify or not unless they look at the properties. Same applys if you name an item “Oz Pants (worn on Elbow)” or some such. So the idea is to have the permissions and “worn” text a different color than the item name, say have the item name white as it is now, but have the permissions/worn be “system green”, the color of system messages in the chat (or whatever you change them to in Preferences).

2) New items should have more of a visual cue, currently after I login the only way I have knowing if an item is new or not is either remembering the last thing at the top of my inventory window (if I have sort by date selected) or by checking my Chat History, what if I crash before checking my history? etc. So the idea is to provide a different icon for New items as well as highlight them in different colors so you can tell at a glance what items are new in your inventory and what is not. This also helps if you do not have Sort By Date selected. An item would become unnew (the icon would go away, the text would be unhighlighted) when you interact with it, i.e. move it, double click it (maybe just click it), rez it, etc. as soon as you interact with it, it is no longer marked as new.
I’ve made a photoshop of what these suggestions combined could look like:

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Some of the features you’d be able to turn off in Preferences, such as the animated graphic pointing to your inventory, or maybe even turn off “Show New Items” in the Inventory -> File menu options. So people who don’t like the graphics or animations can simply turn them off. However the Double-Click and the Permission/Worn color changes (and maybe the New item text highlighting) should not be able to be turned off.

Let me know what you think of these ideas.